Leak 1 litre per hour

Green_hopeful

MikeJXE said:

Green_hopeful said:

In no particular order. Our rain water goes into soakaways so hopefully not too much into the foul sewer. It is a really small amount to find as a flow. Kids had moved the jug from the shower this morning before I got to check it so will try that again now. We are on heavy clay so any water is likely to stand. The water meter hasn’t been updating online so will check that again tonight. 

Bold highlight ? you have been checking the actual water meter not the online one I presume ?

The jug under the shower, ?  checking for leaks under things is best done with absorbent paper like toilet or kitchen roll 

I have checked the actual meter to see it showing a litre per hour when no water was being used. It is digital so it doesn’t actually move like our old style electricity meter. I then turned the internal stop tap off and there was no usage. Our meter is a little distance away because we have a long supply pipe. 

The shower tray is wet but I wanted to check whether it is a litre per hour. We had an issue with an intermittent drip on our previous shower and I could see that was about 1 litre over night so not a disaster. Shower has been replaced but drips a small amount when turned off. I don’t think it’s the cause but need to be able to exclude it. 

The meter sometimes seems to have a lag with the online record. It’s still only showing Thursday night. 

outtatune

Have you done this yet?

outtatune said:

Do you have isolating valves on your various watery stuff? If so turn everything off then turn stuff on one at a time until the leak shows up again. Hopefully it's just a toilet inlet valve as that's cheap and easy to fix.

markin

Is it just over night or 24hrs, if its the shower you should be able to see it by just watching it for 10min.

Not everyone in my house closes the shower tap correctly, it then takes minutes to refill the hose and start dripping after being placed back on the holder.

The toilet also runs intermittently, jabbing the button re-seats the valve and stops it.

Green_hopeful

outtatune said:

Have you done this yet?

outtatune said:

Do you have isolating valves on your various watery stuff? If so turn everything off then turn stuff on one at a time until the leak shows up again. Hopefully it's just a toilet inlet valve as that's cheap and easy to fix.

No but I was on my own in the house so I wiped each toilet bowl to check for moisture. I also checked all the basins for moisture. I checked the outside tap by putting a bucket under it and traced the pipe work back through the wall behind the tumble drier. The only obvious water was the shower. But when I checked last night it was only a small amount. Going to check the kitchen tap today because I haven’t done it but you would think we would notice.

Green_hopeful

markin said:

Is it just over night or 24hrs, if its the shower you should be able to see it by just watching it for 10min.

Not everyone in my house closes the shower tap correctly, it then takes minutes to refill the hose and start dripping after being placed back on the holder.

The toilet also runs intermittently, jabbing the button re-seats the valve and stops it.

It appears to be night and day. There are odd hours where it is not happening but that could just be that it’s not getting to the full litre in the hour. As someone said 1 litre and hour is only 15 ml a minute or 0.3 ml a second so quite a small amount. 

GDB2222

Water is only around £3 per 1000 litres. So, this is costing you £3 per month, or so. You could just wait and see if it gets worse, which would make it easier to detect.

Section62

Green_hopeful said:

markin said:

Is it just over night or 24hrs, if its the shower you should be able to see it by just watching it for 10min.

Not everyone in my house closes the shower tap correctly, it then takes minutes to refill the hose and start dripping after being placed back on the holder.

The toilet also runs intermittently, jabbing the button re-seats the valve and stops it.

It appears to be night and day. There are odd hours where it is not happening but that could just be that it’s not getting to the full litre in the hour. As someone said 1 litre and hour is only 15 ml a minute or 0.3 ml a second so quite a small amount. 

1ml = 20 drops therefore 16ml per minute = approx 333 drops per minute or 5.5 drops per second.

It would be difficult to miss 5.5 drops/sec coming out of a tap.  That level of flow being undetected suggests the leak is occurring in a place where it isn't visible.  There was a suggestion (now deleted) that it could be leaking into and absorbed by the loft insulation.  There's no way that volume could leak freely into the loft and not appear as damp patch(es) somewhere on the ceiling.

