Are leak detection companies worth it?

A damp patch nobody can explain, or a water meter still ticking with every tap off, means water is escaping somewhere you cannot see. Vision Plumbing does Leak Detection across Kent, Medway, Surrey, East Sussex, West Sussex and south-east London, finding the leak first so the repair is one small opening.

Vision Plumbing is a sole trader plumbing, drainage and hot water business, so the plumber who quotes the job is the plumber who turns up and does it. You may want a simple search at home or leak detection in Maidstone: we cover the whole area.

Get a quick quote from Vision Plumbing anywhere in Kent, Medway, Surrey, East Sussex, West Sussex and south-east London before the water reaches another room.

Are leak detection companies worth it?

Leak detection companies are worth it when a leak is hidden: thermal imaging and acoustic tracing find it before anybody lifts a floor, so one small patch is opened instead of a whole room, and the water damage stops spreading. For a drip you can already see, a plumber simply fixes it without one.

What you can check yourself before calling anyone

A lot of leaks give themselves away, and the first checks cost you nothing. A dripping joint under the sink or a weeping valve you can see does not need detection at all. It needs the joint fixed. Detection earns its keep when the water is going somewhere you cannot see.

Start with the water meter. Turn off every tap and make sure nothing is filling, such as the washing machine, the dishwasher or a toilet cistern. Note the reading, leave it for half an hour without using any water, then read it again. If the number has moved, water is leaving the pipework somewhere.

Then look for the signs that point to hidden water leaks:

• A bill that climbs with no change in how the house uses water
• Damp patches or tide marks on a ceiling, wall or skirting board with no obvious source
• A warm patch on the floor, which can mean a hot water pipe leaking beneath it
• The sound of running water when everything is switched off
• Water pressure dropping at the taps for no clear reason
• Mould, a musty smell or lifting flooring in one spot

What you cannot do yourself is find a leak inside a solid floor, a wall or the supply pipe under the garden. Moisture meters tell you a surface is wet. They do not tell you where the water is coming from, and water travels along joists and screed before it shows. That is the point where guessing gets expensive, because the usual guess is a hole in the wrong place.

How a leak is found without lifting the floor

Non-destructive leak detection is a process of narrowing down, and the order matters.

• Confirm and isolate. We confirm the loss on the meter, then shut sections of pipework off to work out whether it is on the hot side, the cold side or the supply pipe coming in from the water main.
• Scan with thermal imaging. A leaking hot pipe shows as a warm trace through floors and walls, so the camera follows the run and picks out heat spreading where it should not.
• Listen with acoustic tracing. Water escaping under pressure makes a sound, hot or cold. Acoustic equipment picks it up through concrete, screed and soil, and the noise is loudest directly over the leak.
• Mark the spot. The two methods are cross-checked so one position is marked, not a general area.
• Open one small patch and repair. The leak repair goes in through a small opening, and the meter is checked again to prove the loss has stopped.

The point of all this is water damage prevention as much as finding a pipe. Every day a hidden leak runs, water soaks further into plaster, timber and insulation. The repair to the building grows while the repair to the pipe stays the same size. Finding it early is what keeps a small job small.

The person who does the search is the person who does the repair: Norbert quotes the job and turns up to do it with his own thermal imaging and acoustic kit, and the work carries a one year warranty on parts and labour. Whether you want a one-off leak detection visit or a leak traced in Royal Tunbridge Wells, we cover the whole area, and the visit runs the same everywhere.

Common mistakes that make a leak cost more

• Waiting for it to show. By the time water stains a ceiling, it has usually been running for a while. A moving meter is reason enough to act.
• Opening up to have a look. Lifting a floor or chasing a wall on a hunch is the most destructive way to search, and water rarely surfaces directly above the leak.
• Trusting a damp reading alone. A wet wall can be condensation, rain getting in or a pipe. A reading on its own does not tell you which.
• Forgetting the insurance policy. Many home policies include trace and access cover, which can help with finding the leak and making good. Ring your insurer before work starts and ask what they need from you, such as a written account of where the leak was and what was done.
• Assuming the outside pipe is somebody else's problem. The supply pipe between your boundary and the house is usually the owner's responsibility, and a leak there can run unseen under a drive or lawn for months.
• Treating gas the same way as water. We can locate a gas leak, but locating is all we do. A located gas leak is handed to a registered gas engineer on the Gas Safe Register, who carries out any repair. If you smell gas, leave the property and call the gas emergency line first.

The last misconception is that detection is only worth it for big houses or big leaks. Where the leak sits matters more than its size. A slow drip inside a solid floor can do more harm than a burst you can see, because nobody notices it. You may need a single search or regular leak detection in Sevenoaks for a let property: we cover the whole area, and a quote follows a short conversation about what you are seeing.