Plumbing & Heating

emilymch1

Hi

Having found 1 fairly substantial leak, a weak connection in pipe coming into house, the pressure drop in condenser boiler is now approx. .05 bar daily. What are the chances of finding a leak this size? should i go with thermal imaging or leak sealer? I am getting conflicting opinions on the leak sealers, does anyone have any personal practical exprience?


thanks

em

Sparkpea

pay a professional leak finder to come in with all their gear and pinpoint it

Outkast_IRE

emilymch1 wrote: »

Hi

Having found 1 fairly substantial leak, a weak connection in pipe coming into house, the pressure drop in condenser boiler is now approx. .05 bar daily. What are the chances of finding a leak this size? should i go with thermal imaging or leak sealer? I am getting conflicting opinions on the leak sealers, does anyone have any personal practical exprience?


thanks

em

Have used them in situations such as yours before and they have been successful , as far as im concerned its worth a shot before you start digging up floors etc.

emilymch1

when you say a professional leak finder, do you mean someone who would use thermal imaging, moisture meter or what? If the leak is under the conceret on ground floor, how what equipment would be the most efficient?

yoshytoshy

emilymch1 wrote: »

I am getting conflicting opinions on the leak sealers, does anyone have any personal practical exprience?


thanks

What sparkpea suggests is the only real option.

I've never used leak sealers myself ,but I've heard of the damage it does to boilers.

Sparkpea

they have all sorts of tools and machines to finds leaks, i've used them to find about 4 leaks in concrete floors, leaks in gardens, leaks under tarmac, leaks in internal pipes within the house (this week actually one was found in the hw coil).

emilymch1

I'm living in the cork area, do you have any names? I've been on to a company called LoFlow, was going to go with them, very expensive etc, but my plumber has worked on a house with them before, they incorrectly pointed where the leak was, no comeback. Are there any companies or individuals you would recommend?

thanks

emily

Sparkpea

phone your insurance company, they should have someone on their books that they recommend, up north they use dndrainage but I dont know if they are down south - prob are worldwide. Anyway my customers insurance companies have got them boys out and the insurance company has footed the bill.

Joey the lips

My experience is this.....

If you hire a professional to find a difficult leak it will prob take them a while and it will cost you in the guts of 500-1000 euro.

Considering a new boiler is in the region of 2k supply and fit i would suggest you try the leaksealent.

The common problem with leaksealent is if the system is not flowing it can effect the heat exchanger however i have seen this only once in 5 maybe.

Get a plumber to call explain the problem and ask for guaranteed costings...

For example.

If i use leak sealent and mess up the heat exchanger it will cost you x amount.

If i hire out therminal imagine gadgets and dont find anything it will cost you x

DO NOT let any cowboy fit a pressure reducing valve. This has the long term effect of totally screwing up your system


For the record. I had a leak on a vokera Mynute gas boiler and it was in an awful place. i gave the plumber permission to use leaksealent as he had been doing the work very reasonable and I am happy to say i was 5 years in the house before i moved with no problems...


Having said that... Having worked in a plumbing shop a lot more cowboys than plumbers buy leaksealent. However plumbers and cowboys use pressure reducuing valves which imo should be illegal.

emilymch1

Thanks for that reassurance re the leak sealant. I dont know anything about plumbing but have reservations about putting anything into the system which is really silly as this is a very uninformed reservation. I have had a number of plumbers in and spoken to several, have taken my time as the pressure is reducing very very slowly which I needed to guage. I have someone coming in next week who will start by isolating the areas to try and ascertain area of leak. he might be lucky, if not i'll go with sealant. Are all the sealants on the marke pretty similar?


thanks again

emily