The logical conclusion therefore is the leak is occuring where the water can drain away unnoticed so the strongest possibilities are -

1) A tank or cistern in the loft overflowing via a warning pipe discharging into a gutter

2) A toilet cistern overflowing via a warning pipe connected to the sanitary pipework

3) A leak below the ground floor draining into the subsoil beneath the house

4) A leak from a distribution pipe in the garden (but not the one connecting the house to the meter)

The only way to solve this will be a methodical approach, starting at the main stopcock and tracing the whole distribution system, isolating individual parts wherever possible.

If you've ruled out all the obvious places, then it is more likely the leak is from part of the plumbing system you don't even know about - e.g. a redundant branch which hasn't been capped correctly/an old pipe which has corroded.

JohnB47

Green_hopeful said:

outtatune said:

Have you done this yet?

outtatune said:

Do you have isolating valves on your various watery stuff? If so turn everything off then turn stuff on one at a time until the leak shows up again. Hopefully it's just a toilet inlet valve as that's cheap and easy to fix.

No but I was on my own in the house so I wiped each toilet bowl to check for moisture. I also checked all the basins for moisture. I checked the outside tap by putting a bucket under it and traced the pipe work back through the wall behind the tumble drier. The only obvious water was the shower. But when I checked last night it was only a small amount. Going to check the kitchen tap today because I haven’t done it but you would think we would notice.

That's all good and you may have done other things but if not, you need to now start thinking about leaks from joints etc, not from the places where water normally comes out.

Sorry if you've already exhausted that possibility.

I'm suggesting getting your head and hands stuck in under bathroom wash basins, under loo cisterns, under kitchen sinks, behind washing machines etc. (I know you've looked at that last one already). Not just joints - surfaces also. Wood work and tiled/concrete floors will gradually soak even that small amount of water and will show signs eventually. (Had a slow leak under my concealed loo cistern for weeks/months and eventually knew about it only when I noticed a big stain had appeared on the ceiling of the room below. All woodwork around that leak area was soaked and I didn't see any evidence of it in the bathroom because it was concealed by flooring, cupboards etc).

So I'm really suggesting to literally look and feel around every water pipework joint in the house. Presuming your central heating pressure is not dropping, you don't need to look at the joints for that, I would think.

I'm sure you'll get there eventually.

Section62

JohnB47 said:

I'm suggesting getting your head and hands stuck in under bathroom wash basins, under loo cisterns, under kitchen sinks, behind washing machines etc. (I know you've looked at that last one already). Not just joints - surfaces also. Wood work and tiled/concrete floors will gradually soak even that small amount of water and will show signs eventually. (Had a slow leak under my concealed loo cistern for weeks/months and eventually knew about it only when I noticed a big stain had appeared on the ceiling of the room below. All woodwork around that leak area was soaked and I didn't see any evidence of it in the bathroom because it was concealed by flooring, cupboards etc).

So I'm really suggesting to literally look and feel around every water pipework joint in the house.

The point is that 1 litre per hour isn't a small amount of water to be leaking within the envelope of the building on a continuous basis.  It is very unlikely to go unnoticed for long, unless the water is able to drain away outside the building envelope somehow.  E.g. via a drain, soaking into the ground below the floor, dripping out of cavity weep drains etc

JohnB47 said:

Presuming your central heating pressure is not dropping, you don't need to look at the joints for that, I would think.

The OP appears to have an open vented system - if so, there wouldn't be pressure to monitor.  However, it would be simple to confirm the whole CH system isn't leaking by observing the inlet valve of the feed and expansion tank.  If nothing is flowing into that then a leak on the CH system can be ruled out with a fair degree of certainty.

Likewise, with an unvented system the 'top up' should normally be turned off.  If it is on then it should be turned off.  That would isolate the CH system as a cause of the parasitic flow.

daveyjp

JohnB47 said:

I would strongly back those saying that one of the loos could be the problem. Had it myself recently and it's pretty hard to detect. The problem was a seal, a known problem and easily replaced.

Try this. Inspect the loo around five minutes after the last flush, when things have calmed down. Get a piece of loo paper and wipe it over the back of the pan, above the water line to dry it off. Then watch this area closely, using a torch if necessary. You may see a gentle stream of water running down.

Not much, just a slow slick running down.

On mine, this was sometimes enough to actually agitate the water slightly. On other times the water didn't move.

Do as above, but to see if its flowing slowl flush, leave, dry off and then sprinkle talc around the toilet bowl which will be washed off if there's a leak.