Let's face it - having to find leaks in your water utility's supply network can be a huge pain. You think you've got it located, spend a lot of time and effort digging up the location to find - nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. This is not the location you're looking for. Fortunately, modern technology gives us a new way to look for leaks in your water supply system that uses science to cut out the guesswork and make finding an accurate location much easier. Correlation technology uses sound to determine the location. Here's a quick overview of how it works to help you get started.
When water starts to leak out of your water system, it makes noise. This noise can be used to help pinpoint the exact location of the leak in your system with very little effort on your part. Two microphones or sensors are placed on top of the water line, and the difference between the sound produced by the leaking water helps you determine where the leak is located. Adding correlation technology makes the process even more accurate, however.
Why Correlation Technology
Why correlation? Past systems that have sometimes proven to be inaccurate. Differences in manufacturer can create very strong differences in sound velocity, which can impact testing results, 
even in pipes of roughly the same material and internal diameter. However, it may be possible to use multiple measurement points to improve the accuracy of the calculation used to determine the location of the leak. For this reason, correlation provides a better degree of accuracy than ever before possible.
In the field, if you depend solely on sound velocity tables, you'll run across inaccuracies. This is partially due to different or unknown pipe types, field conditions and other lack of knowledge about the system makes it difficult to gain a single accurate measurement. For that reason, you'll receive more accurate results through multi-point correlation of your leak location. But the same limitations apply, whereby if a section of pipe has been repaired or replaced, the pipe is no longer uniform and determining an exact location becomes much more difficult.
Using Correlation Technology
Using correlation technology to find leaks in your water utility's supply system helps make the process much easier, lowering your overall expense and effort in the process. However, it can still be a very difficult process fraught with issues that you may not appreciate at the beginning of the leak location process. It requires significant investment in machinery and training to get your crew up to speed to be able to use the equipment effectively and efficiently, but once trained, can lead to much faster location of leaks and breaks in your water supply lines.
But what if you don't want to invest the time in training or the expense of the equipment? Fortunately, you still have a world of options available beyond spending a lot of time and money in the process. Team EJP makes the process of finding leaks in your water supply much easier through our leak locating service, where our professionally-trained team brings our own equipment in to find the leak. Please feel free to contact us today for more information, with any questions or to get started.
