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Meter and gauge first
Charlie reads the water meter with everything off, then watches the heating gauge over 20 minutes. One of them tells him which system is losing water.
Leak detection in Cambridge
Charlie is half an hour from Cambridge, so leak detection in Cambridge can usually be booked for the next day. Mains and heating leaks found in Mill Road terraces, college lets and Trumpington new builds.
No find, no fee
Usually booked within 24 to 48 hours
Lead and iron pipes traced
Three quick steps. No find, no fee, and Charlie gets back to you with a straight answer.
No find, no fee
24/7 enquiries
Non-invasive methods
Reports for insurance claims
Cambridge housing is older than most of the county. The terraces of Romsey, Petersfield, Coleridge and Abbey were built with lead supply pipes, and many still have them. Later owners added copper and plastic, so one house can have three pipe materials, and the joints between them leak.
Cambridge Water supplies the city and the villages close to it, including Histon, Waterbeach and Sawston. Its hard chalk water scales up old pipework. A pinhole in a scaled pipe can run for months before it shows, which is why the meter test comes first.
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Charlie reads the water meter with everything off, then watches the heating gauge over 20 minutes. One of them tells him which system is losing water.
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In a terrace with several generations of plumbing he traces the real pipe routes with the thermal camera and a locator first, so no time is spent on a capped pipe.
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Acoustic listening on the supply pipe or tracer gas on the heating loop brings the leak down to a hand-sized area, which is marked and written up before Charlie leaves.
In a Victorian house the camera shows warm pipes through lath and plaster, and the cold shadow of a mains leak under a tiled hall, revealing pipe routes no drawing exists for.
Lead pipes carry sound well. A ground microphone on a Cambridge front path hears the leak and Charlie steps along the line until the signal peaks, then marks that spot.
For a heating circuit under a solid floor, or underfloor heating in a Trumpington or Eddington new build, the drained loop is charged with safe gas and the detector finds the leak.
Within the city we have found leaks in Abbey, Cherry Hinton, Coleridge and the Market ward, mostly on older supply pipes and in heating pipes under solid floors. Across South Cambridgeshire the jobs have been in Fen Ditton and Fulbourn, Cottenham, Bar Hill, Caldecote, Barrington, Harston and Comberton, and Balsham, several of them older houses on long private supply pipes.
From the city Charlie reaches Histon, Waterbeach, Sawston, Great Shelford, Girton, Milton, Fulbourn and the villages along the A1307.
Older Cambridge houses tend to have higher reinstatement costs, so trace and access cover matters. It pays for locating the leak and putting right the floor or wall opened to reach it. Charlie's report records the meter and gauge tests, the thermal images and photographs, and the marked leak position.
Find it first. If the leak is at a joint near the house, a short repair is cheaper than replacement and Charlie will say so. If the pipe leaks in several places he will say that too, and the report backs the decision.
Yes. Charlie regularly traces leaks in multi-occupancy houses around Mill Road and Chesterton. He needs access to the stop tap, the boiler and the rooms along the pipe run, and can arrange the visit through the letting agent or landlord.
Only if it is on their pipe, which ends at the stop tap in the pavement. Between there and your house the pipe is yours, and so is a leak on it. Cambridge Water usually confirms which side, and Charlie locates it from there.
Less common than in old terraces, but they happen. The usual cause on the Trumpington and Eddington developments is a push-fit joint under a screed floor or a manifold connection on underfloor heating. Tracer gas and the thermal camera find those.
Cambridge jobs are easy for Charlie to group with the villages around the city, so a visit is usually booked within 24 to 48 hours.
Tell him what the meter is doing and which part of the city you are in, and he will give you a time.
Landline 01440 840 772. Email hello@completeleakdetection.co.uk.