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Water leak, a home owner’s nightmare

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I can guarantee that all of us have at some point in the past been unfortunate enough to have suffered from a water leak within our home.

On a number of occasions yours truly has had this misfortune occur, and annoyingly at the worst possible moment or the most inconvenient time.

Did you know that average home loses 14% of its water consumption to leaks, if you’re metered then you are paying for something that you will never use.

Who would think, that failing to give that last quarter turn on a pipe coupling within the bathroom, would eventually lead to a ceiling collapse in the kitchen below. Well readers, this was my first water leak. It started with a very small patch appearing on the kitchen ceiling, I knew there must be a leak but where? After examining all potential sources nothing could be found. The patch remained the same for some time, so stupidly I put this down to something that must have dripped, perhaps during installation of the new heating system a few months earlier.

Well you know the rest, nothing ever repairs itself. Fast forward a few months and I remember the sight that greeted me one Sunday morning, the plasterboard littered Kitchen and a single steady drip mocking me from the offending coupling, which by now was all too plain to see.

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The impact of leaks can be vast, in my case a new ceiling was needed. This meant phone calls, policy details to be checked, getting quotes for repair and eventually getting the repair done. All in all quite a bit of time, ironically it only took 10 seconds to stop the leak. How I laughed!

I’m sure most of you will have had similar incidents to mine, or at least know relatives or friends who have.

Most leaks within the home are due to plumbing failures or things like frozen pipes in winter. Leaving the bath running is another concern, and with teenagers in the house anything is possible. Their ritualistic going out ceremony starts a good few hours before actually going out. Loud music and bath running is the start, ironing clothes, make-up and their hair requirements towards the end.

A common and unwelcome ingredient to the ceremony is the part where they forget that the bath is running. In our house we call this “that ceiling is coming down again” part, well friends, not on my watch.

Seriously I’d love to have the ability to monitor our bath running and be elsewhere, away from this mayhem, that is the going out ceremony. If you have teenagers you’ll know what I mean, if you are a teenager, think on.

So hopefully you’ll have read about the LeakKiller Challenge, maybe you have thought about coming up with a great design and entering. Well, at least that’s what I’m hoping for. I’m sure you engineers out there can help this old man ease the pain and worry of the going out ceremony.

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Favourite things are Family, Music and Judo. Also, I have the ability to retain and quote useless facts, something that pleases me but can annoy others. My engineering hero - Isambard Kingdom Brunel
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