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A phone call to size the job
Charlie asks how far the house is from the road, where the meter is, and what you have noticed. On a long Chorleywood run that decides how much time to allow.
Leak detection in Chorleywood
Chorleywood plots are generous and the pipes that cross them are long. Charlie traces the leak along the whole run and marks where to open up.
Found or free
Whole supply run checked
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Non-invasive methods
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Chorleywood grew up around its common and the Metropolitan line, and the houses that followed sit on large plots along Chorleywood Road, Shire Lane and the lanes off the common. A detached house set 40 metres back from the road has a supply pipe to match, and that length is where leak detection in Chorleywood earns its keep.
The village is on chalk and is supplied by Affinity Water. Chalk drains well, so a leaking pipe under a lawn rarely leaves a puddle. The only clue is a meter that will not stop. Inside, many of the larger houses have been extended more than once, and heating circuits cross timber and solid floors alike.
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Charlie asks how far the house is from the road, where the meter is, and what you have noticed. On a long Chorleywood run that decides how much time to allow.
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A meter test with every outlet closed, then a pressure test on the heating, tells him which system is losing water. That halves the search before any equipment is unpacked.
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Outside, the ground microphone follows the supply pipe across the garden. Inside, the thermal camera follows the heating pipes room by room. Tracer gas then brings the suspect metre down to a marked point.
In an extended house the camera shows where the old and new heating runs join and where one of them is losing heat into the floor. It covers a large ground floor quickly.
A long supply pipe under a chalk lawn is a job for the ground microphone. Charlie listens at intervals along the route and the leak announces itself where the noise is loudest.
Deep pipes and solid floors muffle sound, so for those Charlie uses a hydrogen and nitrogen mix. It escapes through the leak and reaches the surface above it for the detector.
We will be honest: Chorleywood and the Chess valley are not yet on our completed jobs list. Our Hertfordshire work to date has been further east, around St Albans in Bernards Heath, Clarence and Cunningham, and at Aldenham between Watford and Radlett, which is the nearest to you. Further out we have found leaks in Hertford and the Hitchin area.
Rickmansworth is the next stop down the line and Croxley Green is just beyond it. Watford, South Oxhey and Bushey are all within a 20 minute drive on the same leak detection Hertfordshire round, and Hemel Hempstead is over the hill.
Finding a leak on a long Chorleywood supply pipe, then digging down to it, is exactly the cost that trace and access cover exists for. Charlie's written report records the meter readings, the acoustic survey route, the images and the marked position, so the insurer can see the leak was located by measurement.
Allow two to three hours for a house with a long supply pipe and an extended heating system. Smaller jobs are quicker. Charlie would rather trace the whole run than mark the wrong spot and have you dig twice over.
You do, from the boundary stopcock inwards. Affinity Water owns the main and the short connection up to that stopcock. On a Chorleywood plot that private section is often by far the longest part of the whole supply run to the house.
It could. Garden water features, pools and outbuildings have their own feeds and they leak just like the house supply. Charlie isolates each branch at its valve, checks the meter for movement, and traces only the branch that is losing water.
Only if tracer gas is needed. Thermal imaging and acoustic listening work with the system full and running. If the leak is in a solid floor, Charlie drains the circuit, introduces the gas, finds the escape point and refills the system before leaving.
The phone is answered at any hour and visits can be arranged outside the working week when a leak cannot wait. A weekend call usually means a visit inside 24 to 48 hours of ringing.
Call 07897 020 680 with your meter reading to hand and Charlie will tell you what to check next.
Landline 01440 840 772. Email hello@completeleakdetection.co.uk.