Buried Supply Leaks
Water disappearing between the meter and the house, traced acoustically to a point rather than dug for in a line.
Home/Leak Detection
Leak detection in Hermanus is a search, and it is priced as one: a fixed figure to isolate the system, narrow the area and trace the loss to a point. Nothing gets opened up until we can say where.
Tell us what made you suspect one. A jumped bill, a damp patch and a meter that will not stop turning are three different searches.
Every one of these can run for months without leaving a mark anybody would notice.
Water disappearing between the meter and the house, traced acoustically to a point rather than dug for in a line.
The system isolated section by section and held under pressure, which proves which part is losing and which is sound.
Hot and cold runs beneath bathroom and kitchen floors, found without lifting the floor to have a look.
Inlet valves passing into the pan. No sound, no mark, and one of the largest quiet losses on a meter.
Losses that only appear when the hot side is drawn, including the geyser overflow discharging where you cannot see it.
The meter readings, the tests, what was ruled out and where the leak is. In a form an insurer will read.
Overstrand Municipality publishes a worked example of how consumption behaves on a property in this district, and it is worth reading as a plumber rather than as a ratepayer. September: four kilolitres. October: nothing. November: nothing. December: twelve. The municipality explains it plainly, noting that the Overstrand is a holiday destination with the property ownership that goes with it, that occupation of properties here is unpredictable, and that a swing like that will produce a deviation of well over a hundred percent without anything being wrong with the reading at all.
That is a fair description of the billing. It is also, without meaning to be, a precise description of why leaks hide here better than almost anywhere else. The single most reliable domestic leak alarm in the world is a person who says "that is more water than we used". It only works if somebody is there to say it, and if the previous months give them something to compare against. On a property with two zero months in it, neither condition holds. A leak that starts in October is invisible in October and November because nothing is expected, and then it is invisible again in December because a jump was expected.
Add the second factor and it gets worse. A leak on a buried cold supply run does not surface. It drains away underground, silently, and the first physical evidence can be a year of erosion under a paved area rather than a puddle. There is nobody in the house to hear it, no floor going soft that anybody walks on, and no bill that looks out of place. The loss is real, continuous and completely unwitnessed.
Which is why the most valuable thing an absentee owner in the Overstrand can do costs nothing at all. Before you lock up, close every tap, do not flush anything, and photograph the water meter. Photograph it again when you next arrive. If the reading has moved and the house has been empty, you have found a leak with a phone camera and no fee, and you have found it in a month rather than in a year.
When we are called to an empty property, that is the same test we run first, and an empty house is genuinely the best conditions to run it in: nothing is drawing water to muddy the readings. Photograph the meter on the way out and on the way in. It is the cheapest leak detection available in this town and it is the one nobody does.
A search paid by the hour rewards a slow search. This one is not.
One figure for the search, agreed first. Finding it faster is our problem to be good at, not yours to pay for.
Tiles, screed and paving come up in one place because the leak was traced to a point first.
Including when we do not find it. What was ruled out is worth having, and it stops the next search repeating it.
Meter photographs, test results and the finding sent through before any repair is quoted.
What does leak detection cost in Hermanus?
It is quoted as a fixed figure for the search rather than by the hour, because an hourly rate rewards taking longer. That figure covers isolating the system, narrowing the area and tracing the leak to a point. Repairing what we find is quoted separately once you know where it is and how deep.
What if you cannot find it?
Then you pay the search fee and no more, and you get a written record of everything that was ruled out. That is genuinely useful, because it stops the next person repeating the same tests. We would rather say we did not find it than open a wall on a hunch.
How do I tell whether there is a leak at all?
Close every tap in the house, do not flush anything, and look at the water meter. If the small dial is still turning after fifteen minutes with nothing drawing water, something on your side of the connection is leaking. If it is completely still, the loss is somewhere else and worth talking about before booking anything.
Do you have to break tiles or dig up the floor?
Not to find it. Acoustic tracing, pressure testing and section isolation locate a leak without opening anything. Breaking in is part of the repair, not part of the search, and by then it is one place rather than three.
Can a leak be found in a house that is standing empty?
That is one of the better situations to test in, because nothing is drawing water to confuse the readings. We need access and a key-holder. You get photographs of the meter reading, the test and the finding without having to be here.
The bill went up but I cannot see any water anywhere. Is that possible?
Very. A leak on a buried supply run in this soil can drain away for months without ever surfacing, and a toilet inlet valve that passes slowly into the pan makes no sound and leaves no mark. Both show on the meter and neither shows on the floor.
Will the municipality help if the leak is on my side?
The connection point is the dividing line, and Overstrand asks residents plainly to maintain the sewer and water pipes inside their own erven. Anything past that point is yours to repair. If our testing shows the loss is on their side of the meter, we will tell you and you should report it rather than pay anybody to fix it.
How long does a search take?
Most residential searches are two to four hours, and the variables are how many isolating valves the house has and whether the runs are accessible. A house with a single stopcock and everything buried takes longer than one where each wing can be shut off separately.
Get In Touch
Run the meter test first if you can, and tell us what it showed. A confirmed loss and a suspected one are two different jobs and only one of them needs booking.