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Which pipe is losing water
Charlie shuts the stop tap and watches the meter, then checks whether the heating holds pressure. On a Bicknacre bungalow it is usually one or the other, and knowing which halves the search.
Leak detection in Bicknacre
Bicknacre and East and West Hanningfield are villages we cover regularly. Charlie brings thermal imaging, a ground microphone and tracer gas and locates the leak without lifting a floor on a guess.
Usually booked within 24 to 48 hours
No leak found, no bill
Insurance report provided
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
Bicknacre is a village of mostly 20th century housing on the road between Danbury and South Woodham Ferrers, with the priory ruins as a reminder it is older than it looks. Most homes are houses and bungalows from the 1960s onwards on solid concrete floors, which means heating pipes in the screed and supply pipes under front drives.
Those two things cause nearly every call for leak detection in Essex that Charlie gets from the Chelmsford area. He knows the village and the ones around it, and fits Bicknacre in with Danbury, Maldon and South Woodham Ferrers visits.
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Charlie shuts the stop tap and watches the meter, then checks whether the heating holds pressure. On a Bicknacre bungalow it is usually one or the other, and knowing which halves the search.
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The thermal camera is run across every room on a solid floor. Heating pipes show as warm lines and the leak as a patch spreading sideways from one of them. Supply pipes are traced outside with the microphone.
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On a heating circuit Charlie drains the pipe, charges it with tracer gas and finds the exact point with a probe. He marks it, measures it from two walls and photographs it.
Screeded floors from the 1960s and 1970s are where the camera earns its keep. It sees the circuit through carpet, laminate or tiles and highlights the warm, wet patch over the failed joint.
A supply pipe under a Bicknacre front drive is listened to from above with a ground microphone. The break is loudest straight over it, and that is the single slab or strip of tarmac to lift.
A hydrogen and nitrogen mix is put into the drained heating pipe. It escapes where the pipe has split, travels up through the screed and is picked up by a detector moved across the floor.
A 1960s bungalow in the village had a boiler needing topping up every few days and a warm patch in the hall. The thermal camera traced the heating pipe through the screed and tracer gas put the fault at a joint by the bedroom door, so one small square of floor was opened. A house on the Danbury road had a water bill that had doubled. The meter turned with everything off, and the ground microphone followed the supply pipe under the front drive to a corroded joint by the gate. In East Hanningfield a cottage with a damp kitchen wall turned out to have a heating pipe weeping inside the solid floor rather than rising damp.
Danbury and South Woodham Ferrers are the two nearest places on the list and we cover them with Bicknacre. Maldon, Chelmsford and Runwell are a few minutes further. Woodham Ferrers and East Hanningfield are on the same round.
Finding a hidden leak and opening up to reach it are normally covered under the trace and access section of a home policy. Our written report gives the insurer the tests we ran, the thermal images, the marked position and photographs of the spot, ready to attach to the claim.
A heating leak, which is the usual story in this village. Houses here have pipes in the concrete floor and the joints are now old enough to fail. We traced it with the camera and tracer gas and the repair was a single opening.
He starts at the meter and the boiler to work out whether the leak is on the supply pipe or the heating. Then the thermal camera, the ground microphone and tracer gas narrow it down, inside or out, until the reading peaks over one spot. That spot is marked, photographed and written up, so the repair is a single small hole rather than a lifted floor.
Probably a pipe you cannot see. Heating circuits in older bungalows run under halls to reach the bedrooms, and a leak surfaces where the screed is thinnest, not where the pipe is. The thermal camera shows the real route.
Yes. Acoustic listening works through tarmac, block paving and concrete. We mark the loudest point so the repair is a small patch, and we do not break any surface unless you want us to do the repair.
In our experience, yes. The report contains the readings, images and marked position an adjuster needs to approve a trace and access claim.
Call 07897 020 680 and we will tell you what to check before we come.
Landline 01440 840 772. Email hello@completeleakdetection.co.uk.