Leak under kitchen unit, where is it coming from?

RoughNeck

Hi there,

We recently noticed a wave-like damp patch on the side of our wooden kitchen unit. It's grown over time and seems to have peaked now. I investigated underneath the the units and I can see quite a large sodden damp patch on the concrete.

My first thought was the washing machine, but that's relatively new and we pulled it out and tested it and no water leak was found anywhere. We also checked the underside of the sinks and not one drop of water appears on the underside. 

I've since put a heater underneath in the hope to dry it out and find where it's coming from. It seems to be just this area, whereas the rest of the kitchen looks bone dry. We are also getting the effervescent salts on our kitchen tiles where the water can't escape. I've checked outside and there's no pools of water and everything seems to be sound.

Does anyone have any ideas where this might be coming from?  I've attached photos - I hope they help!

Thank you!

Ganga

Well it looks wet next to the washing machine ,i would pull it out and do a quick wash ,check the feed hoses and the drain hose ,i would look behind with a good torch ,you should see where the water is coming from.

RoughNeck

Thanks for your response. We pulled it out, put  wash on and inspected the hose pipes to ensure they were dry and they were. There was also no water on the tiles underneath it either, so we don't think it's the washing machine. Not so say that it definitely isn't though!

money08

Looks like you have all the bases covered so dry it all off and clean it up and check daily over a week. If the machine is new maybe when installing it they spilled water and its now coming out of the sodden cabinet which would have soaked it up from the floor. It also could have still been the machine leaking but has now self sealed

531063

Sprinkle some talc powder around you should see a water trail in the powder

Murmansk

Don't want to worry you but I went recently to a house where mice had eaten the top half of the exit pipes from both the washing machine and dishwasher so that rather than pipes they look rather like gutters or trays! This had gone unnoticed by the owners until I discovered it when investigating why their wooden flooring was rising up as though something was growing under it!

GDB2222

Is the old lead pipe live?

RoughNeck

GDB2222 said:

Is the old lead pipe live?

Yes, I believe so.

RoughNeck

We've also had our new-ish boiler (2 years old) lose all its pressure twice within 24hrs. I wonder if that's related? This is becoming quite the headache! It might well be an insurance job, I'm not sure. I've got someone coming round this afternoon to have a look to advise further!

Albermarle

RoughNeck said:

We've also had our new-ish boiler (2 years old) lose all its pressure twice within 24hrs. I wonder if that's related? This is becoming quite the headache! It might well be an insurance job, I'm not sure. I've got someone coming round this afternoon to have a look to advise further!

Could it be a heating pipe running under the kitchen units ( to/from  a radiator) that is leaking ?

RoughNeck

Albermarle said:

RoughNeck said:

We've also had our new-ish boiler (2 years old) lose all its pressure twice within 24hrs. I wonder if that's related? This is becoming quite the headache! It might well be an insurance job, I'm not sure. I've got someone coming round this afternoon to have a look to advise further!

Could it be a heating pipe running under the kitchen units ( to/from  a radiator) that is leaking ?

I think this is definitely a possibility. The really annoying thing is that we have kitchen tiles laid on concrete . Whatever happens it looks as though there may be some digging involved. A real cowboy has put some of this house together in the past and it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it's due to something they neglected to do properly. I just saw a video on YouTube about a plumber locating a leak in the pipework that was causing a boiler to lose its pressure. So it could be something similar. Granted, we've had this leak/damp for a couple of weeks now and only in the last 24hrs has the boiler lost the pressure twice.