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Confirm the loss
The heating is pressurised and timed, and the mains watched on the meter with everything off. One of them shows the drop, which tells Charlie which pipe to follow.
South Oxhey
South Oxhey was built on solid floors in the late 1940s and 1950s. When a heating pipe in that concrete fails, Charlie finds it without breaking up the floor.
No find, no fee
Concrete floors
Fast bookings
Insurer report
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
South Oxhey went up fast after the war as a London County Council estate, and the houses share a construction: solid concrete ground floors with heating pipes set into them when central heating came later. The pipes are old now, and a failed one spreads water before it shows.
Most of the estate is now privately owned, so leak detection in South Oxhey is usually booked by the homeowner after Affinity Water have queried a reading or the boiler keeps needing a top up. Eastbury, Carpenders Park and Bushey are the same visit, usually within 24 to 48 hours.
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The heating is pressurised and timed, and the mains watched on the meter with everything off. One of them shows the drop, which tells Charlie which pipe to follow.
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With the heating on, the thermal camera shows the pipe routes through the concrete. Tracer gas then narrows it to a spot. The surface is not touched until then.
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The fault is marked to a square the size of a floor tile. The report explains the method and shows the images, so whoever breaks the concrete opens one small hole.
Heating pipes in a South Oxhey slab show on the camera as warm lines once the system has run for an hour. A leak is the bright patch where the line widens.
The circuit is drained and filled with hydrogen in nitrogen. Hydrogen passes through concrete and screed and comes up at the leak, where the detector reads it.
For a supply pipe under the front path, the ground microphone hears the hiss of mains pressure escaping. Underfloor heating leak detection in Watford and South Oxhey uses it for feed pipes.
A South Oxhey semi had a boiler that needed topping up every other day and a patch of lino in the hall that was always warm. We drained the heating, charged it with tracer gas and found the leak in the concrete floor where the pipe turned towards the kitchen. In Carpenders Park a bungalow had damp at the bottom of a bedroom wall that looked like rising damp; the camera showed a heating pipe in the floor running cold at that point and the leak was at a joint under the skirting. In Bushey a supply pipe under a paved front garden was found with the ground microphone a short way in from the stop tap.
Eastbury, Carpenders Park, Oxhey, Bushey, Bushey Heath and Moor Park are covered from this page on no find, no fee terms. Rickmansworth has its own page, and Watford and the rest of the county are on the Hertfordshire page.
Trace and access cover pays for locating the leak and making good the concrete, screed and floor finish broken to reach it. Insurers want proof the floor was opened in the right place for a reason. Our report gives them the thermal images, the gas readings and the marked point.
No, it is the normal case here. Solid floors are what thermal imaging and tracer gas are for. The floor stays intact while the leak is found, and only one small area is opened for the repair, where we marked it.
Yes. Whoever books gets the report and pays for the trace. The tenant needs to be in to let Charlie round and turn the heating on, and the landlord gets the evidence for the repair or for the insurance claim.
Yes. Watford, Oxhey and Bushey are all the same visit. Underfloor heating loops are tested one at a time at the manifold, and the loop that is losing water is traced with tracer gas and the thermal camera.
Yes. Leak detection in Carpenders Park, Eastbury or Bushey is quoted the same way, as one agreed figure for the trace before our engineer sets off. The short distance between those places makes no difference to the price that you pay.
It can be. Some terraces share a supply pipe from one stop tap. The survey works out which house the leak is under, and the report says so in writing, which settles who pays for the repair before anyone argues.
Ring us, say what the boiler is doing, and get a price and a day.
Landline 01440 840 772. Email hello@completeleakdetection.co.uk.