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Phone triage
Charlie asks about the bill, the boiler gauge, any warm or damp patches and the age of the house. A listed High Street building and a Clothall Common house are different surveys.
Leak detection in Baldock
Charlie covers Baldock with the van and traces leaks without digging.
Visits within 24 to 48 hours
Found or no charge
Written up for insurers
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
Baldock has an old centre on the Great North Road, with coaching inns and houses on the High Street and Hitchin Street that go back centuries, and a ring of later housing around it, the biggest piece being Clothall Common on the eastern side. The old town hides pipes under thick walls. Clothall Common hides them in screed.
Both are on Affinity Water, and in both the supply pipe from the boundary stopcock to the house belongs to the owner. Leak detection in Baldock therefore starts the same way everywhere: Charlie shuts the house down, watches the meter, and decides whether the loss is mains or heating.
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Charlie asks about the bill, the boiler gauge, any warm or damp patches and the age of the house. A listed High Street building and a Clothall Common house are different surveys.
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A meter test and a heating pressure test identify the leaking system. The thermal camera then goes over every floor and wall in the affected area, showing the pipe runs and any patch where the temperature is wrong.
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Acoustic listening or tracer gas reduces the area to a point. Charlie marks it, photographs it against a tape measure and writes the report, so the repair opens one small hole.
In an old Baldock house with lath and plaster walls, the camera finds wet patches behind the surface and warm pipe runs under worn boards. On Clothall Common it reads the heating loops through the screed.
A supply pipe under a Baldock front path or a gravel drive is traced from the surface. The ground microphone is moved along the route and the leak is where the hiss is loudest.
For a quiet plastic heating pipe in a solid floor, we drain the circuit and introduce a hydrogen and nitrogen mix. It escapes at the fault and rises to the detector.
In a listed building on the High Street a damp patch had appeared on a thick internal wall and the owner was worried about what finding the cause would involve. Thermal imaging showed a heating pipe chased into the wall behind the plaster, and tracer gas placed the leak at one joint, so a single small opening was agreed with the builder. On Clothall Common a house had a boiler that lost pressure overnight, and the camera found the heating pipe failure in the screed under the kitchen. A farmhouse outside the town shared a long supply pipe with its outbuildings; we isolated each branch in turn and the ground microphone marked the break under the yard.
Letchworth Garden City is next door and Hitchin just beyond it, so the three towns share a visit. Royston is a few miles east on the A505, and Stevenage is a short run south on the same leak detection Hertfordshire round.
Old Baldock houses can be listed, and nobody wants to open a historic floor without proof. Our report gives the insurer the evidence: the readings, the thermal images, the photographs and the marked point. For a newer house the same report supports the claim for opening up the heating screed.
We can usually be with you within 24 to 48 hours, and if our engineer already has a Hitchin or Royston job that day, sometimes sooner. Phone and we will confirm the earliest slot.
Yes, and listed buildings are where non invasive detection matters most. Nothing is drilled, lifted or cut during the survey. We locate the leak with the camera, the microphone and gas, and mark the smallest possible opening for the repair.
Yours, from the boundary stopcock to the house. Affinity Water is responsible for the main and the connection up to that stopcock. If the meter moves with the house shut off, the leak is on your side and finding it is down to you.
Then we will say so, and it still counts as found. Most of the leaks we are called to are hidden, but a visible fault the homeowner has not spotted does come up. Either way you leave the visit knowing what is wrong.
Yes. The villages around Baldock often have long private supply pipes across fields and yards, sometimes shared between a house and outbuildings. We isolate each branch, find which one is losing water and trace it across whatever it runs under.
Give us a call on 07897 020 680.
Landline 01440 840 772. Email hello@completeleakdetection.co.uk.