East Anglian Leak Detection
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East Anglian Leak Detection
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Home / Cambridgeshire

From the Fens to the Cambridge fringe

Leak detection in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough

Leak detection in Cambridgeshire often starts with a letter about the meter, a boiler gauge that keeps dropping or a warm strip on a tiled floor. We find the leak from the surface, prove its position a second way and mark it.

Fen supply pipes walked and traced

Underfloor loops tested one by one

Lines open 8am to 8pm daily

Report with readings and photographs

Call 07700 102 008 Get a quote

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Lines open 8am to 8pm, every day.

Cambridgeshire has three broad kinds of home, each hiding leaks in its own way. Newer homes around Cambridge, Cambourne and St Neots have plastic pipes and heating in the floor, fed from a cupboard of valves called a manifold. In the older streets of Ely, Wisbech and Peterborough, brick houses have pipes rerouted with every new kitchen or bathroom.

The third kind is on the Fens, where farmhouses, bungalows and cottages along the droves, the straight roads across the fen, often have their meter at the end of a track. The buried pipe from there to the house can be long, and often nobody knows its route.

That is why the phone call matters. We ask how many metres of garden or yard lie between your meter and the stop tap, whether you keep topping up the boiler and what floors you have. Our engineer Charlie has worked across the area for over 15 years and plans each visit from those answers.

A lone brick house beside a straight drainage channel on flat black fields, typical of the Cambridgeshire fens Pale gault brick Victorian terraced houses with bicycles at the railings, typical of Cambridge

Three typical Cambridgeshire leaks, north to south

One meter for a fen nursery and its house

The property

A family plant nursery near Wisbech, with house and glasshouses on one supply: blue plastic pipe from a verge meter down a farm track.

The problem

The bill had shot up, and the meter crept round at night with the watering off. Two holes dug where the grass looked greener found only dry pipe.

How we found it

With the house stop tap and glasshouse valve both shut, the meter still turned, so the shared pipe up the track was leaking. A ground microphone picked up a hiss where the track bends, and tracer gas rose there too.

The outcome

We marked and photographed the spot, a stride from the track. The owners took a separate repair quote and sent our report with their bill query.

Shared house with a stain spreading over the lounge

The property

A tall Victorian house in Peterborough let to sharers, with four bedrooms upstairs, each with its own small shower room, over a shared lounge.

The problem

A stain on the lounge ceiling kept spreading. The agent could not tell which shower was to blame, and each tenant said theirs was fine.

How we found it

Moisture readings found the wettest plaster under one corner. Running each shower alone raised them only for the second room, and with that shower running, a warm patch grew on the thermal camera directly below its waste.

The outcome

Tiles in all four rooms stayed on. The agent sent the landlord our report, with photographs of the marked joint and a separate repair quote.

Heating pipes buried on the way to an annexe

The property

A village house south of Cambridge with a garden annexe heated by the main boiler. Two buried heating pipes, one carrying hot water out and one bringing it back, cross the lawn.

The problem

The owners were refilling the boiler twice a week, though its engineer had found nothing wrong. Neither building showed damp, and no radiator dripped.

How we found it

A pressure test with the annexe valves shut showed the house holding and the annexe pipes falling. With the circuit reopened and hot, the thermal camera found a warm oval in the lawn, and tracer gas agreed.

The outcome

The spot, halfway across the lawn, was marked and photographed. The owners had the repair done, quoted separately: one short trench instead of the whole run.

Cambridgeshire homes and owners we often help

Owners of newer homes with heated floors

The boiler pressure keeps falling but nothing looks wet. We test each underfloor loop at the manifold, then warm the floor so the thermal camera can follow the one that leaks.

Households sent a letter about their meter

Anglian Water or Cambridge Water says the meter shows constant use. We prove whether the loss is inside or on the buried pipe outside, then trace it to one spot.

Landlords with lets in Cambridge or Peterborough

Many homes in both cities are let, so the tenant sees the damp but the owner pays. We can test with the tenant at home, and the report comes to you.

Two water companies, one rule for your pipe

Anglian Water supplies most of Cambridgeshire, including Peterborough and Ely, and Cambridge Water the city of Cambridge and many villages around it. A letter from either usually means your meter never stops. Their responsibility stops at the meter or the property line; after that, repairs normally fall to the householder, and on a fen farm that private pipe may cross a whole field.

Supply or heating, then length, then the point

1

Split the water and heating apart

First we find out whether the supply or the heating is losing water. Two meter readings, one either side of closing the stop tap, show whether supply water escapes indoors or out. The heating gets its own pressure test.

