Water leak ! Advice sought.

GONA66

GONA66

CARAVELLE
VIP Member
T6 Guru
I have a leak from the water meter to the house (32mm pipe) . The problem is this distance is approx 300 m, going through 2 fields, under a dyke, under a driveway and through a court yard.

We are losing an average of 350 litres a day and this has been going on for several months now ,so 4 weeks ago i made time to start the process of finding the leak.
Firstly the farmer indicated where he thought the joints were as he had a similar issue 13 yrs ago, so with the aid of a 3 tonne digger we began excavating for the pipes/joints. We had to be careful as there was a main electric cable and BT cable in there as well.
These joints were adjacent to the dyke and allegedly 1m below the bottom of the dyke so we had to initially go down very cautiously 12 feet.
After a week or so we found the main electric cable, then the BT cable and eventually the 7 water pipes feeding the properties, then we began excavating and tracing looking for the joints . By now i had been searching for over 3 weeks with no sign of any joints in the pipes.
So i have made the decision to detemine which of the 7 pipes is mine and try and access in which half of the pipework the leak is, narrowing things down to eventually finding this leak.

After much searching on the web i'm no clearer as to whom to contact to progress this search, so i thought i'd ask my fellow forum members if they know of or are indeed associated with this kind of work..... Any HELP much appreciated... at almost 56 this digging malarkey is no fun on the body !
 
Your utilities company has specialist equipment that will pinpoint the leak to within a couple of metres. It may well be worth contacting them although I recognise there may be a cost involved
 
GONA66 said:
I have a leak from the water meter to the house (32mm pipe) . The problem is this distance is approx 300 m, going through 2 fields, under a dyke, under a driveway and through a court yard.

We are losing an average of 350 litres a day and this has been going on for several months now ,so 4 weeks ago i made time to start the process of finding the leak.
Firstly the farmer indicated where he thought the joints were as he had a similar issue 13 yrs ago, so with the aid of a 3 tonne digger we began excavating for the pipes/joints. We had to be careful as there was a main electric cable and BT cable in there as well.
These joints were adjacent to the dyke and allegedly 1m below the bottom of the dyke so we had to initially go down very cautiously 12 feet.
After a week or so we found the main electric cable, then the BT cable and eventually the 7 water pipes feeding the properties, then we began excavating and tracing looking for the joints . By now i had been searching for over 3 weeks with no sign of any joints in the pipes.
So i have made the decision to detemine which of the 7 pipes is mine and try and access in which half of the pipework the leak is, narrowing things down to eventually finding this leak.

After much searching on the web i'm no clearer as to whom to contact to progress this search, so i thought i'd ask my fellow forum members if they know of or are indeed associated with this kind of work..... Any HELP much appreciated... at almost 56 this digging malarkey is no fun on the body !
Click to expand...

Blimey! My problem of removing a belly tank to replace a drain hose underneath my van a few months ago pales into insignificances! Sorry the only help I can offer is a pair of wellies. :think smile bounce:
 
Mike23864 said:
Your utilities company has specialist equipment that will pinpoint the leak to within a couple of metres. It may well be worth contacting them although I recognise there may be a cost involved
Click to expand...
Hi, I've had talks about the leak but they aren't interested unfortunately .

A few pics of my woe !

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20220205_140551.jpg

20220211_114701.jpg
 
Apart from calling in special contactor....

What are your r options?

Keep digging up the pipes from the meter towards property.....untill you find some wet ground and a leak?
 
I would have thought they would have installed the pipes using coils as long as possible. It is common for 32mm to come in 100m lengths and possibly 150m. It’s a long shot and maybe too simplistic but 3 coils of 100mm perhaps ? so I would be looking around those markers first.
 
Rather than spend all of the time and effort to find the leak, could you not put that time/ effort expense and run a new main?
Standard depth is 750mm deep are there any other reasons to go so deep?
The main supply pipe could have more than one leak if it was damaged during its installation.
best of luck with it.
Kev
 
I had a very similar experience just before Christmas, the water company got in contact and said we were using an excessive amount of water, and gave me a number to call to speak to someone in the water company.
I did this and they were quite unhelpful, all that they would say was that I should contact my insurance company and go through them as the leak was the ''customer side of the meter'' I tried to get more from them but they just went into a cycle of relatively useless advice.
So I called my insurance, and their stance was ''has the leak caused damage to the property''? my reply was how would I know I cannot see any water, which tells me its underneath the property, which at some point if not found may cause some serious damage, they were adamant that until damage was caused that they would do nothing.
So I called the water company and informed them of the insurance company's stance, and insisted that a leak specialist come out, which after 2 or 3 weeks they did, all that they could say was yes its leaking but could not find where, he advised I needed a plumber....At this point I was very frustrated, none of them want to help. But this is important what the leak specialist said to me was, that once a leak or excessive usage of water has been noted at the water company, that the account is paused, as in there are no longer charges applied for excessive water usage, and that generally but not always, however much the additional usage is over and above the average for said property is waived once repaired.
My meter to my house is about 25 to 30 meters, my house is about 100 years old, the plumber that I called said that it was very likely that my supply pipework was lead and barrel or lead and swaged mild steel pipe, and that if its starting to leak now, that it would certainly leak more once repaired, so I chose to dig in a whole new blue supply pipe, from the meter to the isolation valve in the house, thus bypassing all the old pipework, the plumber came and fitted it to the pipe and the internal valve once done.
A month or so later the water company came and saw it was not leaking anymore, and sure enough they wiped the bill to zero, I tried my luck to get them to pay for the plumber the and the groundworks and new pipe, but was not successful.

