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Meter and gauge
Two readings decide the day. With the house shut off, does the meter move. With the heating sealed, does the pressure gauge fall. Charlie does both before any tracing starts.
Leak detection in Kelvedon
Charlie has traced leaks in Kelvedon and Feering before. He comes with the camera, microphones and tracer gas to find yours.
No find, no fee
Usually booked within 24 to 48 hours
Insurance report written
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
Kelvedon strings along the old Roman road with Feering across the Blackwater, and the housing follows the road: brick and timber cottages on the High Street, Victorian terraces behind them, and closes of 1970s and later houses on the edges. The cottages hide pipes in old walls. The closes hide them in screed.
The river matters here. Properties close to the Blackwater sit on ground that stays damp, which hides a leaking supply pipe for a long time. The water meter notices, though, and that is where Charlie starts. Essex and Suffolk Water supply Kelvedon and Feering, up to the boundary stop tap.
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Two readings decide the day. With the house shut off, does the meter move. With the heating sealed, does the pressure gauge fall. Charlie does both before any tracing starts.
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A supply pipe is followed across the garden with the ground microphone. A heating pipe is followed through the floor with the camera. Only the faulty system is traced.
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Tracer gas settles the exact spot on a heating leak, and the microphone peak does the same on a supply pipe. Charlie marks it, photographs it and explains what the repair needs.
Against an old brick wall or a screeded floor the camera shows the heating pipe as a warm line and the leak as a patch that spreads beyond it. It takes minutes per room.
The long supply runs on village plots are the microphone's job. Walked along the route, it picks up the hiss of escaping water and the reading peaks directly over the break.
A heating circuit with a slow loss and no sound is drained and filled with a hydrogen and nitrogen mix. The gas rises through the floor finish at the split and the detector finds it.
A brick cottage in the middle of Kelvedon had a meter that kept moving with the house shut off, and the ground near the river stays damp enough to hide a leak for months. Listening along the supply pipe found the split under the front path, so one slab came up. In a Victorian terrace behind the main road a wet patch on a bedroom ceiling turned out to be the bath waste above, which the thermal camera separated from the heating in minutes. On a 1970s close on the Feering side a boiler losing pressure led to a heating pipe in the screed, found with the camera and confirmed with tracer gas.
Witham and Coggeshall are 5 minutes either way, Tiptree is a short run south and Braintree and Colchester sit at each end of the A12 stretch. Leak detection Essex customers in all of them get the same visit.
Trace and access cover on a buildings policy pays for finding the leak and for opening up to repair it. Our report sets out the meter and pressure tests, the thermal images and the marked location, with a note on the floor or wall that has to be opened.
Yes. We cover Kelvedon and Feering regularly, along with Coggeshall, Great Totham and Marks Tey and Layer nearby. We know the mix of housing here and where the supply pipes tend to run on the older plots.
Yes. The meter test proves water is leaving the pipe, and the ground microphone hears it whether the soil is wet or dry. A pressurised leak makes a noise, and that noise is loudest over the break.
Very little. Leave the heating as it is so our engineer can take an honest pressure reading, know where the stop tap and the water meter are, and keep the boiler accessible. Furniture and floor coverings stay where they are, because the camera reads through carpet, laminate and tiles. If tracer gas is needed he drains and refills the circuit himself.
Yes. The heating pipe in the screed shows on the thermal camera as soon as the system warms up, and tracer gas confirms the exact point. The repair is a single small opening in the floor at the marked spot.
It means the leak is on your side of the boundary and we go on to trace it. If the meter keeps moving with your stop tap shut, the loss is on the water company’s pipe, and you report it to Essex and Suffolk Water.
Call us on 07897 020 680 and say which side of the river you are on.
Landline 01440 840 772. Email hello@completeleakdetection.co.uk.