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LOUD Bang! On the roof last night.

AgroVenturesPeru

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Sep 19, 2020
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Last night about 2am, my wife and I woke up, and then heard our dog howling like a wolf. He does that sometimes in response to something that might be going on with our neighbor's dogs. A moment later a loud bang! Something hard hit our corrugated metal roof. And/or our solar panels! The sound scared the you-know-what out of us.

"A rock?!" My wife exlaimed as we looked out the windows. We couldn't see anyone. So we grabbed the flash lights and headed outside. We signalled for the dogs to assume alert mode, at which they started running in the direction of the neighbors property. They often run off in that direction, because the neighbor's dogs sometimes come on our land, and the dogs fight them and chase them away. Prior to signalling to the dogs, they seemed rather calm, and showed no indications that there was an intruder. They are pretty reliable at night when it comes to unusual disturbances. They might be calm and resting one minute, and a split second later jump to their feet and race off barking at a wild animal 200m away that seemingly made no sound.

My wife thought someone threw or used a slingshot to hit our house in order to see if anyone was home. We live over a half kilometer from the nearest road, and our access is just a muddy trail. One can take a shortcut from some of the properties behind ours, but our brush is seriously overgrown and is now over 2 meters tall in many places.

We don't have any trees overhanging our roof.

What was unusual is that it was just one loud bang on the roof. Nothing more. I figured if it were a rock we would have heard a bounce or two and perhaps the rock slide a little.

I used the ladder today to stand at the edge of the roof, half expecting to see a shattered panel or something. Nothing looked wrong.

We also are thinking maybe it was a golf-ball size piece of hail. That's plausible, because we had scattered showers all night. But only one piece of hail the entire night?! Sounds dubious.

We actually heard a similar sound a few months ago too. I remember that time I was worried I was going find a broken panel. Nothing was wrong that time either.

Well we don't have any enemies here, but this culture is full of jealous people. My wife's from here and says maybe just some bitter person was jealous of our ability to live off-grid. If only they knew what a hassle it is, they'd realize there's not much to be jealous of.

My wife is also a bit superstitious, and entertains the possibility that our dog was howling at an evil spirit, and some sort of demon threw a rock at our house. If so, maybe it's high time to bend the knee.

I'm stumped. Our house is small (about 40square meters), and we both sat at opposite ends of the exterior of the house for quite some time afterwards looking to see if someone a few hundred meters away turned on a flashlight to assist their getaway. Our house sits atop a pretty steep hill, so we have a great vantage point.

Anyone on here with corrugated steel roofing ever had this experience? Perhaps one of the mount structures for the panels is able to reproduce such a sound if it has a glitch or something?

I've linked another thread so you can see the kind of roof material we have.

 
Metal roofs amplify a small sound quite a lot.
I had a similar experience with hearing a loud thud out in my parking lot. It was definitely something hitting the roof of my Van and was loud enough that I could hear it inside the House. After this happened about three times over a two month period I finally caught the culprit in action while I was outside in the parking lot at night.
It was a Bat flying over the parking lot with Fruit and he dropped it. It seems like they occasionally drop the fruit and sometimes it would hit the van. It sounds pretty loud when something is dropped from 50ft up and hits a metal sheet. I suspect it's Bats or Owls that are your culprit.
Owls will take squirming rodents up high and then drop them to kill them. Once they hit the ground or roof the Owl will swoop down and pickup the dead body.
 
Metal roofs amplify a small sound quite a lot.
Our house makes some random creaks and bangs when it gets super cold out, especially if the temperature drops rather drastically and then the wind blows a bit.
↑↑ Both of these.

A moment later a loud bang! Something hard hit our corrugated metal roof. And/or our solar panels! The sound scared the you-know-what out of us.
Our smaller second dwelling has a metal roof and it makes a LOT of very loud bangs and pops with thermal expansion and contraction. It sounds just like there are tree branches or rocks falling on it.

It happens most notably when clouds pass overhead on a warm/hot sunny day, the sudden loss of sun on the roof results in an instant cooling of the metal and loud cracks and pops start. The cloud goes away and the sun hits the roof and it cracks and pops some more! Same in the morning and evening when the roof heats up and cools down.

Your roofing material is almost the same as for our second dwelling. Here's a photo during construction:

IMG_1960.jpeg

If I had known just how loud and frequent these noises would be, I may not have gone with a roof of this design. We are a warm to hot climate but inland a little so the temperature range can be quite wide.

The roof material isn't just the metal on top, they are like thick insulated slabs laid to form the roof.

Our home has a traditional Australian corrugated metal roof. It also makes some noises but because of the larger number of sheets and the shorter lengths they cover, the thermal expansion/contraction noises are much less intrusive.
 
