Thread: Finding Wet system leak?

Gday Edddo

If the pipe work is 35 yrs old and you have a major leak then the best way may be to renew the whole system. Not sure on the distances you are talking but you could always lay it on the surface first to get the benefit of catching any water from rains that fall then bury it over time , and at least that way you can have the exact location of where it runs.

i have seen people try to locate soggy ground using a sharp piece of rod and poking it into the ground and trying to find the soft area then digging down to the pipe. I am not sure if 1 of those ultra sound devices would work unless it was raining and the leak could be picked up but I am no expert in how they work.

other option I guess is start digging and follow the pipes along. When we plumbed our old house into tanks I did each side of the house and shed on seperate feeds that way if I had a leak we still collected water , but it was easy to identify which place had the leaking pipe.

good luck in your searching.

Cheers Ean

Originally Posted by edddo

We have recently moved into a nice property on a few acres.
It has 2 dwellings ( house and self contained shack) with a wet system to rainwater tank for domestic supply.
Everything is about 35 years old.
There is water loss in the wet system somewhere.

I know because:

-It can take about 2mm of steady to heavy rain before anything gets to the tank
-If the rain is very light then little or nothing will get to the tank - we recently had 5 mm over about 12 hours - barely any made it to the tank ( that would be about 1000 litres on the roofs!)
-When I checked the where the water level is yesterday it was in the horizonal piping ( it would be well up the header pipe into the tank without a leak)
-I poured 50 liters of water into the header pipe and it dd nothing to lift the level which wasnt a suprise

There is a LOT of water missing. Very confused that I cant see any sign of where it is going?

My first thought is to isolate the buildings ( by capping the pipe) and then test which one the leak is in by again pouring water into the header pipe -at least then I have halved the search.
I have exposed the junction where the 2 systems meet so that is doable - other than that I dont even know exactly where the piping is - only where the down pipes are and where 2 of the lines run around the house.

Any ideas on how to approach this much appreciated. If I can sort it myself that is preferrable but I am close to bringing in a plumber if I can find a good one.

thanks

Do you have any trees or large shrubs growing along where you suspect the pipes run? Roots can do an awful lot of damage to pipes with no evidence on the surface.

Originally Posted by travelrover

Do you have any trees or large shrubs growing along where you suspect the pipes run? Roots can do an awful lot of damage to pipes with no evidence on the surface.

yes that's quite possible - the line between the shack and the house has some large trees near it.

A Leaking 1st flush diverter as in "The best way to prevent anaerobic fermentation from contaminating your rainwater is to drain your water-filled pipes (also called “charged lines”) between each rainfall event so there’s no water for leaves to decompose in. This can be accomplished by installing an in-ground first flush diverter, which slowly drains the water from your pipes. Alternatively, you can program a flow controller to automatically drain the water from your pipes or use a sliding gate valve to manually release this water."

From What is a “Wet” Rain Harvesting System? | Rain Harvesting by BMCo

check your gutters first to make sure they are in good condition and haven't come away and are actually collecting the rain.
Then start worrying about the underground piping.
You can always go streight to the tank from the roof via a downpipe.

Had a closer look at the T junction where the water from both buildings meets and goes to the header pipe.
It is completely rooted and leaking like a siv with a bit of a bog hole under it once I dug a bit deeper. Definitley a part of the problem but not all.
I bodgied it up to catch a bit of forecast rain tonight and we had a quick few mm.
The bodgied repair held up ok and I was surprise how quickly the water arrrived at the tank.
Also surprise how long it kept trickling in after the rain stopped.
While it was trickling in I checked all the house down pipes - all full or at least higher than the tank inlet as you would expect. This is good.
But the down pipes at the shack were empty.
I cleaned al the gutters out yesterday so I know they are working ok.
So the water from the shack is running away to where...certainly not getting to the T junction.
So that line must be leaking on the shack side of the problem and blocked on the house side of the problem.
That leaves about 30 metres of pipe where the problem could be.
So the plan is to
1 replace the T junction
2 cap the shack line near the junction
3 stick something down the exposed line to see how far down the blockage is

I think my logic is sound?

Your plan sounds good to me (don't ask me how I know.)

Are you sure that the shack is connected into the tank system? Have a look at the drainage plan for your property if you have it in the plans. I discovered after investigating the system at our place that the downpipes on the house were connected into the live system but the 4-car carport downpipe went into an underground 'rubble pit' and was wasted. I wonder if your shack may be the same.

Edit: I just re-read your post and your comments about a T where the two building feeds meet. My comments don't apply, unless the T is actually where the feeds from two sides of the house meet?