Prevent Expensive Damage - Five Ways to Detect Leaks

If you detect leaks in your plumbing system, you need to investigate quickly. Leaving leaks undetected, and unattended, will prove to be wasteful and can eventually corrode your pipes or it can cause major damage. Water leaks can cause damage to your home appliances, such as washing machines, dishwashers and toilets.

1 – Listening Carefully

Turn off the water supply that provides water to your home appliances and other fixtures, even the water hose and sprinklers that you might have in the garden. Then, listen carefully for leaking or dripping water. If you hear the leaking continue, look for the leak and fix it quickly.

2 – Checking the Water Meter

Another tip for detecting leaks is to check the water meter. It looks like a plastic box located on the ground. If you live in an apartment, then this should be located on one of the sides. If you see that the digits of the water meter are moving and the number is getting higher, even if the water fixtures and home appliances are not turned on, then you have a water leak.

3 – Using a Radar

A radar is highly recommended if you think that the leak is coming from outside. It will help you find the exact point where the leak is and show you whether the problem is a small or large one. A radar sends waves that move through many types of material and sends signal back to the machine. A special instrument is used to perceive the returning radar waves and by the strength of the waves and the time taken for it to come back, you will know what type of material the wave had reached.

4 – Filling the Water Pipe With Gas

Gas is efficient in detecting leaks in an indoor environment and when you have easy access to the water pipes. A pipe is tested for leaks by being filled with a particular gas, which is industrial hydrogen, and you will keep track of the movement of the gas through a special device which is sensitive to that gas. The gas usually moves at a high pressure so whenever it detects a leak, the device will find it immediately because it will sense the gas leaking from the point of the water leak.

Even though it is more used for indoor pipes, this leak-detecting tip can be done for pipes on the outside as well. Outdoor leads, however, require underground pipes, and if it is too deep, the detector’s signal will be too weak.

5 – Utilizing a Geophone

The main function of a geophone is somewhat similar to that of a stethoscope, an instrument that doctors use very often. In case of a leak, a geophone will detect the leak through the sound and it will then amplify that sound so that you will detect the sound yourself when you listen carefully for underground movement. However, if the leak is very large, then the geophone will not find it easily because water can leak from a large hole without making a loud noise.