On ground this damp a leak does not announce itself. There is no dry lawn for it to green up. We find it on pressure and sound instead of hoping something looks wet.
Online Now!·--:--
Most leak detection advice assumes you will spot it. Look for the patch that stays wet, the grass that is greener than the grass beside it, the paver that has started to rock.
All of that depends on the ground around the leak being drier than the leak. Marrickville sits in a low valley that was swamp before it was suburb, drained in the 1890s and built over. The water table is shallow and the ground holds moisture as a matter of course.
So the leak has nothing to contrast with. The lawn does not go green because it was never brown. The soil does not turn damp because it already was. People here routinely find out from a bill rather than from a symptom, sometimes months in.
Which means the method has to change. We do not walk around looking for wet. We shut the property down at the meter, prove there is a loss, section it until the loss is on one run, then listen along that run.
The meter tap at the front, clockwise. If it is anywhere near electrics, kill the board before you go near the water. Then call us.
A green stripe in a dry lawn, a damp patch that never dries, a soft spot underfoot. All the signs that work elsewhere assume ground that is normally dry.
This was Gumbramorra Swamp, drained in the 1890s and built on, so the ground here is low, made and frequently damp for reasons that have nothing to do with your plumbing.
So a wet patch proves very little, and its absence proves nothing at all.
Everything shut, every tap, the washing machine, the dishwasher, the toilet left alone, and then watch the smallest dial for a quarter of an hour.
Movement with nothing running means water is genuinely leaving on your side, and that is the one signal the ground here cannot confuse.
A still dial with visible damp means the damp has another cause, which on this ground is extremely common and worth establishing before paying anybody to look.
That is what the second reading answers. Close the hot water unit's inlet valve, change nothing else, and watch the dial again.
Movement continuing points at the cold side. Movement stopping points at the unit or the hot line running from it.
A relief valve discharging continuously produces a hot-side result with nothing actually wrong inside the tank, so check that outlet first.
From there we shut sections in turn, isolating at whatever valves exist, and watch which section stops the loss.
On a house that has been extended and re-plumbed over a century, that also tells us which era of pipework is failing, which is frequently the more useful answer.
It takes longer than a single test and it saves considerably more than it costs.
Water escaping a pressurised pipe makes a distinctive sound, and that sound carries through soil and structure to acoustic equipment on the surface.
Thermal imaging adds the hot water side, finding the heat signature of a leak behind a surface without touching it.
Between the sequence of meter, isolation and listening, most leaks get located to a small area before anything is opened.
A dramatic burst is unpleasant but it is honest. You know immediately, you stop it, and the damage is bounded by how fast you moved.
A slow leak on ground that absorbs everything can run for a year with no symptom other than a bill, quietly saturating made ground under a building.
On soft, low ground that is worth taking seriously, which is why the meter test is worth running occasionally rather than only when something looks wrong.
Not in the dark, in the rain, on the night it matters. On a terrace the meter is frequently at the front wall or in a tiny front garden, sometimes shared with next door.
Find it on a dry afternoon, check the tap turns, and note which one is yours if they sit together.
Learn the isolating valves indoors too, because closing one handles a specific failure without taking water off the house.
Water follows the fall of a joist, the back of a stud or the top of a slab and appears wherever it finally escapes, which on a narrow attached lot can be next door.
So the wet spot is a starting point rather than an address, and opening it is frequently the wrong first move.
In a party wall it is also disruptive, structural and possibly for somebody else's fault.
Before opening anything and before anybody has spent money. A leak in a shared wall is a shared problem whether or not either party wants it to be.
Access to test both sides is the practical reason. The meter test needs both properties.
It is a much easier conversation at the point of finding out than after one side has committed to a repair.
Copper thins from the inside and eventually weeps rather than bursting. Galvanised narrows internally over decades with nothing visible from outside.
In a house re-plumbed in stages across a century, the transitions between eras are where it goes first.
Neither announces itself, which is why the meter test matters more on this housing than on anything modern.
The braided hoses under vanities and behind cisterns last around five years and fail all at once, at mains pressure, frequently while nobody is home.
