Use a Ferret to track down water leaks
Finding water leaks can be a needle-in-a-haystack job, but a company has come up with a clever way of doing it.
Rather than waiting for a big water bill to land on your desk, or sinking your tractor axle-deep in a wet patch, you can send a Ferret down your water pipes to investigate.
Unfortunately, this one isn’t a moderately cute, furry animal – it’s an inflatable balloon on the end of a flexible cord. Upstream from the leak, the Ferret is connected to the water pipe and its inflatable head is pumped up to block the flow of water.
The head is then slowly deflated until the pressure of the balloon is equal to that of the water behind it. The water pressure pushes the head along the pipe until it reaches a leak. Here the head will stop and tracing equipment can then be used to track down the trouble spot.
The Ferret can be used in all types of pipework (provided the insides aren’t sharp enough to pierce the balloon) with bore sizes from 10mm up to 40mm. It can find leaks down to a pin-prick sized 0.03-litres/min.
It’s unlikely to be something a farmer would buy, though – it costs £7,000. A better bet is probably the £225 it costs for a week’s hire.
