Water burst under yard

[Repeat]

We have just had United Utilities water leak guys in our yard , their losing water on our stretch of the road and our meter is spinning.
Turned off the stop tap next to the farm we put in when we were trying to find a leak we had 5 years ago , meter stopped, the leaks across the tarmac house yard before the dairy and tank room, which is all we use it for apart from the house now the cows are on a borehole.I
It's inch and a quarter black plastic pipe, about 50 metres , no sign of leak.
Anyone tried pushing a 25 mm blue pipe inside to save rerouting and or digging half the yard up ?
Daft idea ?
Would thread some wire down and try and pull it , will friction beat us ?
Washing up liquid or something better.
Any other ideas welcome !

 

[e3120]

It gets tight quicker than you think. 20mm might be your limit. Would that suffice? We've done similar with old cast pipes, but only to get to a couple of awkward places; the bulk of the flow had been diverted a long time before.

Will there be any fittings i.e. narrow points along the way?

 

[puppet]

There is a guy on Facebook called the Leak Detective. Mostly Home Counties but has equipment to find leaks under concrete or patio floors. Surely must be someone near you

 

[onesiedale]

The water guy should have helped you find it. Ask him to come back and lend you his listening stick.
steel rod with a wooden ear-piece on the end, valuable tool to have!

 

[upnortheast]

Is it feasable to by pass the faulty section with a new pipe ?

 

[Lakesdigger]

The water guy should have helped you find it. Ask him to come back and lend you his listening stick.
steel rod with a wooden ear-piece on the end, valuable tool to have!

They ain't bothered if it's your side of meter because they are getting paid for the water.

 

[Nearly]

Divining rods?

 

[Paddington]

Certainly could locate the pipe with divining rods, not sure about the leak, I'm not that proficient. How much water are you losing ?
We had a suspected leak from our meter to the house, Severn Trent man said the problem with the old black pipes was down to them being laid in a straight line, need a slight curve or two to allow for ground movement over the years. Turned out the water loss was not from there before we dug the path up.

 

[onesiedale]

They ain't bothered if it's your side of meter because they are getting paid for the water.

I've always found the lads on the ground are there to help with S.Staffs Water. Always got an eye out for them and their leaks round the village, and they have helped us out plenty of occasions too...how do you think I got hold of a listening stick

 

[Repeat]

Certainly could locate the pipe with divining rods, not sure about the leak, I'm not that proficient. How much water are you losing ?
We had a suspected leak from our meter to the house, Severn Trent man said the problem with the old black pipes was down to them being laid in a straight line, need a slight curve or two to allow for ground movement over the years. Turned out the water loss was not from there before we dug the path up.

we are losing 500 litres an hour UU guys thought so about a £1 .
I am not bad with a couple of bits of bent wire at finding pipes but we have a fair idea of were it is.
pipe was put in when we started milking here in 1977
We had a burst in the three fields it passes through 5 years ago , no sign of anything at the surface , ended up putting two more stop taps in ,then replacing two fields with 32 mm . we should have used 50 mm
Chatting with father this morning, might be some old galv. pipe teed in to house and old byre at the time , we live on a sandstone / sand heap. No sign of this water so far.
I cobbled a new 25 mm pipe into the house cellar when we put a new kitchen in 98'. Since built an extension on top of it.
Might need to extend new 32 mm pipe into garden and mine our way to house stop tap

Will ring UU on Monday , likewise always found the fieldsmen ok , Their land agency department on the other hand,

 

[snarling bee]

How far is it to divert around the yard? I presume that wont work as you need water in the middle of the yard?

We lost £10k water through a leak just below a drain. I suspect pipe damaged when we installed the drain. It wasn't under concrete though, luckily.

 

[Lincsman]

You could try a simple mole thing that would naturally follow inside the pipe, Anglian water used to use them to cross a road... driven by the lorry air supply

 

[Lakesdigger]

I've always found the lads on the ground are there to help with S.Staffs Water. Always got an eye out for them and their leaks round the village, and they have helped us out plenty of occasions too...how do you think I got hold of a listening stick

Lucky for you, they ain't all like that

 

[Lakesdigger]

We have just had United Utilities water leak guys in our yard , their losing water on our stretch of the road and our meter is spinning.
Turned off the stop tap next to the farm we put in when we were trying to find a leak we had 5 years ago , meter stopped, the leaks across the tarmac house yard before the dairy and tank room, which is all we use it for apart from the house now the cows are on a borehole.I
It's inch and a quarter black plastic pipe, about 50 metres , no sign of leak.
Anyone tried pushing a 25 mm blue pipe inside to save rerouting and or digging half the yard up ?
Daft idea ?
Would thread some wire down and try and pull it , will friction beat us ?
Washing up liquid or something better.
Any other ideas welcome !

You can pull a new pipe through the old one but to overcome friction or even make them hole big enough you need to pull something through to split the old pipe and make the hole bigger first. There is proper kit for doing it but trying to find someone with it who doesn't charge a fortune for the privilege is the problem.

 

[Paddington]

A camera down the pipe would show how the water is leaking. We had our main drain relined in plastic after years of blockage problems, not cheap but saved digging up the road.

 

[suffolksmallholder]

Could you mole in a new run?
Moles do a great job if you do three ‘P’s’, and your ground is not full of stones.

I have pushed a blue 22mm pipe up a 11/4 iron pipe in the past. If there are any spurs off you may not manage but 50m isn’t that far.
SS

 

[Exfarmer]

A 50 mm MDPE will have a 41mm internal bore so you should be able to get a 32 mm pipe down and 25mm a piece of P. Unless the pipe has been squashed causing the leak.
I would first try some drain rods through it and possibly consider getting them right through then pulling your 25 or 32 behind
That is assuming you can get to both ends easily.
One thing you do not want to do is to try and force things, as that guarantees it will get stuck and no amount of pushing and pulling will sort it.
Good luck

 

[Paddington]

Our leak was a fraction of yours, yet after the Severn Trent man came out we received a letter to say we were wasting water and if the leak was not found we could be fined !
Considering that there are several water leaks around here under roads and the fact that we were paying them for our leak, seemed a bit much.

 

[Repeat]

thanks for the replies , I will report on progress.
draining rods a good idea

 

[br jones]

thanks for the replies , I will report on progress.
draining rods a good idea

cobra rods 6mm ,200m in one piece