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Sort pipe from weather
First Charlie confirms the water is not rain, condensation or a failed seal. The pattern of the damp and its timing usually settle it before any test is run.
Leak detection in Epping
Charlie traces leaks in pipes, under floors and across gardens with thermal imaging, listening equipment and tracer gas. Epping, Epping Upland and Theydon Bois are covered from this page.
No find, no fee
Pipes, not roofs
Thames Water boundary checked
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
Epping leak detection calls come from a long High Street of Georgian and Victorian buildings, many now flats above shops, and a ring of 1930s and 1960s houses behind them. Flats bring shared pipework and the question of whose leak it is. The houses bring heating pipes dripping into floor voids.
Not every call is about plumbing. If you have searched for roof leak Epping Upland after a storm, that is a job for a roofer. But if a ceiling is wet when it has not rained, or a floor is warm with the heating off, the water is coming from a pipe. Epping is Thames Water's patch.
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First Charlie confirms the water is not rain, condensation or a failed seal. The pattern of the damp and its timing usually settle it before any test is run.
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The mains and the heating are isolated and checked one after the other. In a flat the communal riser is checked separately, so the report can say whose pipe is losing water.
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The thermal camera maps the run, the microphone follows the sound, and tracer gas proves the point. A water leak detection plumber in Epping who only repairs would guess at this part.
Through a ceiling, the camera shows a cold wet area spreading from the leak and the warm line of the pipe feeding it. It tells our engineer whether to look at the bathroom above or the heating pipe.
On the big gardens off Theydon Road and out at Epping Upland the supply pipes are long. A ground microphone walked along the route picks up the hiss and peaks over the break.
In a heating circuit under boards or screed, a hydrogen mix is pumped through the emptied pipe. The gas escapes at the split, rises through the floor and is picked up by a detector.
A flat above a shop in the town centre had water coming through the ceiling of the shop below. We isolated the communal supply, the flat's own cold feed and its heating in turn, and the loss was on a hot water pipe under the flat's bathroom floor. The report said whose pipe it was. In a 1930s semi a few streets back, a boiler needed topping up every week. The thermal camera showed the heating pipe dripping into the floor void by the hall radiator, and tracer gas confirmed it. On a 1960s house on the edge of town the meter turned overnight, and listening along the supply pipe put the break under the front path.
Loughton and Chigwell are a few minutes south, Harlow is a short run up the B1393, and Chipping Ongar is 10 minutes east. A water leak detection plumber near Epping who covers all four is the same van, and leak detection Essex wide is the same person.
If the leak has caused damage, your buildings policy will usually pay to locate it and to open up and make good under trace and access. Our written report covers the tests, the thermal images and the marked position, and in a flat it states whose pipe failed.
Yes, that is the main job in a shared building. We isolate the communal supply, your own cold feed and your heating in turn and record which one is losing water. The report names the pipe.
The report is written with that in mind. It sets out the tests we ran, the readings, photographs of the marked spot and a plain description of where the leak is and what it has damaged. That is what an insurer wants to see under trace and access cover, and it is emailed to you so it can go straight on with the claim.
The method is the same, but the pipe is longer and the stop tap may be a long way from the house. We trace the whole run from the meter in the lane and mark the break so one hole does it.
No. They deal with the main and the pipe up to the boundary. Anything beyond the stop tap is yours to locate and repair. If the loss is on their side, we tell you and you report it to them.
Then you pay nothing for the detection, because no pipe leak was found. Our engineer will say what he thinks is causing it, a flashing, a gutter or a flat roof, for you to take to a roofer.
Phone us on 07897 020 680 and tell us whether it is a floor, a ceiling or a bill.
Landline 01440 840 772. Email hello@completeleakdetection.co.uk.