Source of Leak - end of tether!

[glpcboat]

Thanks for all, some very useful suggestions. However, I've phoned the insurance co today and we're going to proceed with 'track and trace' to try to get to the bottom of this - we are exhausted by it. A co. coming tomorrow am with thermal imaging, etc., etc.

There is no pattern to this leak - happens when it rains, and when it doesnt rain, the only cert is that it happens mostly in the evenings, when we are home from work! Property on a hill/high, canal about 1/2 mile down the hill! Drainage system just had CCTV survey - all fine no problems. Room from where pic taken - dug out last week to 2 ft soil under quarrytiles, nothing there. Newly concreted last week with membrane under, now whole house is concrete floors. New soakaway 6 weeks ago because we thought could be drains and soakaway had it anyway (huge £££'s!!!), have cut backs out of kitchen cupboards to expose pipes, one very minor drip - nothing else but mended anyway. Central heating pipes exposed around edge of dining room / this area, and kitchen roll put under them for 3 days to see if drips - none! As I said in earlier post - we have sawn thru the wooden strut (to the right of the big wet patch on the photo) and put plastic in between the wood to see if the leak stops if we disturb its path from rising up. Interesting tho the patch is still pretty wet today - and I would have thought it would have dried more in 2 days - perhaps tonight will get a better idea. This can't be coming from the dining room where the pic was taken, the ceiling above is dry, so our thoughts are the kitchen floor and the pipes under the wood laminate and concrete..... so guess we might know for sure tomorrow if these surveys are any good! I will post back with hopefully some definite news on this

 

[glpcboat]

Thank you for all suggestions/posts. We have just had thermal imaging people out (insurance company have organised this) and we apparently now have the answer - the leak is in the central heating pipe under the kitchen floor. To the right of the table you can see in the photo. The whole concrete floor in the kitchen is showing very high water saturation levels apparently and a circular hotspot around a pipe burried in the concrete floor was identified as the source - after 2 hours of detailed investigation. However, how the water is 'wicking' up the wall is a bit of a mystery since we have inserted a plastic tab half way up the wooden strut, but apparently this is possible! Further up the wall, hole put in and camera put in but only condensation found in there. Even these guys said this was a hard one to determine, and lets hope they are right! The thermal imaging camera was really good. Thank you again for all your suggestions, it was a real help.

 

[buff]

i was going to say it may be a pipe in the concrete,mmm
actually this reminds me of a job i went to
carpet in living soaking wet,eventually traced the problem to central heating pipe behind cooker! 15 feet away,it had followed the pipe run thru the concrete
bob

 

[Tong]

As steveb noted there appears to be a small damp patch on the other side of the door also .. so it seems like its coming up rather than down .. get hold of a protimeter (moisture meter) and take some readings around the house particularly the floor around the damp patches or get an inspection done (www.ihi.org.uk) .. usually rising damp is easy to diagnose but difficult by photo. Damp patches look a little too clean and wallpaper still stuck on so without a full inspection hard to say. gulluck!!!

 

[moony]

dig up the floor - go rooting - find your pipe bobs your uncle.

 

[philtheflush]

could be ghosts or probably condensation

 

[emorgans]

Hello,

I have a similar poblem and have just bought an endoscope off Ebay for £40. It has a light at the end and you can poke it through floorboards without having to take them all up. I hope this helps.