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Start with the facts
Charlie asks on the phone what you have seen, how long for, and whether anyone has already looked. If a plumber has been and found nothing, that tells him where not to waste time.
Leak detection in Godmanchester
Charlie tests the mains and the heating in Godmanchester, finds the leak with thermal imaging, listening gear or tracer gas, and marks it before anyone opens up.
No find, no fee
Nothing disturbed to look
Report ready for insurers
Normally seen inside 48 hours
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
Godmanchester has been settled since the Romans, and its oldest houses along Post Street and the Causeway are timber framed, with brick and plaster added later and pipework threaded through wherever it would go. A leak in a house like that can run along a beam or down inside a stud wall and appear nowhere near its source.
The other half of the town is modern. The estates built from the 1960s to the 2000s between the old centre and the A14 have heating pipes in solid floors and supply pipes under the drive. These leak quietly, into the screed, and announce themselves as a boiler that will not hold pressure.
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Charlie asks on the phone what you have seen, how long for, and whether anyone has already looked. If a plumber has been and found nothing, that tells him where not to waste time.
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The meter is read with the house shut off and the heating is pressure tested. One of them shows the loss. The other is ruled out and left alone.
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Thermal imaging takes the search to one room and usually one line of pipe. Acoustic listening or tracer gas takes it to one point. That point is marked and photographed.
In a timber framed house the camera shows damp running along studs and beams as cold streaks, and in a modern one it shows the heating loop in the floor as warm lines.
Contact microphones on exposed pipe and ground microphones over lawns, paths and drives pick up the sound of escaping water. The loudest reading is the leak.
The heating circuit is drained and filled with a hydrogen and nitrogen mix that finds the smallest hole. It rises through screed and floor finishes and a probe reads where it surfaces.
In a timber framed house on the Causeway, water was running down inside a stud wall and appearing in a downstairs cupboard. The meter held still and the heating lost pressure on test. The thermal camera traced a warm line along a beam to a heating pipe that had been threaded through the frame years ago, and tracer gas placed the leak at a corroded bend. On one of the estates between the town and the A14 a boiler that needed topping up weekly was traced to a pinholed copper pipe under the solid hall floor. At Hemingford Abbots a supply pipe leaking under a block paved drive was heard with the ground microphone and marked at six blocks.
Huntingdon is across the bridge and St Ives 10 minutes along the river. St Neots is south down the A1 and Cambourne out on the A428. Hemingford Grey, Hemingford Abbots, Offord Cluny and Buckden are all covered as part of a Godmanchester booking.
Trace and access is the cover that pays for locating a leak and for the opening up needed to reach it. Our report sets out the tests, the readings, the thermal images and the marked position in plain language, so the insurer can see what was found and why.
Ring us on 07897 020 680 whenever it suits, day or night.
Landline 01440 840 772. Email hello@completeleakdetection.co.uk.