Metal roofs amplify a small sound quite a lot.
I had a similar experience with hearing a loud thud out in my parking lot. It was definitely something hitting the roof of my Van and was loud enough that I could hear it inside the House. After this happened about three times over a two month period I finally caught the culprit in action while I was outside in the parking lot at night.
It was a Bat flying over the parking lot with Fruit and he dropped it. It seems like they occasionally drop the fruit and sometimes it would hit the van. It sounds pretty loud when something is dropped from 50ft up and hits a metal sheet. I suspect it's Bats or Owls that are your culprit.
Owls will take squirming rodents up high and then drop them to kill them. Once they hit the ground or roof the Owl will swoop down and pickup the dead body.
Actually, as odd as this sounds, I think it might be the answer. I don't know what the difference in sound is between a mouse hitting the roof versus a rock hitting the roof.

How do solar panels tend to hold up when owls drop things on them from up high?
 
↑↑ Both of these.


Our smaller second dwelling has a metal roof and it makes a LOT of very loud bangs and pops with thermal expansion and contraction. It sounds just like there are tree branches or rocks falling on it.

It happens most notably when clouds pass overhead on a warm/hot sunny day, the sudden loss of sun on the roof results in an instant cooling of the metal and loud cracks and pops start. The cloud goes away and the sun hits the roof and it cracks and pops some more! Same in the morning and evening when the roof heats up and cools down.

Your roofing material is almost the same as for our second dwelling. Here's a photo during construction:

View attachment 84745

If I had known just how loud and frequent these noises would be, I may not have gone with a roof of this design. We are a warm to hot climate but inland a little so the temperature range can be quite wide.

The roof material isn't just the metal on top, they are like thick insulated slabs laid to form the roof.

Our home has a traditional Australian corrugated metal roof. It also makes some noises but because of the larger number of sheets and the shorter lengths they cover, the thermal expansion/contraction noises are much less intrusive.
We get similar sounds on hot days when the sun comes out after being behind the clouds. But, what we heard the other night was definitely something hitting the top of the roof.
 
How do solar panels tend to hold up when owls drop things on them from up high?
Depends what it is and from how high.

Panels here in Australia are rated to handle hail up to 35mm diameter, about golf ball size. Should be part of the panel specifications. Here's an item on it relevant to US standards:
 
Dogs see Auras through walls. They will alert to someone outside you can't see but they can sense. Should have sent them chasing. Maybe the Ayahuasca.
 
A decade or two ago my wife and I were asleep when suddenly a sharp, loud pop woke us both up. We got up and looked and looked, figuring a book had fallen on the floor somehow or something similar, but we didn't find anything. It was rather puzzling. A couple of days passed and a "sparkle" caught my eye as I walked past a window. I took a second look and something didn't look "right". Looking closer there was something hanging, trapped in the lace curtain over the window. It all happened fast...I recognized the object hanging in the curtain as a bullet, then my eyes moved to the window behind the curtain to a bullet hole which was being spotlighted by the sunlight passing down through a hole in our awning. The broken glass (old, sharp glass) was shining like a diamond. We're in a rural area and lining the hole in the window up with the hole in the awning pointed toward a county road about three miles away. It appeared to be a 9mm and had been fired into the sky for some stupid reason. I learned from talking with a couple of roofers that it's not uncommon to find bullets lodged in roofing that's being removed during a re-roofing job...predominately .22 caliber. Our house is an older house built in the 1950's and there are several walls and closets between our bedroom and the dining room where the bullet struck the window. The amazing thing is that it had enough falling energy to penetrate the heavy awning and the window pane but became entangled in the lace curtain. The curtain really didn't sustain and damage, I replaced the windowpane, but the awning still has a bullet hole in it.

Our house settles at times and we hear a pop or crack all along...it's a heavy brick house. But, nothing has come close to being as loud or as sharp sounding as that bullet, though. Just food for thought...
 
Once upon a time I was hanging around a small airport, sitting under the wing of a Cessna 150. "THUD", the metal roof kind of thud. I found a half eaten fried chicken leg on top of the wing. Stood there scratching my head for a second and looked up to see a bunch of seagulls battling over their latest find from the dump next to the airport. I resumed my position "Under the Wing". :ROFLMAO:

I'm hoping your culprit had wings but who knows.
 
