so the hot water tank started leaking yesterday. it’s the weekend so calling a plumber would mean serious ££££ so I decided to try and limp through the weekend and then call someone monday morning. the leak is right under the tank, and there isn’t much space there,  so I can only find a certain number of containers to put under it to catch drips. it’s all about maths now (which I hated with a passion) and experimentation to work out the rate of the drip and how often the container needs to be emptied. so far it looks like 5 hours is the most that can be held and still get the container out from underneath without spilling everthing and defeating the objective. sigh.