2

Narrow it to one length

Next comes the stretch that leaks: outside pipe or inside, one underfloor loop or another, annexe or main house. Valves and readings settle this before any tracing starts.

3

Find the point and prove it

Charlie then follows that length with the method that suits it and backs the finding up with another. The leak is marked and photographed for your written report.

Signs worth acting on in Cambridgeshire homes

Meter still counting with everything off

Turn every tap off and check no cistern or machine is filling. Then read the meter twice, half an hour apart. Any rise means water is escaping out of sight.

A gauge that sinks between top-ups

The pressure gauge on a boiler or an underfloor manifold should hold steady. If it sinks again within days of a top-up, a heating pipe is probably losing water.

A warm band across a tiled floor

Bare feet notice it first: one band of tiles warmer than the rest. That often follows a hot pipe leaking into the screed, the concrete bed the tiles sit on.

Weak taps on a long supply

On fen and farm properties, a leak on a long buried pipe can rob the house of pressure. Look for a softer or wetter line across a field or verge.

Three methods that suit the county's homes

Thermal imaging

Suited to newer homes with heating in the floor. Once the system is warm, escaping water spreads heat through the concrete, and the camera shows that warm patch.

Listening with a ground microphone

For long buried supplies across fen fields and yards. A pressurised leak hisses, and moving the microphone a step at a time along the route finds where that sound peaks.

Tracer gas

Blue plastic pipe carries sound poorly, so a quiet leak can hide from the microphone. We fill the pipe with tracer gas, a hydrogen and nitrogen mix, and a detector finds where it seeps up.

Cambridgeshire towns with their own page

Our town pages run from Peterborough, Yaxley and Whittlesey in the north to Cambridge in the south. Between them are Wisbech, March and Chatteris on the Fens, Huntingdon, St Ives and St Neots on the Great Ouse, and Ely and Soham.

Leak detection in Burwell Leak detection in Cambourne Leak detection in Cambridge Leak detection in Chatteris Leak detection in Cottenham Leak detection in Ely Leak detection in Godmanchester Leak detection in Histon Leak detection in Huntingdon Leak detection in Linton Leak detection in Littleport Leak detection in March Leak detection in Peterborough Leak detection in Ramsey Leak detection in Sawston Leak detection in Sawtry Leak detection in Soham Leak detection in St Ives Leak detection in St Neots Leak detection in Warboys Leak detection in Waterbeach Leak detection in Whittlesey Leak detection in Wisbech Leak detection in Yaxley
New-build brick and timber-clad townhouses with solar panels and young street trees, typical of a Cambridgeshire estate

When the insurer wants evidence first

A claim can stall when nobody can show where the water is going. Where a policy includes trace and access cover, check with the insurer first, since some insist on approving the work. Our report sets down the location, methods, readings and photographs, and the mark we leave is where opening up should start. Paying the claim is the insurer's call.

Leaks we trace

Water leak detection Leaking water main Central heating leak detection Leaking underfloor heating Shower leak detection Underground water leak detection Gas pipe leak detection Thermal imaging leak detection Acoustic water leak detection Tracer gas leak detection Commercial leak detection Trace and access leak detection Leak detection for landlords Water leak repair

Useful guides

Boiler overflow pipe dripping outside: what it means Central heating leak sealer: what it can and cannot do Damp patch on an internal wall: leak, condensation or something else? Gas meter capped after a leak: what happens next

Common questions in Cambridgeshire

We can usually repair the pipework as well, including your own water main from the meter to the house. It is priced on its own, and any price we give beforehand covers a repair on the detection visit only. Anything we fit is guaranteed for 3 months.

Look at the top of your water bill: that company supplies you. Broadly, Cambridge Water covers the city and the villages nearest it, and Anglian Water most of the rest, though the boundary does not neatly follow towns or villages.

Yes, and we need to know before the visit. Sealer in the system can stop our tests working, so telling us lets us plan around it. It also helps to know how often you top up and which floors the heating pipes run under.

We can. Tell us where the meter sits and roughly where the pipe goes, and we follow it with the ground microphone, checking the loudest point with tracer gas. No find, no fee on home water leaks does not cover a main over 30 m or one whose path is unknown; full conditions are on our terms page.

An agent or landlord can book. Tell us you do not live there, who is paying and who will open the door. If the payer will not be there, we may ask for payment in advance, and the report is sent once it is through.

Leak somewhere in Cambridgeshire? Ring us first

Call 07700 102 008. Lines are open 8am to 8pm, every day, and visits are usually booked within 24 to 48 hours.

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East Anglian Leak Detection