Thermal Camera

[Acorn1]

My sisters boiler keeps losing pressure. I have checked all the rads and visible pipework, I fear she may have an underfloor leak and she has a solid floor.

A leak detection Co. wants 250 quid a day and said they will do a thermal scan. The dig up and repair to be quoted when they find it.

Will a thermal camera show the leak?

If I know where it is I can fix it for her.

[normalbloke]

Yes they will. Even the cheapo imported ones with a reasonable resolution will highlight the pipework and associated leakage fairly easily. Or you could rent a decent one from the likes of FLIR. They’re now at such a cheap price, that they’re worth having in the toolbox to be fair. Good luck.

[Acorn1]

Thank you, can you recommend one under 250 quid?

[gotoPzero]

You can get a thermal camera that uses the USB port on your phone. They are not super high resolution but they will do the job.

Can be bought for around £150 new or about £80-100 used on ebay. HTH

[GiantEnemyCrab]

Buy good one from Amazon
Use
Return

[595Heaven]

GiantEnemyCrab said:

Buy good one from Amazon
Use
Return

Nooooo….

Don’t do that

[Caddyshack]

595Heaven said:

GiantEnemyCrab said:

Buy good one from Amazon
Use
Return

Nooooo .

Don t do that

Yeah, that is stealing.

[Caddyshack]

Acorn1 said:

My sisters boiler keeps losing pressure. I have checked all the rads and visible pipework, I fear she may have an underfloor leak and she has a solid floor.

A leak detection Co. wants 250 quid a day and said they will do a thermal scan. The dig up and repair to be quoted when they find it.

Will a thermal camera show the leak?

If I know where it is I can fix it for her.

Where are you based? I am near Guildford surrey and have a £1000 thermal spotter. If you walk around the house it can see the hot sock marks that you leave behind.

[Caddyshack]

Also, our pool boiler did this and there were a few pin pricks in the heat exchanger.

[Acorn1]

Caddyshack said:

Acorn1 said:

My sisters boiler keeps losing pressure. I have checked all the rads and visible pipework, I fear she may have an underfloor leak and she has a solid floor.

A leak detection Co. wants 250 quid a day and said they will do a thermal scan. The dig up and repair to be quoted when they find it.

Will a thermal camera show the leak?

If I know where it is I can fix it for her.

Where are you based? I am near Guildford surrey and have a £1000 thermal spotter. If you walk around the house it can see the hot sock marks that you leave behind.

I'm in Poole, that's amazing and exactly my point, does the price make a difference, I guess it does?

Happy to buy one, clearly a useful gadget to have, as said.

I know nothing about them.

[Techno9000]

Acorn1 said:

My sisters boiler keeps losing pressure. I have checked all the rads and visible pipework, I fear she may have an underfloor leak and she has a solid floor.
…

Assuming your sisters boiler has an expansion vessel, have you considered and checked whether it has failed?

[essayer]

It’s worth a go for sure, although depending on repairs you might be better off asking local plumbers, some carry FLIRs and can then do the work

Here’s my leak. Tiled floor, haven’t got around to digging it up yet

[Tisy]

Techno9000 said:

Assuming your sisters boiler has an expansion vessel, have you considered and checked whether it has failed?

This ^ ^ ^ . And definitely this if it's an Ideal boiler. They only last 5 minutes before failing.

[Gareth79]

The Chinese thermal imagers are really good these days, the USB phone ones have better quality images than Flir's equivalent for far less £££. I have a "P2 Pro" but a colleague was looking for one recently and I suggested this one, it's a lower res (192*192) but is CHEAP. You can see actual example images in the "reviews" tab:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005009078777979.h...

After the discount coupon it's £60, and then buy through Topcashback for an extra 12.5% off.

[Murph7355]

Just been through this....paid a good chunk for leak detection...nothing showing. Tried thermal, audio, gas....expansion vessel fine.

Still have no clue where it's coming out...am suspecting a leak in the boiler (despite bugger all showing up).

Bought a HIKVision Mini2Plus v 2 so I can keep an eye on things (and "just because).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=hikmicro+mini2+plus+v...

Decent...though the field of view is narrow.

[caziques]

Where there is a very small leak that can't be located, consider an automatic fill valve.

[DoubleSix]

Acorn1 said:

Caddyshack said:

Acorn1 said:

My sisters boiler keeps losing pressure. I have checked all the rads and visible pipework, I fear she may have an underfloor leak and she has a solid floor.

A leak detection Co. wants 250 quid a day and said they will do a thermal scan. The dig up and repair to be quoted when they find it.

Will a thermal camera show the leak?

If I know where it is I can fix it for her.

Where are you based? I am near Guildford surrey and have a £1000 thermal spotter. If you walk around the house it can see the hot sock marks that you leave behind.

I'm in Poole, that's amazing and exactly my point, does the price make a difference, I guess it does?

Happy to buy one, clearly a useful gadget to have, as said.

I know nothing about them.

No not really.

The tech is the tech and China pump cheap and very servicable units out at low cost.

I bought the HikMicro Eco for diagnostics on my underfloor heating a while back (it appears to be on sale for £130 on Amazon).

It is excellent and sensitive enough to pick up trace thermals from fingerprints etc.

No need to spend heavy on this stuff anymore.

[Acorn1]

Tisy said:

Techno9000 said:

Assuming your sisters boiler has an expansion vessel, have you considered and checked whether it has failed?

This ^ ^ ^ . And definitely this if it's an Ideal boiler. They only last 5 minutes before failing.

Absolutely correct, she had the plumber out to check the boiler and no leaks from expansion vessel or anywhere else.

Told her to keep an eye on it and top up pressure when necessary.

[TGCOTF-dewey]

I bought one last year for similar reasons - to try and track a roof leak source.

This was the best reviewed at the time. It's so sensitive you can see footprints on a tiled floor after someone has walked past.

https://amzn.eu/d/1yqBlqR

[Caddyshack]

DoubleSix said:

Acorn1 said:

Caddyshack said:

Acorn1 said:

My sisters boiler keeps losing pressure. I have checked all the rads and visible pipework, I fear she may have an underfloor leak and she has a solid floor.

A leak detection Co. wants 250 quid a day and said they will do a thermal scan. The dig up and repair to be quoted when they find it.

Will a thermal camera show the leak?

If I know where it is I can fix it for her.

Where are you based? I am near Guildford surrey and have a £1000 thermal spotter. If you walk around the house it can see the hot sock marks that you leave behind.

I'm in Poole, that's amazing and exactly my point, does the price make a difference, I guess it does?

Happy to buy one, clearly a useful gadget to have, as said.

I know nothing about them.

No not really.

The tech is the tech and China pump cheap and very servicable units out at low cost.

I bought the HikMicro Eco for diagnostics on my underfloor heating a while back (it appears to be on sale for £130 on Amazon).

It is excellent and sensitive enough to pick up trace thermals from fingerprints etc.

No need to spend heavy on this stuff anymore.

The one you bought may be good but the thermal sensor will be far more sensitive in a more expensive one and the quality of the screen that you see the image on will be better. For the job that this poster needs then the cheap would be fine I’m sure.