Leak Detection in Sydney

Start with the meter test: everything off, read the dial, use no water for at least an hour, read it again. If it moved, put dry toilet paper at the back of each toilet bowl, then walk the yard looking for soft or unusually green patches. If that does not find it, the leak is buried or in a wall, and that is where the gear earns its keep.

It reads surface temperature, not water. A hot line leaking into a slab warms the tiles above it, and wet plaster usually reads cooler than the dry wall around it. We run hot water through the line to sharpen the picture, then confirm the spot with acoustic gear before anything is opened.

Usually not. Between them, listening, thermal imaging and tracer gas work from the surface through tile, timber, concrete and soil, so finding the leak shouldn't mean opening anything. The only opening is for the repair, and it goes in over the mark rather than across the room.

It depends on how many lines are in play, how the pipe is buried and which methods it takes. You get the price in writing before we start, there is a $0 call-out on any job you book, and the repair is priced separately once the leak is marked.

The main in the street and the meter are Sydney Water's. Everything from the connection to your taps is yours. If the leak is between the main and the meter and less than one metre inside your boundary, Sydney Water may fix it as a courtesy, and we tell you when that is the case.

Yes. Those are drainage leaks, so they do not show on the meter. We test the waste, the grout and silicone and the wall separately to see which one lets water through. If the membrane has failed, waterproofing is carried out under licence.

Policies differ, so ask your insurer two questions: whether it covers the cost of locating the leak, and whether it covers the water damage. Our report gives them the cause, the location, the method and the date, which is usually what a claim waits on.

Then there is no pressure leak, and we say so plainly rather than keep searching. The water is coming from a drain, a shower, the roof or next door. If the bill still makes no sense, Sydney Water will test the meter itself on application and refund the fee if the meter is faulty.