Buyers Guide Directory

Water leaks left unattended can threaten personal safety by fire from water-caused electrical short circuits and roof leaks and can cause significant damage to businesses in the form of lost data and damaged equipment. Clean-up operations and downtime can be expensive, litigious and damaging to your reputation. Salvaging and repairs are possible in some cases but it is typically a time-consuming and expensive undertaking, which is why many insurance companies are now insisting on the installation of leak detection systems. Companies are recognising this threat and starting to make water leak detection a priority. Leak detection equipment may be in the form of water leak sensing cables that can be monitored by inexpensive alarm modules with simple audible and visual alarms, through to large digital networked systems for complex. Advanced digital and electroacoustic technology gives the professional water leak technician and engineer better ways to listen for water leak noises. With highly sensitive electric microphones and digital instrumentation leak noises can be amplified, filtered and processed to assist in identifying a leak’s location. Also available are digital leak locating correlators, portable correlators, ground microphones and thermal imaging cameras are rapidly proving to be a very useful additional instrument in the water leak detection. A wide range of gas detection equipment suitable for many different gas monitoring, and warning applications, can be used to monitor and warn of the dangers from explosive, toxic and asphyxiating gases; for identifying and pinpointing gas leaks in distribution networks; and monitoring the constituents of gas produced in biogas digester plants. Some of the most common are gases needing leak detection and prevention control include carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, nitric oxide, ammonia, chlorine, ozone, and combustible gases like methane and propane and oxygen. Common sensors used today include infrared point sensors, ultrasonic gas detectors, electrochemical gas detectors, and semiconductor sensors. Some detectors are fixed monitors designed to ensure safety within an enclosed or open area where there is the potential for a hydrogen leak, while others portable hydrogen leak detectors for IAQ. More recently, infrared imaging sensors have come into use. All of these sensors are used for a wide range of applications, and can be found in industrial plants, refineries, wastewater treatment facilities, vehicles, and around the home. Detection of hydrocarbons such as diesel, petrol, aviation fuel and crude oil is essential for petrochemical industries, hazardous areas, airports, refineries and fuel storage sites and some companies are adopting oil sensing cables to cover pipelines and storage facilities. Within a laboratory where fuels, oils and chemicals are used there are many hazards especially from fluid processing equipment and supply and return piping which may be concealed within raised floors. Simple and complex piping circuits can all be monitored using a variety of electronics. On a large petrochemical site such as storage facilities and refineries, rain water management is crucial for keeping bunds empty and ground water under control. If oil separators are unable to cope with large volumes of water or fail to filter out any hydrocarbon product, serious water pollution could follow.