Why insurers ask for a leak detection report
A leak detection report is the written record of a survey: where the leak sits, the methods that found it, the figures the instruments gave and pictures of the marked spot. Insurers usually want one because a claim for a hidden leak turns on two answers: where the water is getting out, and how much of the house will need opening up to get at it.
Trace and access is the part of some home insurance policies that deals with finding a hidden leak and getting to it. A claims handler cannot see under your floor, so they need the source pinned down on paper by someone who tested the pipework. Without that, a claim can stall. Read your policy before booking, because some insurers expect to give the go-ahead before any work is arranged.
What ours includes
Every water leak detection report we write covers four things, and each answers a question somebody will ask later. The location tells a repairer where to start. The methods and the readings show how that location was arrived at. The photographs let a person who was never in the house match the mark to a real wall, floor or strip of ground.
Location: where the leak was marked
Methods: which tests found and confirmed it
Readings: the figures the equipment gave
Photographs: the marked spot, so others can find it
How the leak is pinned down before anything is written
By the time a mark goes in the report, a second method has confirmed the first. We choose from five: a thermal camera, a ground microphone for listening, tracer gas, moisture meters and pressure tests, picked to suit the pipe. A heating pipe set in a concrete floor and a water main under a lawn call for different tools, so the methods listed change from one report to the next.
Reading the readings and photographs
You do not need to follow every figure, but it helps to know what each kind shows. Moisture meter readings run highest close to the source and drop away from it, which is how damp gets traced back to where it begins. A pressure test shows whether an isolated pipe or system holds its pressure over a timed spell with nothing drawing water, or loses it.
On a thermal image, heating pipes in a floor or wall appear as warm stripes after the heating has run for a while, and a leak often shows as a warmer bloom spreading out from one point. Acoustic findings mark where the hiss of escaping water was loudest along a buried pipe. Tracer gas findings mark where the hydrogen and nitrogen mix put into the pipe was detected coming through the surface.
When you look at the photographs, check that you can link each one to a real place in the house or garden. A repairer, landlord or claims handler who never visits will lean on that link between picture and place, so if something is unclear, ask about it before the report goes anywhere else.
What a report cannot do
A report built on surface readings narrows the search to the best place to start opening up. It cannot prove the leak by itself, because a leak is only proven once someone has uncovered it. That is why the readings and photographs matter: they show whoever opens up why that spot, and not another, was chosen.
It cannot make decisions for you either. Whether a claim is paid rests with your insurer. Who is responsible for a pipe shared between neighbours, or for water coming through from the flat above, is a separate question, and the report is evidence for that question rather than an answer to it. Nor does it price the repair: if you want us to do it, that has a quote of its own.
When you receive it
Your copy is sent once nothing is left owing on the visit. Payment is taken on the spot when the work ends. Card and bank transfer both work; cash and cheques do not. For a business, or when whoever pays will be somewhere else, we may ask for the money first and confirm the booking after that.
If you are claiming, speak to your insurer before you book, and keep the receipt with the report. An insurer or a water company may want proof of payment as well as the findings, and having the two together saves a second round of emails while a claim or a bill is waiting on you.
Using it with your repairer, landlord or water company
For whoever opens up, the mark and the photographs are the starting line. If we carry out the repair ourselves, it comes with its own quote, and our repairs are guaranteed for 3 months from the day of the repair, covering the pipe and fittings we install. If someone else does the work, hand them the report first so their first opening starts at the mark.
Landlords, letting agents and freeholders often want to see where a leak is before they act, especially when water is coming through from above or next door. The report is sent to the person who booked, who can then pass it on. Mention at booking if you do not own the property, or if a different person is paying.
If Anglian Water, or whichever company supplies you, has written about a leak on your supply pipe, the report shows the spot we marked on that pipe and the tests behind it. Some water companies make an allowance for water that escaped from a customer's own pipe, after the repair is done. Their rules differ, so ask yours what it wants to see.