1
Tell Charlie about the building
He asks about the age of the property, the symptoms and the route of the supply pipe if you know it. On a rural property that route can be the whole job.
Leak detection in Chipping Ongar
Charlie finds leaks in High Street cottages, Shelley estate houses and farms on long private pipes, and marks the spot before anything is opened up.
No find, no fee
Visits grouped with Harlow
Listed buildings handled carefully
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
The High Street is medieval and Georgian, with cottages on solid walls and pipework threaded through over generations. Shelley and the roads off the A414 are post war estates on concrete floors. Fyfield, High Ongar, Moreton and Stanford Rivers are farms and barns, often fed by one long supply pipe.
Chipping Ongar is in the Epping Forest area and is served by Essex and Suffolk Water, with Thames Water handling sewerage on this western side of the county. Charlie books Ongar with Harlow, Epping and Brentwood jobs, so a visit within two days is usual.
1
He asks about the age of the property, the symptoms and the route of the supply pipe if you know it. On a rural property that route can be the whole job.
2
Meter test with the house shut off, heating pressure test, thermal scan. In a cottage the camera shows where the plaster is wet and which pipe runs nearest to it.
3
Acoustic listening along the supply pipe or tracer gas in the heating circuit. The point is marked and photographed, and the written report follows for your builder or insurer.
On a solid walled cottage the camera shows the cooler wet area in the plaster and where the nearest pipe runs. On a Shelley estate house it maps the heating pipes in the floor.
A farm supply pipe running from the lane to the house is walked with the ground microphone. The leak is where the sound is loudest, and that is the only place anyone digs.
Hydrogen and nitrogen go into a drained heating system. The gas escapes at the fault and rises through the floor, where a sensor finds it. Only that point is opened.
A timber framed cottage in the old part of Ongar had a damp patch creeping up a plastered wall. The thermal camera showed a cold line running to a bathroom feed behind the lath and plaster, and tracer gas confirmed a weeping joint, so one small panel came off rather than a whole wall. On the Shelley side, a post war house had a boiler that needed topping up every few days. We pressure tested the heating and found the leak under the hall floor. Out towards Fyfield, a farmhouse on a long supply pipe lost water for months before anyone read the meter. Listening along the route put the break under the yard, one hole and no trench.
High Ongar, Fyfield, Moreton, Stanford Rivers, Greensted, Kelvedon Hatch, Blackmore and Stondon Massey are all covered from Ongar. Epping, Harlow and Brentwood are the next towns out, and Loughton is down the A113.
Trace and access cover pays for finding the leak and making good what was opened to reach it. The report we write covers the method, the thermal and photographic evidence and the leak position on a plan. Trace and access in Ongar often involves older buildings, so it also records what was left untouched.
There is no fee for the detection. Our engineer still tells you what he tested and what he ruled out, because a damp wall in an old cottage can be condensation, a blocked gutter or ground water rather than a pipe. That list goes in writing, so if the problem turns out to be something else you are not starting from scratch.
Yes. The ground microphone is made for that job. We walk the route from the meter, listening at intervals, and mark the point where the sound peaks. That turns a trench across the field into one small hole at the break.
Yes. Thermal imaging and acoustic listening touch nothing, and tracer gas goes inside the pipes. The leak is marked so your builder opens the smallest possible area. For a listed building the report notes exactly what was and was not disturbed.
We can. A pipe leak shows a distinct pattern on the thermal camera and a meter or pressure test confirms it. Ground moisture through a solid wall looks different and the meter stays still. If it is not a leak, there is no charge.
Yes. The report sets out the method, shows the thermal images and photographs and marks the leak on a plan of the property. That is what a loss adjuster needs to approve a trace and access claim without a second survey.
Call us on 07897 020 680 and say what you have found.
Landline 01440 840 772. Email hello@completeleakdetection.co.uk.