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- School: a hissing classroom and a saturated field
Buried pipe leak under a classroom floor, traced with tracer gas and acoustics
The meter was passing a litre every five seconds and one classroom was hissing. Isolation, tracer gas and acoustic listening found a leak on the buried pipe to a single desk tap, which ADI capped off and pressure tested.
What was happening
The school had received a notice that it had a leak. Staff had also noticed a hissing noise in one of the classrooms. Outside, the external meter was passing one litre every five seconds, and the part of the field nearest that classroom was saturated.
What the engineer did
The engineer timed the meter, walked the site and found the wet ground. Closing the stopcock for that part of the building stopped the hissing and slowed the meter right down, so the leak was on that branch. Tracer gas was put into the pipework on that side of the building and detected inside the hissing classroom, and acoustic equipment then picked up water moving on the buried pipe beneath the floor.
What was found
The leak was on buried pipework under the concrete floor, on the supply to the teacher's desk tap in that classroom.
What happened next
The engineer explained the two options: dig out the pipe for a full repair, which meant removing cupboards, or cap off the supply to the desk tap. The school chose to cap it. ADI fitted a 15 mm compression stop end, then pressure tested that side of the building at 3 bar for 30 minutes with no drop, confirming no other leaks on that supply.
If you look after an office building
Sometimes the cheapest fix is not a repair at all. When a leaking buried pipe only feeds one outlet that nobody relies on, capping it off saves digging up a working room, and a pressure test afterwards proves the rest of the supply is sound.
More case studies
Commercial premises: water pooling in the entrance foyer
Water was pooling on the foyer floor and the office flooring was discolouring. Thermal imaging, a pressure test and tracer gas put the leak under the kitchen threshold, where ADI dug down and repaired it.
Care home: a spinning meter and a soaked kitchen floor
The meter was spinning fast and the kitchen floor was saturated. The leak was too big to pressure test, so thermal imaging and acoustics found it instead, and a second leak turned up once the first was repaired.