the walls would click

i used to live in an old house and at night i'd hear the walls click. at first i couldn't believe my ears because i had never experienced that before. then i tried to figure out why and determined it must be that during the day in the heat the walls expanded. then at night it would cool down and the walls would click going back into place. i then wondered if that put extra wear and tear on the building structure. has anyone else experienced this? how about rattling pipes? we have them. how about a doorbell that sounds like the one from the movie THE MONEY PIT? we had one until it stopped working.