I would imagine that they're hoping to detect the heat caused by a high voltage arcing across the break. If you bang in 5kV from a Megger BM11 you might be able to hear where the arc is, or maybe set fire to all the insulation ;-)
Thinking about it - an arc across a break would cause a lot of RF noise.
I have one of these:
The receiver is just an audio amp and I think it would easily find the noise caused by the arc. If I ever encounter this problem I'll give it a go and report back.
they use 500v not 5k (5000v!!!)... The RJ line detector on the Ebay link costs about a tenth of the one designed to find high voltage cables....the principle is similar - dumb question: would you use it to find a faulty UFH cable?
Yeah, I thought I put a smiley in.
No, nothing like accurate enough.
Do you have (or have use of) an insulation tester? If you start on a low test voltage and step it up until you get a reading you *might* be able to hear where the arcing is coming from.
update: I've received a reply from ProWarm - if they send someone to find and repai r the fault I might be expected to pay £300+ (and I'll have to deal mysel f with re-tiling the area)....then they pointed out that the sensor's resis tance reading I provided was wrong (that's because I didn't switch the x1k in the multimeter)....so I'm not a qualified leccy and got to pay the whole lot - they didn't say that, but obviously they are preparing themselves fo r a battle. On my part I mentioned that while there are plenty of pictures of a multime ter in their manual but nothing about a Meghometer (Megger) - why? Their ma nual doesn't even mention the word Meghometer (it's implied as an "insulati on test") - is this a case of the manual being somehow obscure and misleadi ng? Surely if I saw the picture of a Megger or the magic word:500v!! that s urely would had acted as a deterrent - so, why didn't they mentioned it cle arly? I feel like I'm being trapped in a very uncomfortable situation - if I go a long with them it looks like I've played into their game like a fool (and a chance of losing a lot more money) - I'll check this whole issue with trad ing standards again and move from there. There is a big fat chance I might just say fxxk off to the whole lot (ufh a nd ProWarm) and use more conventional ways (a trusty radiator).
Talk to Trading Standards. They can act for the consumer against 'big' business. Certainly they helped me.
I've tried....it appears Trading Standards don't deal with us directly (not initially) - we need to report via Citizens Advice Bureaux. It looks like there is little chance they are going to consider my case as the system was n't checked by a pro electrician - the system was running fine so I didn't bother, I was planning to do a complete electrical check once the whole ele ctrical installation was done (not just ufh). All the electrical stuff installed is working fine - only the electric mat failed - bottom line? Don't trust this stuff anymore - they promise lifetim e warranty and one assumes these mat should be very reliable - that's not t he case...
The "checked by an electrician" argument strikes me as a straw man. I can't immediately think of anything that one could do in the electrical installation that could cause the mat to fail in the way you describe. You could make the electrical installation unsafe etc, but that would not make it fail after 9 months.
The physical installation on the other hand is far more able to have an impact - but there is no "registered tiler" angle for an argument there.
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