A decade or two ago my wife and I were asleep when suddenly a sharp, loud pop woke us both up. We got up and looked and looked, figuring a book had fallen on the floor somehow or something similar, but we didn't find anything. It was rather puzzling. A couple of days passed and a "sparkle" caught my eye as I walked past a window. I took a second look and something didn't look "right". Looking closer there was something hanging, trapped in the lace curtain over the window. It all happened fast...I recognized the object hanging in the curtain as a bullet, then my eyes moved to the window behind the curtain to a bullet hole which was being spotlighted by the sunlight passing down through a hole in our awning. The broken glass (old, sharp glass) was shining like a diamond. We're in a rural area and lining the hole in the window up with the hole in the awning pointed toward a county road about three miles away. It appeared to be a 9mm and had been fired into the sky for some stupid reason. I learned from talking with a couple of roofers that it's not uncommon to find bullets lodged in roofing that's being removed during a re-roofing job...predominately .22 caliber. Our house is an older house built in the 1950's and there are several walls and closets between our bedroom and the dining room where the bullet struck the window. The amazing thing is that it had enough falling energy to penetrate the heavy awning and the window pane but became entangled in the lace curtain. The curtain really didn't sustain and damage, I replaced the windowpane, but the awning still has a bullet hole in it.

Our house settles at times and we hear a pop or crack all along...it's a heavy brick house. But, nothing has come close to being as loud or as sharp sounding as that bullet, though. Just food for thought...
When that happened, did you think someone was sending you a message?
 
Peru ? Were there any celebrations anywhere where someone was shooting in the air ?
How many times do we see people fire off guns into the air during "events" or what not ?
Why is it that no one gets the fact that what goes up, always comes down, Bullets included, which can hit anything...

I've had Metal Roofs for a MANY Years with different types of installation, they all make sounds when expanding & contracting including pops & rarely bangs (none really loud though) but honestly never really loud, not enough to wake anyone.

If you have Rain Gutters, look in them to see if there is a rock or spent round or some other small hard object (Birds drop stuff too and you'd be surprised at what they may be carrying) Ravens for example steal things (they love small shiny stuff) and carry them to their "stashes". Do you have similar birds in your region that "collect things" there are several species that do around the world. Never underestimate the odd things wildlife can do which we generally don't pay attention to (unless something makes us).
 
Last night about 2am, my wife and I woke up, and then heard our dog howling like a wolf. He does that sometimes in response to something that might be going on with our neighbor's dogs. A moment later a loud bang! Something hard hit our corrugated metal roof. And/or our solar panels! The sound scared the you-know-what out of us.

"A rock?!" My wife exlaimed as we looked out the windows. We couldn't see anyone. So we grabbed the flash lights and headed outside. We signalled for the dogs to assume alert mode, at which they started running in the direction of the neighbors property. They often run off in that direction, because the neighbor's dogs sometimes come on our land, and the dogs fight them and chase them away. Prior to signalling to the dogs, they seemed rather calm, and showed no indications that there was an intruder. They are pretty reliable at night when it comes to unusual disturbances. They might be calm and resting one minute, and a split second later jump to their feet and race off barking at a wild animal 200m away that seemingly made no sound.

My wife thought someone threw or used a slingshot to hit our house in order to see if anyone was home. We live over a half kilometer from the nearest road, and our access is just a muddy trail. One can take a shortcut from some of the properties behind ours, but our brush is seriously overgrown and is now over 2 meters tall in many places.

We don't have any trees overhanging our roof.

What was unusual is that it was just one loud bang on the roof. Nothing more. I figured if it were a rock we would have heard a bounce or two and perhaps the rock slide a little.

I used the ladder today to stand at the edge of the roof, half expecting to see a shattered panel or something. Nothing looked wrong.

We also are thinking maybe it was a golf-ball size piece of hail. That's plausible, because we had scattered showers all night. But only one piece of hail the entire night?! Sounds dubious.

We actually heard a similar sound a few months ago too. I remember that time I was worried I was going find a broken panel. Nothing was wrong that time either.

Well we don't have any enemies here, but this culture is full of jealous people. My wife's from here and says maybe just some bitter person was jealous of our ability to live off-grid. If only they knew what a hassle it is, they'd realize there's not much to be jealous of.

My wife is also a bit superstitious, and entertains the possibility that our dog was howling at an evil spirit, and some sort of demon threw a rock at our house. If so, maybe it's high time to bend the knee.

I'm stumped. Our house is small (about 40square meters), and we both sat at opposite ends of the exterior of the house for quite some time afterwards looking to see if someone a few hundred meters away turned on a flashlight to assist their getaway. Our house sits atop a pretty steep hill, so we have a great vantage point.

Anyone on here with corrugated steel roofing ever had this experience? Perhaps one of the mount structures for the panels is able to reproduce such a sound if it has a glitch or something?

I've linked another thread so you can see the kind of roof material we have.

Sir, I am envious of your security preparedness. Do you have a blog you recommend anywhere?
 
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