How to tell
Signs of a leak onthe supply.
Four signs that separate a supply leak from any other damp.
01
The meter turns with nothing on
Shut every tap, the washing machine and the heater, then go and look at the water meter. If the small dial is still turning while nothing is running, water is leaving between the meter and the house.
02
One tile joint stays wet
A joint between two tiles dries and comes back wet on its own, with no water anywhere near it. That joint is the weakest opening in the floor, so it is where water in the bedding surfaces first.
03
Paint lifts and plaster crumbles
Paint bubbling or plaster crumbling at roughly one height along a wall points to a pipe inside it, because the moisture spreads sideways along the line the pipe runs on.
04
Pressure dropped upstairs only
If the pressure drops on the top floor while the ground floor is normal, the loss is usually on the riser. Water leaving it takes away whatever reaches the furthest point in the network.
Service card
The service, in a line.
Service
Water leak detection on the house supply
Where it applies
Houses, flats, blocks, complexes and shops
Lines covered
Cold, hot, tank feed and pump lines
Method
Valve isolation, a meter watch, and listening at fittings
What you get
A marked point on the floor and the line it sits on
Hours
Daily, 6:00 in the morning to 12:00 midnight
The method
How we get to thepoint.
Four steps, and the order is what keeps the job short.
We confirm there is a loss
We shut everything in the house that uses water, take a meter reading, then take it again. If the reading has moved, the loss is real.
We split inside from outside
We close the valve feeding the house and read again. That says whether the water is going inside the internal network or on the run coming from the tank or the meter.
We narrow it to one line
We close the bathroom, kitchen and hot water valves one at a time. The one that stops the reading is the line that is leaking.
We listen and mark the spot
On the line we found, we listen at its fittings and over the floor above it, then mark the loudest point on the tile in front of you.
Inside the wall
What actually fails ona supply line.
The water supply in a house is not one pipe but a network: a cold run in from the meter or the tank, a hot run out of the heater, a branch to every bathroom and kitchen, and a fitting at every change of direction. Leaks start at the fittings far more often than in the middle of a pipe, because a fitting is the only place where the material or the direction changes.
Most of that network sits under the tiles or inside the walls, with bedding, render and paint over it. So the first thing that reaches you is never the water itself, it is the evidence: damp, bubbling paint, a tile that sounds hollow when you tap it, and a bill that is higher with nothing to explain it.
A fitting does not let go all at once. Hot water expands the copper or the plastic and lets it shrink back every time the heater runs, and that cycle repeats daily. A joint that was never pulled up properly starts to weep, and the pressure opens it further from there. That is why we start on the hot side when the damp is near a bathroom or the heater.
The mistake we see most is breaking open the wet patch. Water in the bedding runs with the fall until it finds a way out, and that way out can be in another room. Open the patch and you find soaked bedding and a sound pipe, with tiles lost and nothing solved. The order is what matters: the line first, then the point, and only then does anything get opened.
External links for referenceMinistry of Electricity and Water (water meters and supply)
Questions
Asked about thesupply line.
You can do one step. Shut everything that uses water, take a meter reading, and read it again later with nobody using anything. If the number moved, you have a loss. Tell us that on the call and it saves half the work.
A supply line is pressurised, so it leaks constantly, moves the meter and makes a sound. A drain has no pressure, so it only leaks while water is running through it and never touches the meter. If the damp only grows after a shower, the drain is the suspect.
Yes. Pipe leaks and pipe runs are part of the plumbing and sanitary work we do. The detection says where and which line, and the repair happens at that same point instead of across the house.
It can. A fitting that was not tightened properly during first fix starts to weep from the first time the line is charged, and it often only shows once the render has dried and the mark comes through the paint. A new house is no exemption.
It is normal. Water travels through the bedding under the tiles and comes up at the lowest opening it finds, not directly above the break. So we follow the line itself from the bathroom towards the damp, rather than starting at the patch.