Which Methods Will My Visit Use? Symptom Checker

What the checker does

Four questions: the main sign, which water you think it is, what surface it shows through, and whether it only appears after a shower, bath or basin is used. From the answers it lists the methods that usually suit that combination, with one line on what each is for.

It is a guide to how a search tends to run, not a diagnosis. The engineer reads the building on the day and may leave a method out or add one. The point of the tool is to take away a worry, which is that a long list of techniques means a long bill. Here one fixed price of £480, every method included, agreed before we attend. No VAT is charged.

The methods in the list

Every method the checker can return is one of these eight. Each does a different job, which is why a visit seldom relies on one alone.

• Moisture mapping: finds where a surface is wettest, so the search starts at the centre of the damp.
• Thermal imaging: shows temperature differences across a surface and helps follow warm or cool water.
• Acoustic listening: hears the sound pressurised water makes as it escapes and narrows the pipe run.
• Pressure testing: isolates a circuit to see whether it holds pressure.
• Tracer gas: a harmless gas mixture in an emptied pipe that a detector finds at the leak.
• Endoscope: a small camera through an opening, to look into a void without opening it up.
• Dye testing: a harmless dye to see whether a bath, tray, basin or seal is the source.
• Trace and access: following the leak to its source. Tracing is in the visit; opening the structure to reach the pipe is quoted separately.

Why the answers change the list

A stain on a ceiling and a meter that moves with nothing visible call for different first steps. A stain is a surface clue (the guide on whether you need a survey at all covers the earlier question), so mapping and imaging come early. A moving meter with no stain is a pipe problem, so listening and pressure testing come early.

The surface matters too. A solid floor hides the pipe and softens the sound, so tracer gas is more likely to be needed, as the page on finding a leak in a concrete floor explains. A timber floor or a ceiling void can often be looked into with a camera. Heating and hot water pipes carry heat that imaging can follow, which is why those answers bring imaging forward.

The last question separates leaks from pipes and leaks from fittings. Water that only shows after a shower may be a seal or a tray, so a dye test comes first and is quick.

What the checker cannot tell you

It cannot say what is wrong, where it is or how long it will take. It gives no accuracy figure for any method, because that depends on the building. It does not see the pipework.

It also cannot decide what happens after the leak is found. The repair itself, opening up and making good, commercial or multi-unit buildings, and underground work that needs a different set-up are quoted separately, in writing, before any work starts. Repair work is quoted separately in writing before it starts, as one fixed price with labour, parts and materials set out. For the full written scope read what is included and the pricing page.