Your leak detection questions, answered.

Occasionally. Engineers are assigned one property per day and those days are booked in advance. Where one is unbooked, or an earlier job finishes early, same-day attendance is possible. You will be given the earliest date genuinely available.

It refers to the visit. One engineer spends the full day on your property, and across every job ADI has attended the leak is located on that day in about ninety-nine of a hundred. Where the repair is straightforward it is completed before the engineer leaves.

Say so at the start of the call. Water that cannot be isolated is prioritised as far as availability allows, and you will be told what can be arranged and when.

Yes, with a working day’s notice. Because each engineer is assigned one property per day, a late cancellation leaves that engineer without work and another customer without a slot. Changes or cancellations made more than one working day ahead carry no charge. Inside that, the full fee is payable. For a Monday appointment that means cancelling by 9:30am on the Friday.

In most cases, no. Thermal imaging, acoustic listening and tracer gas locate the leak through tile, screed and concrete. Where the pipe has to be reached, the opening is small and in the single location the evidence points to.

For a central heating leak, normally not. Pressure testing and tracer gas testing on a water supply require the supply to be off, and no tap or toilet can be used while those tests are running.

Someone needs to admit the engineer and remain contactable, and every room the pipework passes through must be accessible. You do not need to be present for the work itself.

It is a substantial part of the work, particularly in flats. Access to both properties is needed to be certain, and the report states which side of the wall the water originates from.

Yes, and it is common on let properties. You need to arrange access and stay contactable by phone throughout the day of the appointment. In a flat we may also need access to the property above or below to complete some of the tests.

Access, almost always. It is rare for the source not to be found, and where it happens the usual reason is that the area in question cannot be reached. Blocks of flats and shared water mains are the common cases. Not every leak is traceable without opening something up, and there are limits to what non-destructive methods can do. The questions asked on the phone are there to assess how likely a find is before anything is booked.

Yes. Five million pounds of public liability cover, and accreditation from CIPHE, WIAPS, WaterSafe and SPATA. Every engineer has at least ten years of leak detection experience.

No find, no fee applies to qualifying jobs. ADI’s published terms cover a single leak at one property, losing at least half a litre a minute, on hot or cold feed plumbing, and on water mains up to thirty metres. It does not cover central heating, structural or swimming pool investigations. Ring and describe the leak and we will tell you where yours falls before anyone books anything.

Our reports are written for trace and access claims: the cause, the location, photographs and what was done. Most home policies cover the cost of locating and reaching a hidden leak, and it is worth reading your own documents before you claim.

An insurance term for locating a hidden water leak and reaching it. The cost is covered by the majority of policies, which is why the written report matters as much as the repair.

Leak detection has two parts. The trace locates the source; the access confirms it by exposing the pipe. Secondary or intrusive access is that second part, and it is the disruptive one. Where a leak sits behind a wall or beneath a floor, some damage is necessary to confirm the location and to carry out the repair. It is kept to the minimum the job allows.

Our plumbing and heating engineers complete the repair on the visit wherever the job allows. Roof and drainage repairs normally require a further appointment or a specialist contractor.

No. After a leak there is usually water remaining under floors and behind walls, and it requires industrial drying by a water damage specialist before any making good begins. We can recommend one.