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Confirm the loss
The meter is read with the house shut off and the heating checked on its gauge. On a Fen property with a long supply pipe this separates a leak from a faulty meter.
Leak detection in Chatteris
The Fens around Chatteris are a regular run for us. Charlie is there most weeks for Chatteris leak detection, Manea to Somersham included.
No find, no fee
On the Fens most weeks
Long private pipes traced
Tell us what you have noticed and where. We ring you back to talk it through. No find, no fee.
No find, no fee
24/7 enquiries
Non-invasive methods
Reports for insurance claims
Chatteris is a Fenland market town on an island of clay in a sea of peat. The centre has Victorian brick houses and the roads out have 20th century bungalows and smallholdings, many on long private supply pipes running across fields from the main.
Anglian Water supplies Chatteris, March, Doddington and Wimblington. Peat shrinks in a dry summer and drops away from buried pipes, pulling joints apart. A pipe can open 100 metres from the house, and the first sign is a meter that never stops.
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The meter is read with the house shut off and the heating checked on its gauge. On a Fen property with a long supply pipe this separates a leak from a faulty meter.
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A locator traces the buried supply pipe across the garden or field, so the listening is done directly over the pipe and not beside it, which on peat matters.
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The ground microphone is worked along the pipe in steps until the leak is loudest. For heating and underfloor loops, tracer gas does the same job indoors.
Used indoors to map heating pipes under the solid floors of Chatteris bungalows and to show where water leak detection in Doddington houses should focus.
The main tool on the Fens. Peat soaks up sound, so we listen at close intervals and use the signal strength to narrow a 100 metre run to a couple of metres.
For underfloor heating leak detection in Doddington, Wimblington and the newer houses in Chatteris, the loop is drained and gassed and the detector finds the leak from above the floor.
A smallholding on the road out to Manea had a meter that never stopped and a wet patch in a field a long way from the house. The private supply pipe ran across the peat from the main, and the dry summer had let the ground drop away from it. We traced the route and listened along it in short steps with the ground microphone, narrowing a long run to a couple of metres where a joint had pulled apart. In a Victorian brick house in the town centre a boiler that lost pressure turned out to have a corroded heating pipe under the solid kitchen floor, found with the thermal camera and confirmed with tracer gas.
From Chatteris we cover March, Doddington, Wimblington, Manea, Somersham, Mepal, Benwick and Warboys, and carry on to Wisbech and the villages around it. Ramsey and Whittlesey are on the same Fen run.
A trace and access claim pays for locating the leak and for reinstating the ground or floor that was dug to reach it. On a long rural pipe the reinstatement is often the larger cost, so the report matters. We record the meter test, the pipe route, the listening results and the marked point.
Yes, and it is the commonest Chatteris job. We trace the pipe route first, then listen along it in short steps. The leak is narrowed to a couple of metres so the repair is a single hole in the field.
Peat. It shrinks when it dries and pulls away from anything buried in it, including pipe joints. A dry summer followed by a wet autumn is when most Fen leaks appear. Older push-fit or compression joints are the most likely to open.
Yes. Both villages are a few minutes from Chatteris and both have had jobs, including underfloor heating loops in newer houses and supply pipes to older ones. Manea, Benwick and Somersham are on the same run, so one visit can cover several.
Yours, from the stop tap at the boundary with the road. Anglian Water is responsible only up to that point. On Fen properties the private pipe can be most of the total length, which is why the exact spot matters.
No. Travel is part of the visit rather than a separate charge. We group the Fen jobs together, so you are usually offered a day within 24 to 48 hours when we are heading north.
Tell us how long your supply pipe is and we will add you to the next Fen run.
Landline 01440 840 772. Email hello@completeleakdetection.co.uk.