Water Leak in Central Heating

DavyJones, thanks for the comment. Any advice on routing of piping above floor? What kind of prices would one expect and what options exist for concealment of pipes? It shocked me to see how far pipes were under the subfloor (18 inches or so) and that's my concern in relation to potential frequent repairs - looking at 50 sq metres of new porcelain tiles whcih I would be mad to lay before getting this sorted
 
Pipes ran along skirting can be painted so not as noticeable. Cost depends on size of house, how many rads etc.

One thing that may suit or atleast worth thinking about is chasing floors now and running new pipework (not as deep as 18" though). The way we do it is treat every rad as a single circuit. Run two pipes directly from rad to central point (above ground). you may be left with 10 pipes coming from 5 rads etc. Then above ground we stick five pipes each, by way of manifold into flow and return.
This means there are no fittings under floor and manifolds are easily accesible.
 
I have a similar problem and a plumber €600.00 to use a gas detection method he discovered a leak in the coil in the hot water cylinder. I paid a further €650.00 for new cylinder. Now discover I still have a (second leak?) and asked the plumber for advice. He says that the above detection system will only trace one leak at a time! and that it will cost another €600.00 to carry out another test.

Just wondering anybody any experience / feedback on this type of leak detection method.

Thanks

bedlam
 
I am not familar with a gas detection method for finding water leaks on heating system. Can you give me more detail? how long it took, equipment used etc.

Have you a small tank in the attic that feeds water to the heating system or do you have a pressurised system?

How do you now you have a leak?
 
Hi
The process involved draining the system and pumping gas throughout the system and using a gas dector to identify where gas escaped from as the point where the leak was.

I have a small tank in the attic which keeps filling and loss of heat / constant bleeding of 2 rads

Thanks

Bedlam
 
The radiators are on the ground floor?
Is the cylinder on 1st floor?

You would have noticed if there was a hole in the coil in your cylinder. There are two main symtoms. Before I explain them you must first understand a thing or two about your heating and plumbing systems.

you have two seperate water systems in your home, heating (boiler,rads) and plumbing (cold water, hot water, soil pipes).

These two systems meet in the cylinder, a cylinder is full of plumbing water feed from a storage tank in the atttic, a pipe coils inside the cylinder and is filled with heating water from boiler. Heating water gets hot, heating pipe in cylinder and this hot pipe then heats the surrounding plumbing water.

The heating system is filled by a small tank in attic and the plumbing by the big tank. These waters can only mix if there is a hole in the coil(hot pipe running through cylinder). Back to the two symtoms.

1 You may notice a yellow tinge in the hot water caused by mixing with dirty heating water.

2 More importantly. water will always try to find it's own level, if the water mixed in the coil and the two systems became one. Whichever tank in attic is lower, it will constantly fill trying to get to the same level as other tank. This results in one tank constantly overflowing and water running from the eves of your house. you would notice this.

This is simple physics, Did you notice any of these symtoms.
 
Hi DavyJones,

Many thanks for your help to date.

The Radiators loosing water are on the 1st floor as is the cylinder.

When the gas tracing was carried out the plumber said he found a hole in the coil and that was the sourse of my leak. Coil and Cylinder replaced.

Both tanks are along side each other with a small constant flow the smaller of the two.

I never noticed nor did any of my family ever comment on there being dirty water from the hot water. Which is an interesting observation on your part and nearly leads me to believe that I was fooled into this explanation from the plumber and that the leak as such was never located. I feel like confronting them on this point alone

The tank never overflowed at any stage.

If you have any other comments or suggestions I would really appreciate them.

And Thanks Again

Bedlam
 
If the tanks are side by side, the water level in the big tank is higher than the small one, This would cause the small tank to constantly over flow as it tries to reach the level of the big tank water line. It would do this unless both water lines where already level, which is very rare, unlikely.

