Unfloored

Another day up at 6.15 to manually make the house warm and the rest of it spent chasing the leak. The cheerful guy from the boiler company came round and installed taps on the accessible branches of the heating pipes. It's then a process of elimination. With the underfloor heating closed off, pressurise the boiler and see what happens (spoiler - it was still leaking). OK, close off the upstairs branch, pressurise the boiler and see what happens (it was still leaking). OK, that means that the remaining branch - the downstairs radiators - was the source of the leak. 

Thankfully, there's only two downstairs radiators and the pipework is reasonably accessible. Sure, it's under the floor boards and under the chipboard sub flooring but at least I knew where the pipes were and the flooring wasn't firmly nailed down because I knew there were pipes under that bit. So up it comes and then I cut myself a little hatch in the chipboard. And what did I find? What I didn't find was pipe junctions with weeping water. No hint of moisture at all. A conundrum. 

Since I had those pipes exposed I did what any sensible person would do and cut them and installed little taps. So now I could cut off the downstairs radiators and reinstate the upstairs and see what happens. What happens, of course, is that it still leaks.

So, if all the branches of heating can be shut off, and if it continues to leak when they're all off, where can the leak be? It has to be in the pipes between the boiler and the taps. There's only a small section of pipe left buried behind the kitchen wall but, and it took me a wee while to realise this, there's another section between the boiler and the underfloor heating and I can see that under the cupboards in the back kitchen (long story, two kitchens) but that's the first place I checked back on Christmas day and I've been back checking and cleaning out the crap and dust under there. But I looked again and there it is - a little puddle in the most inaccessible corner disappearing through a wall. 

So tomorrow's job is to dismantle the brew shed and remove the plaster board around that corner then go get some copper pipe to replace the plastic pipe that, no doubt, some little bastard rodent has gnawed through. 

That just leaves me with the underfloor heating controller to fix.