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Meter and pressure checks
Charlie starts at the stop tap and the boiler. A moving meter with the house shut off points to the supply pipe. A pressure gauge that falls on test points to the heating. That decision takes 20 minutes.
Leak detection in Gosfield
We cover Gosfield and Greenstead Green regularly, so this is familiar ground. Charlie brings thermal imaging, acoustic kit and tracer gas and locates the leak without lifting floors.
Local jobs already done
No charge without a result
Insurance report included
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
Gosfield sits a couple of miles west of Halstead, with a green, a lake and a mix of housing: older cottages near the church, 20th century houses along The Street and bungalows on the edge. The houses built after the war mostly have solid floors with heating pipes set into them, and those joints are now reaching the age where they fail.
Charlie knows the village and what the ground and the pipework are like. A dropping boiler gauge or a meter that creeps overnight are the two calls he gets most for leak detection in Essex.
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Charlie starts at the stop tap and the boiler. A moving meter with the house shut off points to the supply pipe. A pressure gauge that falls on test points to the heating. That decision takes 20 minutes.
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He follows the pipe with the thermal camera, room by room, and outside with the ground microphone. The aim is to get from a whole house to a single patch of floor.
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Tracer gas or a second listening pass confirms the point before anything is marked. Charlie paints or tapes the spot, photographs it and writes up the findings for you and your insurer.
Post war houses on solid floors are ideal for the camera. The heating circuit shows as warm lines through the screed and a leak as a bright spreading patch, usually at a joint or a bend.
For a supply pipe under a Gosfield front garden or drive, we listen along the route with a ground microphone. Leak noise travels well through the clay here and peaks right over the break.
When a heating pipe is deep in the floor and the camera is unsure, the circuit is drained and charged with a hydrogen mix. The gas rises through the screed and the probe finds it above the leak.
A post war house on the Halstead side of the village had a boiler gauge dropping every few days. Thermal imaging showed the heating pipe in the solid floor and tracer gas put the failed joint under the hallway, so one square of screed came up. A bungalow on the edge of the village had a meter that kept turning overnight. The ground microphone followed the supply pipe under the drive and the break was marked near the gate. In a cottage near the church, a damp wall that looked like rising damp turned out to be a weeping hot water pipe behind old plaster, which the camera showed as a cold line.
Halstead, Braintree and Coggeshall are all within 15 minutes of Gosfield and we cover them on the same days. Great Maplestead and Little Maplestead to the north, and Sible Hedingham, are in the same round.
Our written report is built for a trace and access claim. It lists the tests, the readings, the thermal images and the exact marked position, with photographs. Your insurer uses it to approve the cost of finding the leak and opening up to repair it.
The calls from the village and from around Bocking are usually a mix of heating pipes leaking into solid floors and supply pipes failing under drives. All of them are located without digging on spec.
Usually, if the pressure relief valve and the expansion vessel check out. Our engineer tests those first because they are cheap fixes. If they are fine, the water is going into the floor or a wall and he traces it.
Then there is no charge for the detection. Our engineer still tells you what he tested and ruled out, because a dropping gauge is sometimes a faulty expansion vessel or valve rather than a leak, and damp can be condensation or a gutter. That goes in writing, so your plumber or anyone else who looks next is not starting from nothing.
Only for tracer gas, and only the part being tested. Thermal imaging and pressure testing need the system full. If gas is needed, our engineer drains, tests and refills the circuit himself.
Yes. Underfloor heating loops are long and set in screed, which is where thermal imaging does its best work. We map the loops, spot the cold or wet section and confirm it with gas.
Call 07897 020 680 now and he will get you in the diary.
Landline 01440 840 772. Email hello@completeleakdetection.co.uk.