Hot Water Systems
Gas storage, continuous flow, electric, solar and heat pump systems across the Perth metro.
Learn more →Why leaks hide here
Most of metropolitan Perth sits on deep sand. Water escaping from a buried pipe percolates straight down rather than saturating the surface, so the visual cues people expect — a soft patch, a green stripe in a dry lawn, water welling up on a path — often never appear. A leak on the service line between the meter and the house can run for a year without anyone noticing.
What does notice is the meter. Which is why leak detection in this city almost always starts at the front boundary rather than inside the house.
The sequence
Confirm there is a leak. Shut everything off, read the meter, wait, read it again. Movement with no consumption means a leak.
Split the property. Close the isolating tap where the service line enters the house. If the meter keeps turning, the leak is in the buried service line between the meter and the building. If it stops, it is inside.
Isolate the irrigation. Reticulation is its own system and its own common culprit. Shut it at its tap and re-test.
Split hot from cold. Close the valve at the hot water unit. If the meter stops, the fault is on the hot side, which narrows things considerably and usually means copper.
Listen. With the section identified, acoustic equipment locates the escape point by sound. Correlation between two points on a run refines it further.
Open one spot. Not a trench, not a wall.
What we find
Pin-holed copper in a wall cavity or under a slab, particularly on hot water runs in houses from the seventies to the nineties. Failed poly fittings on irrigation. Weeping solenoid valves. Toilet cisterns running quietly into the pan — worth checking first, because a silent cistern leak can waste a startling volume and costs nothing to confirm with a few drops of food colouring in the cistern.
Hot water units also leak in ways that look like plumbing leaks. A relief valve discharging continuously, a failed tempering valve, or a cylinder weeping at the shell all present as water appearing with no obvious source. The hot water repairs page covers those.
When to bother
Three triggers make detection worth paying for. A bill that has jumped without a change in household use. Damp that keeps reappearing on a wall, a skirting or a ceiling. And a meter that moves with everything off.
If none of those apply and you simply have a dripping tap, that is a washer, not a detection job — see taps and toilets.
After it is found
Once the location is known, the repair is straightforward and is covered on the burst pipes page. Where the failure is under a slab, rerouting the run is often cheaper and far less destructive than opening the floor.
Keep the meter reading habit afterwards. A thirty-minute test once a quarter costs nothing and catches the next one early. We arrange detection across the metro — the service areas page has the coverage.
More services
Explore our other services
Hot Water Installation
Like-for-like swaps, relocations and changeovers between gas, electric and heat pump.
Learn more →Hot Water Repairs
Elements, thermostats, thermocouples, anodes and tempering valves — repaired where repair is honest.
Learn more →Emergency Hot Water Replacement
Same-day changeover when a cylinder splits or an old unit stops for good.
Learn more →Blocked Drains
Jetting, electric eel and CCTV for sewer, stormwater and kitchen waste blockages.
Learn more →Burst and Leaking Pipes
Copper pin-holing, poly joint failures and slab leaks isolated and repaired.
Learn more →Gas Fitting
Bayonets, cooktops, gas points and appliance connections on mains gas or LPG.
Learn more →Gas Leak Repairs
Smell gas? Isolate at the meter, get outside, then call. Pressure testing and repair.
Learn more →Taps and Toilets
Dripping taps, running cisterns, mixer cartridges and toilet suite replacements.
Learn more →Backflow Prevention
Testable backflow devices installed and tested to keep your supply separate from the main.
Learn more →General Plumbing
The everyday work — renovations, relocations, roof plumbing and maintenance.
Learn more →
FAQs
Frequently asked questions
How do I check for a leak using my water meter?
Turn off every tap and appliance that uses water, including the ice maker and irrigation controller. Go to the meter at the front boundary and note the reading, including the small dial. Wait thirty minutes without using any water and read it again. If it has moved, water is going somewhere it should not be.
My Water Corporation bill jumped but I cannot see anything wrong.
That is the normal pattern in Perth. The coastal plain is sand, so an underground leak drains straight down instead of pooling on the surface. A service line leak between the meter and the house can run for months with no visible sign at all. A meter test is the fastest way to confirm whether the water is actually leaving your system.
Can you find a leak without breaking anything?
Usually. Acoustic listening equipment picks up the sound of pressurised water escaping through a small opening, and isolating the property section by section narrows where to listen. Thermal differences help on hot water lines. The goal is a small opening in one known spot rather than exploratory demolition, and that is achievable most of the time.
Is irrigation a common cause?
Very. A cracked poly line, a failed solenoid that weeps, or a controller running a station that never visibly wets the surface will all show as continuous use at the meter. Perth gardens run a lot of reticulation, much of it decades old. Isolating the irrigation at its own tap and re-testing the meter is one of the first checks worth doing.
Free, no-obligation