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Work out which system
Charlie checks the meter with everything off and the boiler pressure over a set time. One of them moves, and that tells him whether he is chasing the supply pipe or the heating.
Leak detection in Brentwood
Charlie brings thermal imaging, acoustic listening and tracer gas to Brentwood, Hutton, Warley and Pilgrims Hatch, and marks the leak before any floor or wall is opened.
No find, no fee
Same day where possible
Written evidence for claims
Homes and commercial premises
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
Brentwood leak detection is mostly about big houses with long pipe runs. The Victorian and Edwardian villas around Shenfield Road and Warley have been extended and replumbed, so a heating circuit can pass through three generations of pipe before the far radiator. Hutton's 1960s and 1970s estates have pipes in the screed. Both hide a leak well.
Essex and Suffolk Water serves the town. Water leak detection in Brentwood often starts with a bill or a meter reading rather than a wet patch, because long front gardens give a supply pipe leak plenty of ground to drain into.
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Charlie checks the meter with everything off and the boiler pressure over a set time. One of them moves, and that tells him whether he is chasing the supply pipe or the heating.
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Thermal imaging traces the run across each floor and shows where the temperature changes. On a big Brentwood house that can mean a dozen rooms, but it is quicker than lifting one floor on a guess.
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Tracer gas or the ground microphone puts the leak within a few inches. Charlie marks the floor, takes photographs and explains what the repair will involve.
The camera sees surface temperature, not the pipe itself, so we read the pattern: a warm stripe is a heating pipe, a cold patch is water cooling the material around it. It works through carpet and plaster.
A supply pipe under pressure makes a steady noise at the break. The ground microphone hears it through lawn, block paving and tarmac, and we walk the line until it peaks.
Hydrogen mixed with nitrogen is put into the drained heating circuit. It escapes at the leak, rises to the surface and a detector picks it up even through a screeded floor.
A Victorian villa in Warley had a boiler losing pressure on a heating circuit that had been extended twice. The thermal camera traced the run through three floors and tracer gas put the leak where old copper met newer plastic under the landing. A detached house in Hutton had a water bill that had doubled and a dry garden. The ground microphone followed the supply pipe along the front drive to a joint by the pavement. An office on the High Street had a ceiling stain in the ground floor reception that turned out to be a toilet waste above, found with the camera and confirmed with a dye test.
Shenfield, Hutton, Warley and Pilgrims Hatch are part of Brentwood for our purposes. Ingatestone and Billericay are a few minutes up the A12 and A129, Chipping Ongar sits to the north and Chigwell and Loughton towards the M25.
Trace and access cover pays for finding the leak and for the opening and making good needed to reach it. Our written report records the test results, the thermal images and the exact position, and insurers accept it as the basis of the claim.
No. We find water and heating leaks and do not work on gas supplies. If you can smell gas, leave the property and call the gas emergency service. The gas we use is a tracer, a safe hydrogen and nitrogen mix put into a water pipe to show where water is escaping.
Within 24 to 48 hours as a rule. We plan the south Essex days together, so if our engineer is already around Chelmsford or Basildon he can often add you the same afternoon.
Yes, more often than not. Most of the water leak detection Brentwood calls we take begin with a bill and a dry house. The leak is in the pipe under the garden or drive, and we mark where to dig, which is usually a single small hole.
Essex and Suffolk Water. They are responsible for the main and the pipe up to your boundary stop tap. Past that point the supply pipe, the internal pipework and the heating are yours, and that is where we work.
Yes. Commercial pipework runs further and under harder surfaces, so the ground microphone and a pressure test do most of the work. We can visit before opening or after closing.
Phone 07897 020 680 with the meter reading or the boiler pressure and we will take it from there.
Landline 01440 840 772. Email hello@completeleakdetection.co.uk.