I did find the leak on the old pipe whilst digging, and it was very corroded mild steel pipework as the plumber suggested it could be.

I would say to sum up, if your going to dig to find a leak, then just dig it all and put in the new pipework. Moling is an option where they slide hollow pipe work up mechanically and then pass the new pipe through and retract the sections of mole rod.

its a real pain and not cheap, but maybe your insurance could help I sympathise having been there.
 
so the properties are at one end of the pipes and the metres at the other end?

ask all properties to turn off their stop cocks at the house end and see whose meter is still counting.
If it's not yours...... :)

Alternatively say you no longer want a meter, I'm sure they will then come out and help.
 
In my case, as the pipework crosses the boundary to my property the meter is installed and its only my house in the line, maybe in newer properties the meter is on the house itself in a box outside. If all your taps, water devices inactive then in theory the paddle wheel will not be turning, and yes I think your right Loz you could pin point the leak to a degree like that.
 
Many years ago we had a similar problem on a job for the MOD their water undertaker was C2C they called in their leak specialist, so a man in his 60’s turns up and with 2 bent bits of what looked like old metal coat hangers duly walked up and down the pipe run a few times stops and said dig here and it was exactly above a gash in the blue pipe. To say we were gobsmacked would not describe our faces, I had a go under his guidance and found other water sources etc.
So look up water diviner’s and see if they can help.
 
saronica said:
In my case, as the pipework crosses the boundary to my property the meter is installed and its only my house in the line, maybe in newer properties the meter is on the house itself in a box outside. If all your taps, water devices inactive then in theory the paddle wheel will not be turning, and yes I think your right Loz you could pin point the leak to a degree like that.
Click to expand...
Be careful of relying on all of the taps, washing machine etc are inactive. Switch the water off at the stopcock instead.
My daughter was told by her water supply company that she was using huge amounts of water and must have a significant leak in the front garden or under her house, despite no evidence of either. They told her that it was her problem because the meter on the pavement was spinning big time when all taps, washing machine etc were switched off. They talked about digging up her garden to trace the pipe and even digging up her floors in her house. She phoned me in tears.
I arrived and turned the stopcock off in the kitchen. The meter under the pavement stopped spinning. Through a process of elimination I quickly found that it was a toilet cistern valve not shutting off and running the water into the waste pipe. The toilet cistern was silently wasting water, we'd never have known if the water company hadn't noticed her useage. They waived her water charge for the relevant period.

Dave Mac said:
Many years ago we had a similar problem on a job for the MOD their water undertaker was C2C they called in their leak specialist, so a man in his 60’s turns up and with 2 bent bits of what looked like old metal coat hangers duly walked up and down the pipe run a few times stops and said dig here and it was exactly above a gash in the blue pipe. To say we were gobsmacked would not describe our faces, I had a go under his guidance and found other water sources etc.
So look up water diviner’s and see if they can help.
Click to expand...
Despite being a natural cynic and still not understanding how it works, I've seen people find water pipes, drains and leaks by water divining and I know it works. I have no idea how, it just does!
 
Them meters can pass

Run water until the last three digits on your meter reading are all zeros. Then fill up a one-gallon container with water. The last three digits on your meter should read /133 /134 cubic feet
 
@DaveD , yes I switched the water off at the house at 10.30pm and read the meter, then at 7.00am read the meter before switching back on. We lost over a 100 litres alone in that period. Definitely not losing water through household, but thanks for comments.;)
 
GONA66 said:
@DaveD , yes I switched the water off at the house at 10.30pm and read the meter, then at 7.00am read the meter before switching back on. We lost over a 100 litres alone in that period. Definitely not losing water through household, but thanks for comments.;)
Click to expand...
I guess we all wish we could be more help, there's no easy way to resolve your problem. I think it's just a case of looking for the least disruptive way to do it, as you seem to be doing.
 
Continued with the search via the internet at teatime and may of found a solution. A company that sends gas through the pipe which enables a device at the surface to identify the gas hence finding the leak ! I have made contact and have just had a reply with an estimate of costs.

Will contact on Monday to look further into this. I'll post an update........ don't want to get over excited but sounds promising.
 
Be wary of these companies. I followed them to a property where they could not locate a leak in a central heating system but still charged a lot.
Walking around the house I could hear the leak.
Be very careful not to get ripped off.
 
Kevthegas said:
Be wary of these companies. I followed them to a property where they could not locate a leak in a central heating system but still charged a lot.
Walking around the house I could hear the leak.
Be very careful not to get ripped off.
Click to expand...
Do you know where they were from ?
 
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