About West Country Leak Detection
West Country Leak Detection traces hidden water leaks for homeowners, landlords and small businesses across South West England, marking where each one is before any repair begins.
What does each leak investigation look for?
Each leak investigation looks for one kind of hidden leak, and West Country Leak Detection carries out four: on the water pipes indoors, on the central heating, on the buried supply pipe, and behind a home insurance claim.
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Water leak detection
A hot or cold pipe leaking out of sight, inside a wall, under a floor or above a ceiling, is found and marked at the point where it can be reached.
Water leak detection for pipes in walls, floors and ceilings
- Pipe
- Hot and cold water pipework and fittings inside the property
- What points to it
- Damp patches or stains, peeling paint or bubbling wallpaper, a musty smell, running water with every tap off
- Methods
- Acoustic listening, thermal imaging on hot pipes, moisture mapping, pressure testing and tracer gas
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Central heating leak detection
When a combi or system boiler keeps losing pressure, the sealed circuit is traced to the radiator valve, heating pipe or underfloor loop that is letting water out.
Central heating leak detection
- Pipe
- The sealed heating circuit: radiators and their valves, flow and return pipes, underfloor heating loops
- What points to it
- A boiler gauge that keeps falling below 1 bar, damp spots or rust marks around radiators, a wet patch around underfloor heating
- Methods
- Pressure testing, loop by loop for underfloor heating, then thermal imaging or tracer gas
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Underground water leak detection
The supply pipe buried between the property boundary and the house is followed to the leak, and the spot to dig is marked on the surface above it.
Underground water leak detection
- Pipe
- The supply pipe buried between the property boundary and the house
- What points to it
- A meter dial still moving with the internal stop tap closed, an unexplained rise in a metered bill, wet ground or lush grass outside
- Methods
- Acoustic listening along the pipe's route, and tracer gas where the leak is quiet
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Trace and access
Behind an escape of water claim, the hidden source is found on the water pipes, the heating or the supply pipe, and its position is recorded with the access work needed to reach it.
Trace and access for escape of water claims
- Pipe
- Water pipes, the central heating or the buried supply pipe, wherever the escaping water starts
- What points to it
- A home insurer asking for the leak's source to be traced before the claim proceeds
- Methods
- The method that suits the pipe, with the leak's position, the access needed, photographs and the cause where known recorded
How does the service find a leak it cannot see?
The service finds a leak it cannot see with five methods, each locating it through the pipe itself or at the surface: pressure testing, acoustic listening, tracer gas, thermal imaging and moisture mapping.
West Country Leak Detection uses them in the order an investigation runs. Pressure testing comes first, confirming there really is a leak before plaster or paving is broken; the other four then narrow the search to the point where the water is escaping.
| Method | How it works |
|---|---|
| Pressure testing | Pressure testing isolates a whole system or just one section, raises it to pressure and watches the gauge for a fixed time; a section that cannot hold that pressure normally has a leak. |
| Acoustic listening | Acoustic listening follows the noise a leak makes on a pipe under pressure, using a listening stick against the pipe or a fitting, or a ground microphone set down on the surface above it, and the leak sits close to the spot where that noise peaks. |
| Tracer gas | For tracer gas testing the pipe is drained, sealed and filled from a cylinder with a mixture of 95% nitrogen and 5% hydrogen, then a hydrogen detector is swept across the surface until it finds where the gas coming up from the leak is strongest. |
| Thermal imaging | Thermal imaging turns the surface temperatures a camera sees into a picture, so a hidden leak only appears where it warms or cools the surface: escaping hot water or heating water shows warm, and dampness can show cold. |
| Moisture mapping | Moisture mapping reads a wall, floor or ceiling with a moisture meter at regular spacings, building a picture of how far a leak has wetted it and where it is wettest. |
Each one has a limit. A thermal camera, for example, reads only the surface in front of it, so a warm or cold patch it picks up is checked another way.
How far across the South West does the service reach?
The service reaches across Bristol, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall, on the mainland, in 271 postcode districts.
West Country Leak Detection gives Bristol, Plymouth, Exeter, Swindon and Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch a page each, and the counties of Cornwall and Devon one apiece.
Every other covered district has its code and post town in the full index of every postcode district covered, under the 12 postcode areas listed below.
- Counties
- Bristol
- Gloucestershire
- Wiltshire
- Somerset
- Dorset
- Devon
- Cornwall
Your own water company, and the point where its pipe ends and yours begins, are both set out under leak detection across the South West.
What does the West Country in the name refer to?
The West Country in the name refers to South West England, the region the service covers, from Bristol and Gloucestershire to Cornwall.
West Country Leak Detection takes its name from the West Country and uses it for every county it covers: Bristol, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall, on the mainland.
The name says where the service works. The Office for National Statistics lists the South West, area code E12000009, as a region in England.
The West Country is a loosely defined area within South West England, usually taken to include Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Bristol, and some extend it to all or parts of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.
Source: Wikipedia and Wiktionary, West Country