Anyone bought an inexpensive Endoscope type camera?

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

Not for my bike. I have a small yet persitsant wet patch on our lounge ceiling, directly above is the bath corner.

A local plumber investigated, he diagnosed it was caused by a leak on the bath/shower area that he videoed. Leak has not been fully cured by the plumber, he fixed the bath seal leak, obviously two leaks. I had a free second visit when some additional sealing was done on a small section.

Leak appeared to be fixed, it has returned after a couple of days, it's linked to when the shower is used, it's not any of the shower pipework or joints. all bone dry. The leak appears to go away for a few days then return, consistent with maybe a copper pipe leaking at a compression fitting or similar.

I made a small hole in the center of the wet patch to avoid more of the ceiling being affected. I suspect it might be the hot water pipe that is in the cavity between the floor boards & the lounge ceiling.

Has anyone here used one of the inexpensie Endescoppe cameras that have a built in LED lamp?
I'm thinking I need to check this out myself before I start cutting a bigger hole in the ceiling.
This wet patch started in late summer 2024 then seemed to hibernate until just before Christmas when it returned.
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1 by Macabe Thiele, on Flickr2 by Macabe Thiele, on Flickr3 by Macabe Thiele, on Flickr

[taysidedragon]

We had a leak like that below the bathroom. It was hard to track down but turned out to be a longitudinal split in the plastic waste water pipe that only leaked when hot water from bath or shower made the pipe expand.

[DomP]

I had a £6ish quid one that plugged into my phone, it had a light in the end that was adjustable for brightness.   Pretty decent for six quid.  I lost it somewhere, probably hanging out with the side cover grommets😃

[DomP]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/375922197304?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=25y29mqtrb6&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=Y0YDXM_4R0-&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

This was it

[Oddjob]

I’d suspect a leak around the shower myself Ted, if the pipes look dry and it only leaks when the showers used then it’s most likely running down the side of the shower tray/bath and running to the lowest point before dripping down.

[ST1100]

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0D95GJ7LD?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1&th=1
Picked that one recently, below € 20,-, serves well, stores snapshot right on the phone...

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

I’d suspect a leak around the shower myself Ted, if the pipes look dry and it only leaks when the showers used then it’s most likely running down the side of the shower tray/bath and running to the lowest point before dripping down.

The shower is at the far end of the bath with a folding screen. It's bone dry on all the fittings and on the underside of the pipes. I've put foil trays just about everywhere, all dry since the bath was finally sealed correctly. I visited a friend last night, his daughter's boyfriend has an Endoscope. It looks like a free borrow might be a prospect. Luckily it's a few drips every few days so not a flood risk!

[Johnny4428]

So annoying Ted! Access to sort the drip once you find the source can be challenging, don’t need to tell you that of course. Hope you get it sorted.

[K2-K6]

Once called by a friend as I have heat /soldering kit, leak in ceiling of entrance hall,,  bathroom above, there was a nail through floor board and into top side of copper pipe !

This from original construction some 11 yrs prior to leak. Never disturbed, sealed fine until that point with a bit of flex from treading on bathroom floor got it fretting a bit.

Soldered in situ, only a small job to fix it, fortunately not a tiled floor.

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

So annoying Ted! Access to sort the drip once you find the source can be challenging, don’t need to tell you that of course. Hope you get it sorted.

Challenging indeed, I've managed to find a photograph of the suspect pipe(s) taken when our house was pretty much stripped out after the fire in Nov 2017. The photo taken on March 2018 shows the suspect pair of pipes in the center of photo. You can see the green oxidation in the photos, it's the other end of this pair of pipes (out of shot) I think that might be the problem area. I have hundreds of photos to trawl through so if I find the other end of the pipe I will post it. During the strip  down and re-build I took photos almost every day to chart the progress after the fire. Some photos I had to delete as Wendy found them too ditressing to view. I have a back up hard drive that I am accessing to find this one.
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Water tank  pipes near  RSJ 4th March 2018 by Macabe Thiele, on Flickr

[Athame57]

Not for my bike. I have a small yet persitsant wet patch on our lounge ceiling, directly above is the bath corner.

I had a similar issue with a bath causing a leak above, the plaster finally fell through with a crump, this was in a shared house I rented a room in.
The problem was the bath above sinking on it's wooded frame and leaving a long thin gap between the bath and the wall that was hard to notice. I could just picture the bath finally crashing through cieling with nude occupant!  The problem was there was also shower head with a longish hose so those who preffered to shower were able to, but they caused a film of  H2O to pass down the wall to the floor and leak through. 
Could it be the shower floor is mounted on an ailing wooden frame causing a bit of sag as well?

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

I fitted a new bathroom  suite in 2003 when I was relatively fit.
I had our bath replaced by a  professional in 2015/6 for a low threshold version as Wendy was struggling to get into the bath before she had a hip replacement. The frame that holds the bath is steel, the wooden frame at the front just secures the panel.

Oddly enough the same firm attended today to give me a quotation for fitting a new boiler, plus as a sperate  quote for taking out the bath and fitting a shower only. I didn't bring the leak into the conversation as it had not leaked since Tuesday.

[Athame57]

Oddly enough the same firm attended today to give me a quotation for fitting a new boiler, plus as a sperate  quote for taking out the bath and fitting a shower only.

Do you know you can get shower units that have a waterproof bench for people who want to shower sat down?

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

Yep, you can also have a fold away stool so able bodied folk can still use the shower.👍

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

Turns out I had three separate water leaks, poor bath seal, drips from the wash basin waste pipe elbow, after fixing these two, I was leak free for about 4 days, then it came back with vengance.

I bought a little Endescope off ebay, poked it up the small hole I made in our lounge ceiling, after a couple of poor videos I found the source. Not a leaking pipe or joint but a leak from the body of the power shower pump unit.

Luckily the feed to the pump has two isolation valves (H&C) switched off now except when having a shower, steps in hand to replace the pump. In truth this was the main source of the water staining/leak..