Basic detection, $200–$400
Straightforward jobs: a limited pipe run, good access, the leak confirmed and marked.
Non-Invasive Leak Detection
Find That Leak
Fast Across
Turramurra
A leak you cannot see is still on the meter, still under the slab, still soaking the wall cavity. We find them with listening gear, thermal imaging and pressure testing, so the repair needs one small hole in the right place, not three big ones in guesses.
- Licence 368473C, fully insured
- Acoustic, thermal & pressure instruments
- One crew: finds it, then fixes it
Three Instruments, One Answer, In Turramurra
A hidden leak cannot help giving itself away three times over. Escaping water under pressure sings at frequencies acoustic gear can chase along a pipe run; it changes the temperature of whatever it soaks, which thermal imaging paints in false colour through wall sheeting and slab surfaces; and it bleeds pressure from whichever isolated section of pipework it lives on, which a gauge catches cold. One signal suggests; three signals triangulate.
That triangulation is what you are actually buying. Where the readings converge, we mark the floor, and in Turramurra’s renovated homes, where pipework wanders in ways no council plan ever recorded, that mark routinely sits metres from where anyone would have started digging on instinct. The difference between those two points is the difference between lifting three tiles and re-doing a bathroom.
When the tank never quite fills
On a property running tank water, a supply leak shows up as consumption rather than as water, a tank dropping faster than the household explains, or a pump cycling when nothing is being used.
Large Ku-ring-gai blocks mean long lines from house to street, so a single blockage needs a CCTV camera to locate it accurately before we clear it.
A pump that starts periodically with every tap closed is the clearest leak indicator there is on a rural property, and it is worth acting on immediately. It means the system is losing pressure somewhere continuously.
A century of pipework, and no plan of any of it
Many heritage homes still run original earthenware pipes that crack and dislodge with age, letting roots and debris in and slowing every drain on the property.
Older homes are a record of everyone who has worked on them. Original runs, a post-war bathroom teed in somewhere unexpected, a laundry added in the sixties, and nothing documented.
That is why detection on a heritage-era property starts by establishing where the pipes actually go. Tracing the layout is half the job and it is the half that prevents opening the wrong wall.
When a drain leak undermines itself
A cracked earthenware line leaking into its own trench washes out the bedding supporting it. Losing support, the pipe sags; sagging, it holds water; holding water, it collects solids and eventually blocks.
Which is why a drain that has begun to block regularly and a drain that is leaking are frequently the same drain at different stages. Finding it early is considerably cheaper than finding it once it has collapsed.
Irrigation, troughs and everything else on the line
Turramurra sits high on Sydney’s Upper North Shore (postcode 2074), a leafy Ku-ring-gai suburb of large blocks, heritage homes and streets that back straight onto Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. Between the mature gardens off the Pacific Highway and the older homes near the rail station, its drains cop plenty of bushland tree roots, and we know the local ground well.
Rural properties have far more plumbing outside the house than in it: irrigation, troughs, garden lines, a shed, sometimes a second dwelling. Any of it can leak, and most of it is old.
Detection here starts by isolating the property into sections and eliminating them one at a time. It is methodical rather than clever, and it is the only approach that does not end in guesswork.
Damp that is not necessarily plumbing
Older houses have rising damp, failed flashings, blocked subfloor vents and perished mortar, all of which produce symptoms that look exactly like a leak.
Establishing which one you have is worth doing before any pipe is repaired. A moisture profile that peaks at floor level and falls with height points at rising damp; one that peaks at a fixture or a pipe run points at plumbing.
What it costs in Turramurra
Typical first hour, $300–$500
The standard concealed-leak hunt with the full kit on site, acoustic, thermal, pressure testing.
Extended tracing, $100–$250/hr after
Long pipe runs, poor access or multiple leaks add gauge-and-listen time past the first hour.
Hard-to-access leaks, up to ~$900
Deep slab lines and complex multi-storey tracing sit at the top of the Sydney range.
The repair, priced on what we find
Detection tells you exactly what the repair involves, so the repair quote is built on evidence. One crew does both, no handover, no second call-out fee.
The comparison to hold onto: exploratory demolition costs more than detection before its first guess is even wrong. Figures here are indicative of the 2026 Sydney market rather than a quote from us, you get your own number as a fixed price before any work starts.
How The Hunt Runs
Step 01
Step 01
Prove There Is A Leak
The meter test, done properly, plus your bills and history. If the evidence says no supply leak, you hear that, not a bill for finding nothing.
Step 02
Isolate The Section
Pressure-testing the pipework in sections, hot against cold, line by line, corners the leak into one run before any listening starts.
Step 03
Pinpoint It
Acoustic gear and thermal imaging along the guilty run until the readings converge. The mark on the floor is where the repair happens, centimetres, not metres.
Step 04
Repair Through One Hole
Access exactly at the mark, the failed section repaired, pressure-tested, closed up. If the line's condition says reroute instead of repair, you get both numbers first.
The Dial Moved, Didn’t It?
Then the leak is real and already on the clock. Book the detection before it surfaces somewhere expensive.
The meter test, and it is free. Turn off every tap and appliance that uses water, read the meter including the smallest dial, then check again an hour later without using anything. If the reading has moved, water is leaving the property. If it has not, you do not have a pressurised leak, which rules out a lot before you spend anything.
It is the most common way a concealed leak is found, usually after it has run a full quarter. Compare three bills rather than two: a single high quarter can be a garden or visitors, but a steady climb with no change in the household is a leak until something proves otherwise.
It is elimination, not one instrument. Isolate sections and watch the meter to find which line is losing water, then listen along it with acoustic equipment for the sound escaping water makes. Where that is inconclusive, tracer gas is introduced into the isolated line and detected at the surface.
It makes digging a poor strategy. A leak anywhere along sixty metres of private line is invisible from the house and expensive to find by excavation. Correlation between two points narrows it to a few metres, which is the difference between one dig and a trench.
Yes, and establishing where the pipes actually run is half the job on an older property. Original runs, a post-war bathroom teed in somewhere unexpected, a laundry added in the sixties, tracing the layout is what prevents opening the wrong wall.
Yes, and it is easy to miss. A cracked drain leaks into the ground continuously without affecting the meter, without a pressure drop, and often with no symptom inside the house. It is found with a camera rather than acoustics, a different method from a pressure leak.
It is the clearest leak indicator on a tank-supplied property: the system is losing pressure continuously somewhere. Worth acting on immediately, because on a long private run the water can be going into the ground entirely unseen.
Pinpoint The Leak This Week In Turramurra
Instruments, a mark on the floor, one hole, one fix: and the meter finally standing still.
