Good Question: Why Do Our Houses Make Noise When It's Cold?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- This winter, you've probably heard your house make some scary noises -- a pop, a bang, a noise loud enough to wake you up in the middle of the night.
Jay from Burnsville and Rob from Delano wanted to know: Why do our houses make noise when it's cold?
Joe Nelson owns Twin City Home Remodeling. He says our houses are made of all different materials -- steel, concrete, vinyl – and all of these materials expands and contract as the temperatures change.
Huge temperature drop-offs like we've seen recently cause all those materials to contract.
"When they rub up against each other or misplace, they're going to pop," Nelson said.
Rob thought something in his house might have exploded on Saturday night.
"It actually woke me up out a sound sleep," he said.
Nelson says the sound Rob heard was probably something being displayed by a quarter inch.
"That would make that big noise," he said.
He added that that's not something to be concerned about.
Nelson says builders plan for this type of movement, and try to cut down on it by using similar products next to each other.
But sometimes the movements need to be addressed.
One of those is movement on the roof. If you hear creaking or popping from a roof burdened with snow, that's something you need to take care of.
