Here’s What You Do if You Have a Major Leak in your Home

The problem with leaks is that you never really know that you have one until it becomes severe enough to cause damage to your home. This can cause you major issues if you don’t get it sorted out as soon as you can, not to mention that it can also decrease the value of your property as well.

Detection

Just because you see a damp patch or even moisture marks in your property, does not mean that you have a leak in that location. Water has the ability to travel along roofing beams, down light fixtures and even across flat surfaces. For this reason, you need to make sure that you locate the leak before you take the steps in making the repair. It may be possible for you to do a pressure test or even a dye test to try and find out where the leak is coming from. If you need to hire a plumber, then it may be worth asking them about using a thermal imaging camera. This can help you to detect any leaks in the wall or even underneath the floor.

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Repair

Before you do anything else, you need to focus on stopping the leak. You can put buckets

underneath the leak to try and stop it from damaging your home even more, or you can even try and dry off the area as much as you can so you can see what you are doing. Either way, fixing the leak should be your first priority. It may be something such as a split washer or even a burst pipe. If this is the case then it is well worth you looking into malleable iron pipe fittings as these are very easy to replace if you have some basic DIY knowledge.

Drying

With any leak, some amount of drying will be required. If the leak is minor then you may be able to invest in a cheap dehumidifying system to speed up the process. This can stop the damages from getting even worse and it can also help you to prevent mould growth as well. If you have experienced major damage, then you may have to strip out some of the wall or even use specialist drying equipment.  This will help to extract any moisture from the walls and the floor.

Restoration

Once everything is dry and the leak has been stopped, you can then focus on getting to work on the cleaning, sanitising and restoration of any damages. You may just need to apply new wallpaper or in some instances, you may need to re-plaster. If you have any structural floor timber such as joists, then these may be damaged as well. If this is the case then they will slowly rot away, so it is important that you deal with damages like this early on before they cost you even more in the future. Some basic reinforcement may be all you need to fix the issue now, but if you leave it then you may end up replacing the full joist and this is a huge undertaking.