Rainbow are the UK’s largest Damage Management Company and have comprehensive knowledge and experience regarding Christmas water leak safety over many years. As part of our 25 Festive Restoration Tips series, in there were 5 water leak safety tips to help ensure you’re not affected and require water damage services over the winter months, a time of year when lots of water leaks occur in the UK.
5 USEFUL CHRISTMAS WATER LEAK TIPS
During the winter months from November to February, and around Christmas when the weather is often cold and icy, there are various things that can add to the risk of you unfortunately suffering from Christmas water leaks, but we want to help you avoid this, or spot them ASAP to help minimise damage to your home or business. To help with preventing this and to help you stay safer we have composed these helpful tips.
If you are interested in our other parts of our Christmas safety tips series, see:
Christmas Water Leak Tip 1 – Water Meters
People often think of water bills when considering water meters (more on that later) but, other than measuring how much water you are using, they can also help you spot you have a water leak, and tell you how much water that water leak could be using! This is something we look at as part of our water leak detection services.
So how can you use your water meter to check for a winter or Christmas Water Leak? – this is actually fairly simple to do. Firstly, ensure that all your appliances are not using water in your property, and make sure nobody runs a tap or flushes a toilet whilst you are checking.
Then go to your water meter and look to see if the dial numbers are moving. If they are, then water is being used, but because you have eliminated regular usage, it could be a water leak. If the meter shows you are using a lot of water, then it could be a large water leak.
On the subject of toilets, we have a great article about how to unblock a toilet.
Christmas Water Leak Tip 2 – Water Bill
The next Christmas water leak tip expands on the previous one. Namely, getting a much higher than expected water bill from your water company. This too can give you information to show you could have a leak. In fact, your water company may even notify you to say you could have a water leak in your property.
The thing to remember here is that your water bill is showing the usage at your property and so, if it is a leak, then it will most likely be your responsibility, or the property owner / landlord if you are renting. We discuss and explain this further in our article about Yorkshire Water leaks (most of our customers are in Yorkshire).
On the topic of landlords, remember that we are a recognised service provider for the York Residential Landlords Association (YRLA) and help landlords and tenants with a number of things.
Christmas Water Leak Tip 3 – The Sound of Water
Another great Christmas water leak safety tip relates to the sound of water in your home. Hearing water, especially in unexpected places like coming from walls, ceilings or floors can potentially indicate you have a water leak in your home or business. If you hear the sound of water, do not ignore it, get it checked out.
Clearly the sound you hear from a water leak will vary on the size of the leak, the location of it and the construction and layout of your property. The type of sounds could be a dripping noise, spraying sound or possibly even the sound of full flowing water.
When we are doing water leak trace and access work, we use specialist acoustic listening devices to help hear the sound of water leaks. These highly sensitive devices are amplify the sound of a water leak, even very small quiet ones, so that we can hear them and help to locate them. We may do thermal imaging leak detection with this.
Christmas Water Leak Tip 4 – Damp Patches
Similar to our previous Christmas water leak safety tip, is another thing that might indicate you have a water leak at your home or business – a new or unexplained damp patch on walls, ceilings or floors in your home.
If you spot a new damp patch in any of these places, especially if there are other signs too (including some in this article) then make sure you look into it. This is especially the case with a ceiling leak, which can be riskier, including things like a bath leaking through ceilings.
Something that may go alongside damp patches is mould on walls, floors or ceilings. Mould in a house needs moisture to grow and this can be provided by a water leak as can some of the following we have written about:
- Leak Under House
- Underfloor Heating Leak
- Water Leak in Concrete Floor
- Basement Water Problems
- Condensation Problems
Remember, as well as being experts in water leak detection, we are also provide damp and mould services in York and the surrounding area, helping many local customers.
Wall that is another fantastic Christmas water leak safety tip, on to the final one now!
Christmas Water Leak Tip 5 – Boiler Pressure Loss
We all like to keep ourselves warm at Christmas and winter so our final Christmas water leak tip relates to one of the things that helps us to do that, our central heating system, in particular if your boiler keeps losing pressure. This is important because not only can this be the sign of a water leak but also, it will likely stop your heating working, which you definitely do not want at Christmas.
We have written a separate article about signs of a boiler losing pressure and in that we discuss:
- Your boiler pressure gauge
- Flashing lights of boiler fault codes
- Failures in your heating system
- Topping up a boiler system
- Seeing water leaking out
On that final point something that might indicate this is the boiler tundish drain.
Xmas Water Leak – Top Tip
Leak Detection Team
“Christmas water leaks are not uncommon. In fact, if it is cold over the Christmas period (especially if temperatures go below zero) then water leak detection and water damage companies like us will be busy. This coupled with it being the festive period can make it tricker to get a booking fast. So do not leave it too long to get help.”
Other Articles Related to Christmas Water Leaks
We hope you found our Christmas water leak guide useful, here are some other related blog posts and articles we have created recently (including some other good tips for you) on similar winter themed water leak topics:
If you need help with any of these, our friendly and local team based in York will be glad to help you. Their knowledge and experience can help guide you through a tricky time for you and your family. We take great pride in helping our local community, so if you need help, contact us today.
At Rainbow Restoration – York & Yorkshire Coast we are experts in Fire and Flood restoration and in Leak Detection and also Water Damage Restoration, so if you need help getting your property back to normal after an incident, get in touch with our friendly local team who will be happy to help you with this. We are based in York and help find water leaks in York.
You can see our other Christmas tips on our twitter page and on our facebook page too.
What are Christmas water leak safety tips?
Our new 5 Christmas water leak safety tips provide help and advice on water leaks in your home or business over the winter months, including Christmas. We have advice on how to spot that you might have a water leak and what to do when you think you have a water leak. These tips will help to ensure that you catch leaks early before too much water damage is caused to your property.
What are the causes of Christmas water leaks?
Just like any time of the year, water leaks can be caused by a number of things. However, in particular, Christmas water leaks are more likely to involve things like frozen pipes or central heating leaks (because the heating is on more). The disruption caused by a water leak over the festive period can be more than normal, say compared to summer as you are more likely to need your heating and hot water during these periods. Nobody wants to not have these at Christmas!