Mysterious popping sounds come from the upper level of the house. (still couldn’t tell if it’s from inside of drywalls on the second floor or attic)
This house is located in Denver, CO. It was built in 2003.
The sound is very short but loud, occasionally it’s not very loud. Like wood knocking on wood. No two consecutive popping sounds happen together. THe loudness is like you slap hands on a table hard.
It happens about 2-3 times a day.
The sound started recently.
At night it tends to happen more. but very random.
It tends to happen more frequent when during the day a good sunshine and at night it’s cold. But I dont want to prime your mind with expansion and contraction which could be just one of the reasons.
No animal running around sound.
Any thoughts?
Water hammering is my guess.
Sounds like thermal expansion. I happens regularly at my house in the afternoon when the sun hits my metal front door.
Welcome to Minnesota!
(Yeah, I know you’re in Colorado).
But water hammering sound is consecutive for a few seconds right? This sound only lasts a few milliseconds.
Does the home have vinyl siding? It certainly can make some noise as it expands and contracts with temperature change…
wood siding
When the temperature in the materials used to build your house goes up and down, the materials expand and contract with the heat and cold. This causes popping sounds in the wood and/or other materials. It is usually heard when warming up in the day and cooling down at night.
That’s what I figured too. But this sound is quite loud. And it never happened before. So the home owner is very concerned. The worst thing is that the loudness during the sleeping time could wake them up, very annoying.
I have this sound at night at my home too. But it’s not loud enough to wake me up. So I can live with it. But for this homeowner I feel their pain. Anyway to identify the spot and do something to it?
Your home is aging. Some components loosening up, others swelling/tightening up.
My home is a 132 years old 2.5 story Queen Anne. You wanna talk about noises? I swear at times there’s a crowd of ghosts having a party, and other times a single demon tip-toe’ing up the stairs to…!!
Not necessarily. It can be a quick loud thumping sound.
I had something very similar happen in a home I owned several years ago. What was finally determined is that they used the wrong type of drywall screws. They used Fine drywall screws that are designed for metal studs, in wood joist, instead of course thread screws.
When the seasons changed the wood would lose moisture and the screws wood pop out, not enough to notice, but they made a real loud popping sound like a cap gun. The loud popping noise was very random.
It quit after a year or two.
New one on me, Christopher…thanks! 
That’s a new one for me too!
if it hasn’t awakened them…it’s a non-issue & previous replies cover the most typical reasons
other option is to tear off all drywall and spray foam walls, floors, ceiling and rafters
this prolly won’t fix the anomaly but will deaden the noise so all can sleep un-awakened
this is starting to sound like a rob zombie movie
hth