Evidence of Water leak near boiler, but cannot comprehend where from***

[Sirloine]

Hello.

Our boiler is a combi, installed 2 years ago. Ground floor, above stopcock. No general concerns about the boiler itself, but there is a giant wet patch nearby that seems to have quickly grown, which points to a leak. There is no water damage on any other wall, and I have not lost water pressure, so I cannot for the life of me figure out the issue. The wall has begun to warp and buckle, but even the floorboards are not wet - I just cannot figure it out. Really worried this is going to spiral into a costly issue.

 

[Scott_D]

Any pictures of the boiler and pipework.
Could be a condensate leak

 

[moonlight]

Are there any pipes going through the wall? The wall looks like something has been running down.

 

[WC1]

Very difficult looking at a wet board and trying to imagine where the water is coming from. The timber vertical on the right looks like it may have been wet for a while, possibly it's wicking up from low level at right. I'd be pulling up a bit of the lino and / or carefully cutting a hole in the wet mdf / hardboard. Have a careful dig, find the culprit pipe. You've pretty much ruled out the heating circuit (no loss of pressure, as stated) so condense, mains in or dhw out. To be fair, although it is inconvenient, it doesn't look like a large amount of water. Good luck

 

[Chuck]

At the risk of stating the obvious, the board is relatively porous and appears to be standing on/in something pretty wet. The vertical timber on the right is showing signs of standing in water over quite a long period.

You get sort of pattern when the connector to a washing machine (or similar) has been leaking. The drips run down the hose then onto the floor behing the machine and find a path under the floor covering, e.g. around the edge, and into the screed. A few months later, the screed is saturated with water and the base of the cupboards start looking just like the photo.

If this is the cause the cure is to find and fix the leak. Then, depending on the duration of the leak and extent of the problem, it will be necessary to take up the floor covering to let the screed dry out properly and rent a dehumidifier unless you want to wait months for this to happen 'naturally'.

Washing machine connections always make me nervous they can be sound as a pound on installation and still need tightening a month or two later. The combination of plastic components, main pressure waters is asking for trouble in my opinion. Although in principle one is supposed to isolate the machine with a ball valve between uses I have never come across anybody who actually does this in real life.