Leak detection in Great Dunmow
Dunmow has Georgian frontages on the High Street and new houses on the edge of town. Both hide leaks in different places, and Charlie finds them without pulling up a floor.
Pay nothing if no leak
Usually here within 2 days
Insurer ready report
Three quick steps. No find, no fee, and Charlie gets back to you with a straight answer.
No find, no fee
24/7 enquiries
Non-invasive methods
Reports for insurance claims
Great Dunmow has grown fast since the A120 bypass opened, with large estates on the north and west sides built on solid floors with heating pipes in the screed. The town centre is older, with timber framed and Georgian houses behind the High Street that have been replumbed many times.
On a new estate the common fault is a joint in a buried heating pipe, which shows as a boiler that will not hold pressure. In the old town it is more often a supply pipe under a yard or copper corroded in a solid floor. Charlie covers Dunmow from Haverhill, about 25 miles by road, as part of his leak detection in Essex.
1
Supply or heating is the first question. Charlie shuts the stop tap and reads the meter, then pressure tests the heating. The answer decides whether the hunt is outdoors along the supply pipe or indoors along the circuit.
2
The thermal camera maps the pipework as it really is. On a Dunmow estate house it shows the loops under the lounge; in a High Street property it shows where someone diverted a pipe round a chimney breast.
3
Charlie confirms the exact point with tracer gas on heating pipe or a ground microphone on a supply pipe. He marks it, measures it and photographs it, so the repair can be planned from the report.
Screeded floors on the newer estates show heating pipes clearly. A leak reads as a warm patch widening away from the line. In an older house with suspended timber floors the camera picks up the cold of damp joists instead.
Supply pipes on the old town plots can run under yards, outbuildings and cobbles. Charlie listens along the route and marks the loudest point, so only that spot is opened up.
On a heating circuit buried in screed the drained pipe is charged with a hydrogen and nitrogen mix. The gas leaves the pipe at the break and comes up through the floor finish, where the probe detects it.
The Uttlesford district has a steady run of jobs on the books. Around Dunmow itself we have found leaks in the Broad Oak and the Hallingburys ward and at Hatfield Heath. Towards Braintree the Braintree Central and Beckers Green ward and the Bocking wards have had several visits. The estate jobs were nearly all heating pipes in the floor.
From Great Dunmow, Charlie covers Braintree, Stansted Mountfitchet and Saffron Walden on the same trip, and Aythorpe Roding and the other Rodings to the south west. Felsted, Thaxted and Takeley are in the same round.
Your home insurance will usually pay to find a hidden leak and to open up and make good, under the trace and access part of the policy. Charlie's report sets out the evidence in the order an insurer wants it: tests, readings, thermal images, marked position and photographs.
Yes. Charlie’s survey is non-invasive, so nothing is cut or lifted. He locates the leak and gives you a report, and you decide with the builder or warranty provider who carries out the repair.
Dunmow is about 25 miles from Haverhill. Charlie books most visits within 24 to 48 hours and sometimes the same day if he is already in the Braintree or Bishop’s Stortford area.
Yes. Commercial premises are checked the same way, usually out of hours so the shop is not disrupted. Charlie isolates the supply and listens along the pipe route.
No. It can be a blocked gutter, a bridged damp course or condensation. Charlie checks the pipework first because that is the quickest to prove or rule out. If the pipes are sound he tells you so, with no fee.
Know where your stop tap and water meter are, and have the boiler accessible. If the heating is the suspect, note how often you top it up.
Call 07897 020 680 and describe what the meter or the boiler is doing.
Landline 01440 840 772. Email hello@completeleakdetection.co.uk.