They are cheap, quick to replace, and the most common single cause of a genuinely destructive indoor flood.
Doing them as a set makes sense because they went in together and reach the end together.
Dates, findings, photographs and the invoice from a licensed plumber. Together those describe a concealed leak and its repair in a way anybody assessing it can follow.
Sydney Water has an allowance for exactly that situation, with conditions they set and publish.
We are not assessors and will not advise on eligibility. We will make sure the record exists and is accurate.
Quoted at a fixed price before it starts. These are indicative 2026 ranges. Detection is quoted separately from repair on purpose, so you are never paying to dig somewhere that turns out to be wrong.
Out of hours. Water isolated, the immediate damage stopped, repair scoped properly after.
Meter test, sectioning and acoustic tracing, with the point marked before anything opens.
Once located. Priced on depth and on what has to be lifted and reinstated.
Arrestor fitted or the loose run secured, so the shock stops working on your joints.
With the location and what was found. Useful for an insurer or a water bill dispute.
Those are different jobs. A visible burst is a make-safe. An invisible loss is a detection, and here that is the common one.
We prove there is a loss and get a rate before forming any opinion about where it is.
The property is narrowed run by run, then traced acoustically along the run that holds it.
One marked point rather than an exploratory trench, which on made ground and narrow lots is the difference that shows up on the bill.
Meter tap at the front boundary, clockwise until it stops. If the water is near any electrics, kill the switchboard before you touch anything.
Call 1300 381 569What Marrickville locals ask us before booking a plumber.
Ask us yours
It is close to normal here. The usual way people find an underground leak is visual: a damp patch that never dries, a suspiciously green stripe across a brown lawn, a soft spot in the path. Those tells rely on the surrounding ground being drier than the leak. Around here the ground already holds water and the table sits shallow, so the leak has nothing to contrast against. Nothing looks wrong because nothing looks different. That is why the water bill is very often the first and only symptom.
By taking sight out of it. We isolate the property at the meter and watch whether it still moves with every fixture shut, which tells us there is a loss and roughly how big. Then we section the property, valve by valve, to narrow which run it is on. Then acoustic listening along that run, because water escaping a pressurised pipe makes a sound that carries through the ground even when the surface says nothing at all. On low ground that sequence is not a premium option, it is the only reliable one.
It means water is leaving the system somewhere between the meter and your fixtures, and it is doing it constantly. The size matters less than the location. A slow weep under a slab in a converted warehouse can do more damage over a month than a fast leak in an open garden does in a day, because the slow one is soaking into a structure while the fast one is just wasting water. Either way it is billable to you from the meter onward.
It is the reason we do not leave them. Made ground that was drained and filled is not uniformly compacted, and a leak running into it washes fines out of the mix and lets the rest settle. That shows up as a door that stops closing, a hairline crack that opens over months, tiles lifting in one corner of a room. If a house on low made ground starts moving, a long-running leak is genuinely worth ruling out before anyone talks about underpinning.
Turn it off at the meter, which is the tap at the front boundary, clockwise until it stops. If the water is anywhere near a switchboard, a light fitting or a power point, kill the power at the board first and do not stand in it. Then open the lowest tap in the house, usually an outside one or a laundry tub, to let what is in the pipes drain down and away from the ceiling rather than through it.
Often, and it is worth acting on. That knock is water hammer, a pressure shock travelling back up the line each time flow stops suddenly. Every shock works on the joints. In this housing stock, where a lot of the internal pipework has been patched into over a century of renovations rather than replaced, hammer tends to find whichever joint was already the weakest. Fixing the hammer is a small job. The burst it eventually causes is not.
Detection is $300 to $600, and that includes isolating, sectioning and acoustic tracing, with the location marked up before anyone opens anything. A burst repair once located is usually $400 to $1,200 depending on where it is and what has to be lifted. Making a burst safe out of hours is $250 to $500. We quote the repair separately from the detection so you are never paying for digging that turned out to be in the wrong place.
Tell us whether you can actually see water or whether the bill is the only sign. Here the second is more common, and it changes what we bring.
Detection quoted separately from the repair, so you never pay for a hole in the wrong place.
Online Now!·--:--
