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Leak Detection in Houston
Plenty of Houston houses have been extended, and a good number of those kitchen and garden room extensions were finished with wet underfloor heating: plastic pipe laid in loops across the floor and buried in screed. A leak in it is rare, because each loop is one length of pipe with no joints under the floor. When it does happen the clues are a boiler that keeps losing pressure, a warm damp patch, or flooring that has started to lift, and the challenge is that the only way to the pipe is through the floor. On underfloor heating leaks the aim is to cut one small square of screed, in the right place, once.
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In short: Leak detection in Houston PA6 for underfloor heating in extensions. Each loop tested at the manifold and traced before screed is cut.
Covering Houston PA6. Monday to Saturday 8am to 6pm. Call Mo on 07988 591331.
Covering Houston PA6 and Crosslee
Underfloor heating leaks traced by thermal camera
Clear price before any work starts
About Houston
Houston's family houses have mostly been extended at least once, and the newer kitchens and garden rooms are often warmed by pipes in the floor rather than radiators.
Houston kept its old village core while large private estates grew round it from the later twentieth century onwards, and Crosslee sits beside it on the road towards Bridge of Weir. The family houses on those estates are the kind people stay in, so rather than move, owners have added a kitchen extension, a sunroom, a garden room or a bigger ground floor. In the last twenty years or so many of those additions were given underfloor heating, because it frees the walls and suits a big open room with a lot of glass.
Wet underfloor heating is laid as loops of plastic pipe clipped to insulation, each loop running from a manifold out across part of the floor and back again, and then covered in screed. Each loop is one continuous length, so under the floor there is nothing to come apart. The joints, valves and pump all sit at the manifold, usually in a cupboard or behind a panel near the extension, and that is where most underfloor heating leaks are found.
When a leak is under the screed instead, it is nearly always because the pipe was damaged: nicked when the floor was laid, or drilled into later. The pipe was meant to be pressure tested before the screed went down, so a leak that has appeared years afterwards usually points to something that happened to the floor since.
Property Types We Work On in Houston
- Private estate houses from the 1970s onwards
- Kitchen extensions with underfloor heating
- Sunrooms and garden rooms
- Older houses in the village core
- Detached houses in Crosslee
What We Do in Houston
Emergency Callouts
If water is coming up through the floor, turn the heating off, close the manifold valves if you can see them and call 07988 591331.
Boilers
The boiler feeding the underfloor heating is checked too, since a pressure relief valve letting by can look like a leak.
Drains
Where the extension has a sink or a utility, its waste is tested so a drain leak in the floor is ruled in or out.
Heating
Radiator circuits in the rest of the house are pressure tested separately from the floor loops.
Common Problems in Houston
A weeping valve at the manifold
The manifold carries a valve for every loop, a flow meter on each, a pump and a mixing valve, and all of them have seals. A slow drip there can run down behind the panel and wet the floor beside it, which looks like a leak under the screed. It is the first thing to check, because it is the easiest underfloor heating leak to put right.
A fixing drilled into the screed
A kitchen island bolted down, a door stop, a new threshold strip or a radiator added later can each mean a drill going into the floor. If the floor was heated, the drill can find a pipe. Thinking back to what has been fixed to the floor, and when, often points straight at the spot.
One loop that will not warm up
A loop that stays cold while the others run can be air, a stuck actuator or a closed valve. It can also be a loop that has been losing water and drawing in air, so a cold loop and a falling pressure gauge together point at that loop rather than the manifold.
Flooring lifting in a warm patch
Engineered boards and laminate over a heated floor swell when water gets under them, and a leak in a heated pipe often shows as a raised, slightly warm patch. Tiles hide it longer. The swollen area is usually over the leak or just downhill of it, which helps the camera.
Who You'll Get in Houston
David is the underfloor heating specialist on the team, and on a Houston extension he starts at the manifold, not on the floor. He closes each loop in turn with the system pressurised and watches the gauge, which tells him which loop is leaking, or that none of them are and the fault is in the manifold or the boiler. Only then does the heating go on and the thermal camera go over that one loop, where the pipe shows as a warm line and the leak as a bloom spreading out from it. By the time anything is cut, he can usually mark the spot to within a hand's width.
Pricing in Houston
We give you a clear price before any work starts. That price is what goes on the invoice. On underfloor heating what moves the price is the floor finish: lifting and replacing a few tiles or one board is a small part of the job, while a finish that has to be matched or a resin floor is the larger part. We tell you what is on top of the leak, and what reinstating it involves, before anything is cut. Where a flooring fitter is better placed to lift and relay the finish, we say so and work alongside them.
Repair the Loop, or Leave It Off?
If the leak is on one loop in a screed floor, repair it. The screed is cut back over the leak, the damaged piece of pipe is joined with a fitting made for that pipe, the loop is pressure tested, and the screed is made good, which on most floors is a small opening. If the flooring above is tiled or a board that can be lifted in one place, that is the simple case. If the floor finish is one that cannot be patched, a large continuous floor in an expensive material for instance, some owners choose to isolate that loop at the manifold and live with a cooler strip, which is a reasonable choice in a room heated by the other loops. Leaving a leaking loop running and topping up the pressure is not one, because it slowly fills the system with fresh water and corrosion.
What Locals Say About Mo
250+ five-star reviews across Google, Trustpilot and Facebook, from real Glasgow customers.
“Our radiator pipe was bent and leaking. They answered straight away… Guy was here an hour later and he was wearing ID, very professional, patient and kind. We just got a new carpet in this room and he done an amazing job on getting little to no water on it. Couldn't recommend enough, price was reasonable.”
Kayleigh A. · Glasgow
Google review
“We lost heating just in time for the coldest day of the year with a baby in the house… When I contacted them they were ready to dispatch that night. Fixed by the afternoon. Quoted that morning and no extra charges were added. Honestly cannot thank them enough.”
Jemma M. · Glasgow
Google review
“As a small business owner, I needed a drainage company that could respond quickly. The team attended first thing in the morning, cleared the blocked drain and carried out a full CCTV survey. All documentation emailed across promptly. Professional, efficient and great value for money.”
Eric V. · Glasgow
Google review
Houston Questions
It could be, but check the easy places first. Look at the manifold for drips, and outside for a small copper pipe from the boiler that is wet or dripping, since a relief valve letting by loses pressure too. If both are dry, the loops are the next suspect, and testing them one at a time at the manifold tells you whether it is the floor. Call 07988 591331.
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