Did plumber take cylinder away? if so, can you get it back?. very easy to test for hole. one enter and one exit, put cylinder on side , block one hole with hane and blow through other, you will hear and feel pressure escaping if indeed there is a hole.

We can assume the leak is quite big, since water is filling tank all the time and we can also assume it is on the ground floor, because if it wasn't you would have wet patches on ceilings.

I have mixed feelings about leak sealing agents, as sometimes they can cause more harm than good, however I have used an agent recently that claims to seal leaks of up to 200L a day. I 'll give it a week and retest system to see how it goes. It came from Sweden and is quite expensive (€60). It is thinner(like water) than most sealers on the Irish market.
 
Hi DavyJones,

I would be willing to try the sealin agents as a solution, the alternative being the lifting of timbers floors and going through concrete.

The gas detection option is €650.00 so the above would be worth a try.

Could you let me have the name of the product please and I might touch base with you next week to see how it worked for you.

Regards

Bedlam
 
bedlam i was just wondering do you have a name of that company
PM it to me if you like cheers
 
qouting bedlam
"I never noticed nor did any of my family ever comment on there being dirty water from the hot water. Which is an interesting observation on your part and nearly leads me to believe that I was fooled into this explanation from the plumber and that the leak as such was never located. I feel like confronting them on this point alone"


this is not always the case i personally have seen coils to be leaking and with no colour difference in the water.
i'd imagine your expert is not wrong with his decision simply because he is being paid well for his expertise.
 
kenn said:
this is not always the case i personally have seen coils to be leaking and with no colour difference in the water.
i'd imagine your expert is not wrong with his decision simply because he is being paid well for his expertise.
Click to expand...

You may notice discolouration in water particulary if system is treated with inhibitor.

Since you have seen a few leaking coils, you must know that a classic symtom is tank overflow. See pt 2 below.

Oh, and just because somebody charges alot does not make them an expert. I do not refer to this case because I don't know the details. , more in a general sense.

DavyJones said:
1 You may notice a yellow tinge in the hot water caused by mixing with dirty heating water.

2 More importantly. water will always try to find it's own level, if the water mixed in the coil and the two systems became one. Whichever tank in attic is lower, it will constantly fill trying to get to the same level as other tank. This results in one tank constantly overflowing and water running from the eves of your house. you would notice this.

This is simple physics, Did you notice any of these symtoms.
Click to expand...
 
oh i know that but its not always going to be discoloured was my point.

also in general if its only a small leak you might not notice the discolouation due to the volume of "clear" water within the cylinder.

but if the tank was replaced, by right it should have be pressure tested to prove that he was correct with his descision.
 
I'm very interested in this as I currently have the same problem. Mind you there is an area tiled floor where the tiles are warm to the touch later at night. It's about 1 meter x 2 meters and I think the problem may be down there.
Also, I used fernox 6 weeks ago and is it coincidence that another fitting under the tiled floor gave way a month ago - so bad that I couldn't even pressurise the system. The plumber found this as it was an area that was 'revisited' by him while the house was being constructed 6 years ago. Anyone have an opinion on those system cleaners?
The current leak reads as follows when cold: Tues 1.5bar, Wed 1.1, Thurs .8, this morning .5. A bit to much to ignore I think? Thanks for any input.
 
System cleaner is ok, how long did you leave it in system? you do need to flush it out in 1 to 4 weeks.

The ground being warm may mean that the heating pipes are quite close to the surface in that area.

Have you checked your pressure relief valve at boiler, it would be common for these to let-by(leak).
 
Thanks DaveyJones, the cleaner was in the system for about 2 weeks when this started. It was flushed by the plumber then. Also no sign of water anywhere overground. I refilled the system last night to 1.5bar - just checked now it's at 1bar looks like it's getting worse. Plumber is now playing all this down but I tested and a drop from 1.5 to 1 bar is about 5 litres! I'm getting on to the plumber before I need a liferaft!
 
6 years old. perfect until last year when I had to top it up for the first time.
 
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