Advice
Guides for the moment something looks wrong: a letter about your meter, a boiler that will not hold its pressure, a stain creeping across a ceiling. Start with the group that fits.
Sorted by the problem you have
Technical terms explained as we go
For owners, landlords and businesses
Lines open 8am to 8pm, every day.
You rarely see a hidden leak itself. The pipe is under a floor, inside a wall or beneath the lawn, so what you notice is the effect: a patch of grass greener than the rest, a meter dial that moves with every tap off, a damp smell in one room. Each guide starts from a sign like that and works back to the likely causes.
They also cover what comes next: whose pipe it is, what the water company's letter means, what an insurer wants to see, and how to arrange access when you live elsewhere. Some damp turns out to be condensation, and the guides show how to tell.
Finding and reading your meter to test for a leak, smart meter alerts, a sudden drop in pressure, and who is responsible for a leak in the garden.
Most water meters sit outside, under a small lid in the pavement, footpath, verge or front garden close to your boundary. A few are indoors beside the stop tap. This guide shows how to find yours and what its position tells you.
Black figures are whole cubic metres and red figures are litres. Take two readings 30 minutes apart with nothing running: if the second is higher, water is passing the meter, and the gap tells you how fast it is going.
A sudden drop in water pressure is often a problem in the street, a stop tap left part closed or one blocked tap. It points to a leak on your supply pipe when every tap is off and the water meter keeps moving.
A constant flow alert means your smart meter recorded water passing all the time, even when nobody should be using any. Rule out a running toilet or a softener, then close the indoor stop tap: if the meter stops, the leak is in the house.
A water leak in the garden is usually yours to fix if it is on the supply pipe between your boundary and the house. On the street side, it is the water company's. A meter test with your stop tap shut can show which.
The pipe from the meter to your house: leaks under a drive, shared and long supplies, old lead pipe, the sound of running water, and when to replace it.
A leak under a driveway can be found from the surface, without lifting the drive. We listen through the paving with a ground microphone or use tracer gas, check with a second method, and mark one spot so digging starts there.
When one buried pipe carries water to two or more homes before it splits, a leak on the shared length is usually the joint responsibility of all the owners it serves. Finding it means testing with every home involved, one branch at a time.
When the meter stands by the lane and the house is far up a track, the leak could be anywhere on that run. The search means pacing the route with a ground microphone and confirming the spot with tracer gas, at a price agreed first.
Lead water pipes turn up in UK homes built before the 1970s, usually as the buried supply pipe into the house. Lead is dull grey, soft and not magnetic. A leak on one can be found from the surface before anyone digs.
One leak on an otherwise sound pipe usually needs a repair, not a water supply pipe replacement. Replacing the pipe is worth planning when it is lead or iron, has leaked before or shows weak spots. Testing the run helps you decide.
Running water you can hear with every tap shut usually means one of two things: something is refilling, or water is escaping. Rule out cisterns, tanks, heating and neighbours, then watch your water meter. If it keeps moving, there is a leak to find.
For a boiler that keeps needing topping up: leak sealer, dripping overflow pipes, thin microbore pipes, hot water leaks and underfloor heating losing pressure.
Central heating leak sealer is a liquid sold to close small weeps from inside a heating system. It cannot show where the water was going, and it can stop leak testing working, so have the boiler and pipes checked before you reach for a bottle.
A dripping boiler overflow pipe usually means the pressure relief valve is letting water out. Either the heating pressure has climbed too high or the valve is worn. Both are jobs for a heating engineer. A dry pipe and falling pressure suggest a hidden leak.
Microbore is the thin pipe, usually copper, that feeds radiators in some homes. When it leaks, the usual clue is a boiler that keeps needing topping up. The leak can be traced from the surface and confirmed before any floor is lifted.
Both a hot water leak and a cold one make your water meter turn. To tell them apart, turn everything off and close the valve on the cold pipe into your boiler or cylinder. If the meter stops, the leak is on the hot side.
When underfloor heating keeps losing pressure, water is getting out of a sealed system: at the boiler, at the manifold or from a loop in the floor. Rule out the boiler's relief valve and trapped air first, then the manifold, then each loop.
Stains under showers, damp on inside walls, water arriving from the flat above or from next door, and what moisture meter numbers tell you.
If the stain below your shower appears only after use, the tray seal, waste or grout is the likely cause. If it keeps spreading when nobody has showered, suspect a pipe. Testing one part at a time can find it before tiles come off.
If water is coming through your ceiling from the flat above, stop the water, then find the source. Whoever owns the failed pipe usually pays to repair it. Unless someone was careless, damage normally goes on the building's policy and each household's contents cover.
Most damp patches on an inside wall come from a leaking pipe, condensation, damp rising from the ground or rain getting in. Where the patch sits and when it grows tells you which, and a patch that spreads in dry weather points to a pipe.
Before blaming next door, rule out your own pipes, the outside of the wall and the ground. If the damp follows your neighbour's showers or keeps spreading, talk to them early. Finding the source usually needs access to both homes.
A moisture meter compares one spot with another. It does not measure how much water is in a wall. Readings only mean something when you take many on one material and read the pattern, which shows where the damp is coming from.
For landlords, executors, second-home owners, new build buyers and businesses, plus checks after a freeze or a capped gas meter.
A water leak in an empty property can run for weeks before anyone sees it. Read the meter on every visit, check what your policy asks of you, tell your insurer early and have the leak traced before anything is opened up.
Stop the water if you can, photograph everything and report the leak in writing to the developer's aftercare team before anyone opens a floor or wall. They may want to look first. An independent survey helps if their trades cannot find it.
Turn the water off if you can and keep people clear of wet electrics. Then read the meter with the site shut to see whether water is still escaping, work out whose pipe it is, tell your insurer and book a survey.
Wrap pipes in cold spaces with foam lagging, keep some heat on in a hard frost and know where your stop tap is. After a freeze, a simple meter check shows whether a pipe has split somewhere you cannot see.
A capped gas meter means the gas emergency service has shut off and sealed your supply, usually because gas was escaping after the meter. It stays off until the leak is found and a registered gas engineer has put it right and tested it.
What happens on a survey, what a report should contain, how no find, no fee on home water leaks works, and how to choose a company.
A leak detection survey finds a hidden leak from the surface, without opening anything up. The early tests show which pipe is to blame. The trace follows, then a check with a different method, and the marked spot is photographed for your written report.
A leak detection report should pin down the leak's position, name the tests that found it, record what the instruments read and show the spot. Ours gives the location, methods, readings and photographs, written so it can travel with a trace and access claim.
No find, no fee on home water leaks means the detection charge is dropped when a visit inside the promise cannot narrow the leak to one room or an area about 5 m by 5 m. It applies to homes only, on the conditions below.
Ask how they will find the leak and prove it, what the price pays for, what the report holds and when it arrives, whether they repair and on what terms, and what any promise covers. Get the answers before you book.
Yes, a meter test. Shut every tap and switch off anything that draws water. Once the toilets have stopped refilling, write down the meter reading, use nothing for 30 minutes, then read it again. If the figure has moved, water is going somewhere. The meter guides above show how to read the dials.
Ring 07700 102 008 and tell us what you have noticed, how long it has been going on and what kind of property it is. Lines are open 8am to 8pm, every day. Problems that look like leaks sometimes have other causes, such as condensation or a faulty boiler, and a different trade may be the right call.
Call 07700 102 008 and describe what you have noticed. We can usually book a visit within 24 to 48 hours.
