These blogs are an informal window into what we come up against.
UK Leak Detection try to be fair and not book the impossible to get ‘any’ job booked in.
One of the questions we ask is “how long to lose boiler pressure?” to decide if its months, or a few days or even hours. If its months to lose boiler pressure, then February is probably not the best time to try!
We also ask “Is there leak seal in the system?” and if so when?
On a job recently, when our engineer was pretty much getting rusty gravy out the drain. It was a clear sign of a heating system not maintained with enough inhibitor (you might get the boiler serviced, but they rarely check there is an adequate level of inhibitor in the system). What made it worse was that it was also thick with leak seal; clearly, a mixture of rust particles and glue is not ideal, but the poor old boiler had been doing its best to heat 50 litres of gravy!
The drain off point was so blocked and seized; it had split when bashed a few months before, but not leaked yet! …a picture paints a thousand words!
Our customer was adamant that their plumber was fantastic and would never put leak seal in, to the point where he called him. and yes the plumber was also adamant that leak seal would never be added and he’d been servicing the boiler for the last 5 years at least.
With the case removed from the boiler, all was revealed… Sadly, I was not there, but you can imagine our customer’s reaction and embarrassment!
All very amusing, but it highlights the issues of leak detection, and how hard it is to get accurate information sometimes. These informal blog posts are written for you, the customer to get a flavour of our work and the challenges we face.
What we would like you to take away from this is that we need all the information you have, the good, the bad and the ugly! It is pointless leaving some information out, worried it would affect the outcome, or (sometimes) the outcome our customers ‘want’.
We work for you, not the insurer or anyone else. We will always present the information accurately and in your best interests, within an insured peril where possible. While your home is unique, your plumbing is not particularly special; leaks mundanely follow the same reason for failure regardless of the what colour your walls are.
We have seen every permutation of leak and water damage, from the downright obvious to the real sneaky ones. Similarly, we have dealt with every insurer and loss adjuster, and they too come in similar flavours from straightforward to deal with, to sneaky ones refusing to do their job.