BIG HIDDEN LEAK IN HOUSE

[Dimmy007]

Some advice please about a really worrying problem. I live in a terraced 2 bed room house. 10 days ago the gas combi boiler stopped heating the radiators but still gave hot water to the shower and taps. Naturally we thought there was a fault with the boiler. We had already arranged a yearly service on the boiler with a gas safe engineer and he looked at the boiler to find a "fault". At first he said the boiler diverter valve was faulty but then changed his mind. He said the diverter valve and the boiler are NOT faulty. What's happening is the boiler thinks a hot tap is open in the house and is heating the hot water only so is giving priority to the hot water only over heating the radiators. He was correct because I have done the water meter test (the meter is in the house in the kitchen). The leak indicator is spinning very fast on the meter and when I turned the stopcock off the leak indicator stopped spinning .Therefore the leak is in the house. There is also a hissing noise near the meter when the stopcock is turned on. The water comoany also confirmed the water meter reading we gave them is much higher than it should be compared to our average use. I cannot turn the water stopcock back on even to have a shower as the hidden leak will start again. We contacted the insurance company and the assessor came at 8am on Friday 8th December. He agreed that there was a hidden leak and it must be bad to make the boiler turn off the heat and go into hot water mode only, in other words the boiler thinks a hot tap is open in the house but there is not. The insurance assessor is arranging for a specialist leak detection team to come in find the leak and hopefully repair it. My MAIN question to this forum is that there is NO visible signs of any leaking water anywhere in the house so where is the leaking water draining to? The kitchen has laminate flooring on top of the felt backing on screed over original concrete flooring underneath. There is no smell or damp or anything like that. The assessor suspects the leak is from a pipe behind an internal wall near the water meter. This part of the house used to be outside but a front extension was built many years ago so now the suspect pipe is inside if that makes sense. It's a big worry that this leak was running for several days before the stopcock was turned off and even before that if it could have started off as a trickle. Could this big leak affect the foundations of the house and cause major structural damage as there is no sign of where the water is going to. I havn't lifted some of the laminate floor yet to see if it's wet underneath, I'm terrified of what I might find but there's no water coming up through the floor at all. And it's a new fitted kitchen from a year ago maybe the leak has something to do with that although the fitter came back to inspect his plumbing and all was ok. Any advice gratefully received and how long should we wait for the leak detection team to come in? I'm going to phone them tomorrow as I feel this is an emergency even though there is no visible leak water. Many thanks

 

[Chuck]

Ground floor leaks can just discharge into the ground beneath the house without visible evidence within the house. Depending on how big they are and the soil / geology, they can cause a lot of damage or no damage at all.

You could try turning the water on for a short period and measuring how many litres per minute are discharging using the water meter and a stopwatch.

A leak that is large enough that you need to turn the supply off at the stopcock should be treated as an 'emergency' by the insurance company. A house without water is uninhabitable so the insurance company may be obliged to provide alternative accommodation for you. If you call them and start asking about that I think you will find that their leak-finders will appear quite quickly.

I strongly suggest that you don't start ripping up flooring, etc. yourself. The insurance company is unlikely to want to pay for any collateral damage caused by your DIY efforts to investigate.

 

[Dimmy007]

Ground floor leaks can just discharge into the ground beneath the house without visible evidence within the house. Depending on how big they are and the soil / geology, they can cause a lot of damage or no damage at all.

You could try turning the water on for a short period and measuring how many litres per minute are discharging using the water meter and a stopwatch.

A leak that is large enough that you need to turn the supply off at the stopcock should be treated as an 'emergency' by the insurance company. A house without water is uninhabitable so the insurance company may be obliged to provide alternative accommodation for you. If you call them and start asking about that I think you will find that their leak-finders will appear quite quickly.

I strongly suggest that you don't start ripping up flooring, etc. yourself. The insurance company is unlikely to want to pay for any collateral damage caused by your DIY efforts to investigate.

 

[Dimmy007]

Ground floor leaks can just discharge into the ground beneath the house without visible evidence within the house. Depending on how big they are and the soil / geology, they can cause a lot of damage or no damage at all.

You could try turning the water on for a short period and measuring how many litres per minute are discharging using the water meter and a stopwatch.

A leak that is large enough that you need to turn the supply off at the stopcock should be treated as an 'emergency' by the insurance company. A house without water is uninhabitable so the insurance company may be obliged to provide alternative accommodation for you. If you call them and start asking about that I think you will find that their leak-finders will appear quite quickly.

I strongly suggest that you don't start ripping up flooring, etc. yourself. The insurance company is unlikely to want to pay for any collateral damage caused by your DIY efforts to investigate.

Many thanks for the advice.