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sunnybob

wysiwyg
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We've just bought a small semi to rent out to help eke out our pensions. Its been empty for 3 years after the owner died and the lawyers descended on the estate.
we started cleaning and fixing and discovered we had a lot of problems with the water system, the most worrying of which was a tiny water leak we could not find. The water meter little black wheel barely moved. So small you had to stand and stare to be certain that it was.

The main pipe went across a few feet of garden and then vanished into the concrete of the building, and did not reappear till it came out of the flat roof (also concrete) to the water tanks.
We feared the worst, having to dig around uprooting tiles and destroying half the building to find it. My usual plumber gave me the name of a guy who is known locally as " The leak man".

He arrives, shakes his head at the tiny movement and says he might not be able to find a leak this small. DAMN!.
I said I thought you had ground sonar? Oh yes he says, i have that, but this is too small to show. Then he gets out a full sized gas bottle of Hydrogen and connects it to the garden tap, pressurises to 4 bar, and walks around the outside of the house with a gas sniffer.He gets to the rear just below the kitchen window and hey presto, the thing goes off, beeping like mad.

The water pipe comes into the house at that point. He gets his kango drill out and 5 minutes later, theres the bad joint. A glued plastic tee 3" below the surface.
He fixed it with a loop of smaller flexible pipe that sticks up above the surface and now needs to be boxed in to stop people knocking it.. Not pretty, but minimal fuss and no fears because we dont get freezing weather.
He wasnt cheap for the 1 hour he was there, but the lack of damage that I would have had to repair otherwise made me very happy to pay him.

I've been around gas and water pipes for a half century, but had never seen this trick before. He located that leak EXACTLY. To the inch either side, through 2 " of 12 year old concrete.
Good man.
 
My wife has the most amazing sense of smell. In our last but one house she swore she could smell gas in the area of the patio. I pooh poohed her for weeks till she ground me down and I got in the gas board. They got their sniffer out and eventually found a tiny leak in the main 3 feet under the patio.
 
Marineboy":8ld6pn9s said:
My wife has the most amazing sense of smell. In our last but one house she swore she could smell gas in the area of the patio. I pooh poohed her for weeks till she ground me down and I got in the gas board. They got their sniffer out and eventually found a tiny leak in the main 3 feet under the patio.

Not wanting to divert the thread, but......

.............our youngest daughter could sniff my wife's hand and tell who she last held hands with......me, or our other daughter.........and do this accurately hours after the hand-holding. She would also sniff the dog and be able to tell who had last stroked her. Truly bizarre to me, as I have anosmia (no sense of smell).
 
phil.p":22jw8ahc said:
Amazing. But not so amazing as mine - she can smell alcohol on my breath from a hundred yards. :D
You rascal you. That did make me chuckle !

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
 
Interesting
I've been wanting to check whether a leak repaired under my kitchen floor a few years ago is still sound.

Do you think this requires a professional service or could one just purchase a bottle of hydrogen and a gas detector?

Ewan

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
 
phil.p":2ua0cuy3 said:
Depends whether you live on my road. :D
Obviously the most economical form of gas detector for hydrogen would be a lighter

Would it have to be hydrogen? With the same principle work with an inert gas like nitrogen?

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
 
Hydrogen is a very small molecule, so I guess will find leaks easily ? It is perhaps not as dangerous as you might think, because it heads upwards so quickly when it escapes - outdoors at least.
 
In oil and gas we use a Hydrogen test to find leaks with a lower pressure test, as Tony said it’s a tiny molecule and finds its way through the smallest of gaps. And despite all the tech out on the rigs it’s often a person’s nose or ears that first detect a gas seep from a valve stem or pipe flange.

Fitz.
 
I saw recently that they use the 4bar gas pressure test for waste water (sink, bathroom etc) systems in the USA to check for code compliance on a new build / major alteration - they also use 120 bar gas pressure test for mains water supply pipes (x2 mains pressure), to make sure all of it is up to code before the plasterboard gets done.

I thought that was a very good idea.

Definitely a tip worth remembering.
 
you have to have that number wrong.
120 bar is 1700lbs/sq"
Thats closer to 10 times mains than double.
Our water system here runs on 2.5 bar . The plastic pipes inside the houses are tested to 7 bar.
Spain is about 4 last time I heard. Cant remember what England is.
 
I think he means 120psi which is about 8bar or just over double max pressure for most domestic water.
 
As a schoolboy in the 1970s I had a Saturday/holiday job on building works and I remember a hotel renovation in Cheltenham where the inspector did that type of test. My memory (perhaps not too reliable after all this time) is that it was fairly low pressure, not much over atmospheric, but the pressure had to hold for a period of some hours or possibly overnight.
 
Pressure tests...... if I had 10p for every tale of woe I've heard involving plastic plumbing...

It seems that the modern way of pressure testing (plastic) plumbing is to fit it (quite possibly mixing components from different manufacturers to add entertainment value) and wait......

#-o
 
Woody2Shoes":26fl2l0q said:
Pressure tests...... if I had 10p for every tale of woe I've heard involving plastic plumbing...

It seems that the modern way of pressure testing (plastic) plumbing is to fit it (quite possibly mixing components from different manufacturers to add entertainment value) and wait......

#-o
I have done the above. 10 years on all fine and dandy :?
 
It doesn't matter much what the gas is if the detector is based on the mass spectrometer principle (I don't know if they usually are for domestic leaks). However, as mentioned, a small molecule gets through the leaks much faster, so hydrogen or helium are usually used. You can't use nitrogen or oxygen as they are present in high concentrations in the air.
 
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