Found with equipment rather than by opening walls, starting with the two-minute test at your meter that tells you whether the water is leaving on your side at all.
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Before anybody drives anywhere, there is a test worth two minutes of your time. Turn off every tap, the washing machine and the dishwasher, then watch the smallest dial on the water meter.
If it is perfectly still, nothing is escaping on your side and whatever you are worried about is something else. If it is creeping, water is leaving the system somewhere between the meter and your fixtures, and that whole length is the owner's responsibility rather than the authority's.
That distinction is worth knowing before you get a quote. The main and the meter belong to the water authority. Everything past the meter is yours, including the buried run across the front of the property that nobody thinks about until a bill arrives with an extra digit.
From there it is equipment rather than guesswork. Acoustic listening, pressure testing and thermal imaging narrow it to a point, and one opening gets made in the right place instead of three in hopeful ones.
Shut the supply off before you do anything else, then ring us. We will stay on the line while you find it.
Main and meter belong to the water authority. Everything past it belongs to you, and that is the line that decides who deals with what.
So a leak on the street side is theirs to repair and a leak on the property side is yours, regardless of how close to the meter it happens to be.
Knowing where the meter is settles that question in seconds rather than in a phone call.
The single most useful thing a householder can check, and it costs nothing. Close every tap, the machine and the dishwasher, and watch the smallest dial for two minutes.
Movement means water is genuinely leaving on your side. A dial that sits perfectly still points at usage rather than a fault.
Do it twice if the result surprises you. A cistern refilling will move the dial and it is not a leak in the sense this page means.
Close the valve on the inlet to the unit and watch the dial a second time. The result splits the property in two and it costs nothing.
Cold side if it keeps going, hot side or the unit itself if it stops.
Worth checking the relief valve discharge before assuming the cylinder is the problem. A steady weep from it looks exactly like a hidden leak and is neither hidden nor expensive.
Water on an external run can disperse without ever showing at the top, particularly under paving or a courtyard where there is nothing to look wet.
So the absence of a wet patch is not evidence of anything, and the bill is frequently the only symptom you will get.
A jump with no change in habits is worth acting on rather than watching for another quarter to see whether it settles.
Not on the night you need it, in the dark, in the rain. Now, on a dry afternoon, with nothing happening.
Check the tap actually turns while you are there. On properties of this age they seize, and that is much better discovered today.
Make sure somebody else in the household knows too, because the person who reads pages like this is not always the one who is home.
Under the sink, behind the toilet, at the hot water unit. Closing one of those stops a specific problem without taking water off the whole property.
On a small property where everything is close together, that is the difference between one fixture out of use and no water anywhere.
They are small taps and easy to miss. Worth having somebody point them out while they are there.
This ground has carried water infrastructure since the nineteenth century, and Busby's Bore runs through the area and is heritage-listed.
So where a repair genuinely requires excavation, the asset search comes before the shovel. It is a normal part of scoping rather than an obstacle.
It is also a strong argument for locating a leak precisely first, because it keeps any opening to one small place.
The cost of a leak job here is largely how many holes get opened and how much has to be established before each one. Detection reduces both.
So detection is not a premium service on this ground. It is the line item that makes the rest of the job smaller.
Skipping it and digging where it looks wet is the expensive version, and it is wrong often enough to matter.
Acoustic listening picks up the noise a pressurised leak makes through structure and soil. Thermal imaging finds the heat signature of a hot water leak behind a surface.
Pressure testing isolates sections until the one losing water gives itself away.
The sequence matters. Meter first to confirm loss, isolate to narrow the side, then locate to a point.
Water follows the fall of a joist, the back of a stud or the top of a slab and appears wherever it finally escapes. A stain can be metres from the fitting that failed.
In an attached property it can also appear next door, which is a conversation worth having early rather than late.
So the wet spot is a starting point rather than a location.
Not because they fail often, but because of where they are and how they go. Inside a closed cupboard, at mains pressure, with nobody watching, and all at once rather than gradually.
Around five years is the working life commonly quoted. Past that they are running on borrowed time whether or not they look fine.
It is a short job and a cheap one, and it is the single most effective thing on this page for avoiding a claim.
The domestic ceiling is 500 kPa static at any outlet, and the valve that holds it there wears out at around eight to twelve years. It fails open, so nothing warns you.
Read the symptoms together. Taps that keep dripping after repair, water hammer that was not there before, and appliance inlet valves failing early all point the same way.
Higher pressure also means a buried leak loses more water and does it faster, which on this ground is the difference between a small job and a search.
Fixed price agreed before anything starts. These are indicative 2026 ranges.
Water stopped and the situation stabilised, at any hour.
Acoustic, pressure and thermal, with nothing opened to find it.
Depending on the pipe, the material and how it has to be reached.
Fittings included, not just the labour.
Where it was, what failed, and what we did about it.
We ask what the dial does with everything off, because that one answer decides whether there is anything to look for.
Acoustic listening, pressure testing and thermal imaging until it is a point rather than an area.
One access point at the fault, rather than a run of hopeful ones along the way to it.
What failed, where it was and what it took, at the figure you agreed before we started.
Shut it off at the meter and ring. A licensed plumber can be moving toward you while you are still on the call.
Call 1300 381 569What Queens Park locals ask us before booking a plumber.
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The meter answers it in two minutes. Turn every tap and appliance off, then watch the smallest dial. If it is still creeping, water is leaving somewhere on your side of the meter, and that side is the owner's responsibility. If it is completely still, the problem is somewhere else.
At the meter. The main and the meter itself are the water authority's. Everything from the meter into and around the property is yours, which is why a leak between the meter and the house is both invisible and entirely on your bill.
It is one of the most common calls we take. A leak on an external run can disperse underground for months without ever showing at the surface, and the bill is the only symptom you get.
Shut the water off at the meter before anything else, then ring. What a burst costs is almost entirely decided by how long the supply stayed on.
Acoustic listening, pressure testing and thermal imaging, chosen to suit what is leaking and where it runs. None of them involve opening a wall to have a look.
Then we locate it precisely first, and if reaching it means breaking ground, the free asset search goes in before anybody digs. On ground that has carried water infrastructure since the nineteenth century that is not a formality.
Locating a concealed leak is $250 to $600. A burst repair is $300 to $900. An emergency isolation and make-safe is $200 to $450, and the locate comes off the repair if you go ahead.
Tell us what the meter does with the taps closed and where anything is showing. Those two answers narrow it before anybody arrives.
Located with equipment, opened once, repaired at the figure agreed.
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