1
Which side of the stop tap
The boundary stop tap is turned off and the meter checked. If it stops, the leak is on your pipe. If it keeps turning, the fault belongs to the water company and you report it to them.
Leak detection in Brightlingsea
Brightlingsea sits at the end of the B1029. Charlie brings thermal imaging, listening equipment and tracer gas to find the leak first.
No find, no fee
Terraces and bungalows
Tendring coast covered
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
Brightlingsea leak detection takes in a town built in layers. Victorian terraces run down towards the harbour, with suspended floors and pipework patched over a long time. Behind them are bungalows and 1960s semis on solid floors, and on the edge of town newer closes with plastic pipe in screed.
Being at the end of a peninsula, the town has one road in and a lot of salt in the air. Salt is hard on the outside of copper and galvanised supply pipes, so the older front gardens here produce more supply leaks than inland towns. Essex and Suffolk Water supply Brightlingsea.
1
The boundary stop tap is turned off and the meter checked. If it stops, the leak is on your pipe. If it keeps turning, the fault belongs to the water company and you report it to them.
2
If the supply is holding, the heating is pressurised and checked for a fall. A drop with no visible drip means a pipe is failing under a floor or in a wall, and the camera comes out.
3
Thermal imaging maps the runs, acoustic listening follows the sound, and tracer gas confirms the point. Charlie marks it, takes photographs and tells you what the repair will involve.
In a terrace with suspended floors the camera picks up the cold damp area spreading across the boards from below. In a bungalow on screed it shows the heating loop that is wider than it should be.
Supply pipes under the short front gardens and shared paths of the older streets are traced with a ground microphone. The packed ground near the harbour carries the sound well.
A heating circuit losing pressure without a sound is drained and filled with a hydrogen mix. The gas rises through the floor at the split and the detector finds it, usually to within a hand width.
A Victorian terrace near the harbour had a meter turning with everything off and a damp patch by the front step. The copper supply pipe had corroded in the salty ground, and the ground microphone put the leak under the path a metre from the door. A 1960s bungalow behind the High Street had a boiler losing pressure and a warm patch in the hall, and the thermal camera with tracer gas placed the fault at a joint in the solid floor. On one of the newer closes a house with plastic pipe in screed had a ceiling stain under the bathroom, traced to a shower waste that had split where it met the trap.
Wivenhoe is the next village back up the estuary, Colchester is 20 minutes north, West Mersea is across the water by road, and Frinton On Sea is along the coast. Leak detection Essex coast and inland is the same service.
If a leak has damaged your floors, walls or ceilings, trace and access cover on your buildings policy normally pays for locating it and for the opening up and making good. Our report gives the insurer the tests, the readings, the thermal images and the marked spot.
Not usually. Our engineer is in Tendring and Colchester most weeks, and Brightlingsea is 20 minutes on from either. If he is already on that side when you call, it can be the same afternoon.
Salt. It corrodes the outside of galvanised and copper pipe faster than inland soil does, and the older front gardens in Brightlingsea often still have the original pipe. The leak is found the same way regardless.
We isolate each property in turn from the shared run and watches the meter to see where the loss stops. The report names the section that has failed and which house it serves, which settles the question of who pays.
Yes. With the heating on, the thermal camera shows every pipe in the screed and the patch where water is spreading. Tracer gas then confirms the exact point, and the repair is one small opening rather than a lifted floor.
Then you pay nothing for the detection, however far the drive. We will tell you what we think is causing the problem instead, whether that is a roof, a gutter, condensation or a drain.
Call 07897 020 680 and tell us what you have seen and how old the house is.
Landline 01440 840 772. Email hello@completeleakdetection.co.uk.