ADI’s engineers find the hidden water leak behind that ceiling stain without stripping out the office or sending everyone home.
Pick a part of the building, from the plant deck on the roof to the washrooms, the risers and the main under the car park, to see what a leak there looks like and how it is found.
What you notice. Stained ceiling tiles on the top floor after heavy rain, water round a rooflight or lift overrun, damp where a roof terrace meets the wall, a drip near the air-conditioning units on the plant deck.
How it is found. Moisture mapping and thermal imaging from inside; tracer gas or an electronic roof leak detector on the flat roof; a thermal-imaging drone over a large roof. ADI locates roof leaks and reports them. The repair is a roofer's job.
How we investigate flat roofs, terraces and plant decksWhat you notice. Toilets, showers and tea points are stacked floor above floor, so a leak upstairs turns up as a brown ceiling tile in a meeting room below. Lifting vinyl by a urinal, damp behind the dishwasher, a musty smell by the showers.
How it is found. Moisture mapping, thermal imaging, dye tests on WCs, urinals and showers, a borescope camera into the ceiling void, and pressure testing of the hot and cold supplies.
How we investigate washrooms, kitchens and tea pointsWhat you notice. Pipes run up through service risers and across ceiling voids, and cables share the space under a raised floor. Water dripping out of a light fitting, wet carpet tiles by a floor box, damp on a riser door.
How it is found. A borescope camera through a small opening, thermal imaging along the pipe route, acoustic listening on the risers and pressure testing each branch in turn.
How we investigate risers, ceiling voids and raised floorsWhat you notice. Boilers, calorifiers and pumps in the plant room feed radiators, fan coil units and hot water on every floor. A pressurisation unit topping up every day, a cold radiator at the end of a run, water under a fan coil unit.
How it is found. Pressure testing circuit by circuit, thermal imaging of flow and return pipework, tracer gas in the heating circuit and acoustic listening.
How we investigate heating, cooling and hot waterWhat you notice. Soil stacks, rainwater pipes and the drains under the lower ground floor. A wet basement wall, a smell in the bin store or car park, water coming up through a lower-floor slab.
How it is found. Drain camera surveys to look inside the pipe, and dye tests to follow water from a washroom, a gully or a downpipe.
How we investigate drains, basements and lower floorsWhat you notice. The supply pipe runs from the meter under the car park or pavement and into the plant room. A water bill that jumps, a meter turning at night when the building is empty, water surfacing through the tarmac.
How it is found. Acoustic ground microphones, leak-noise correlation, tracer gas and a trace wire to find the pipe, then a targeted excavation.
How we investigate incoming main and car parkADI’s engineers combine these seven methods to locate hidden leaks before opening the affected area.
A safe, non-flammable hydrogen and nitrogen mix is put into the pipe or void. It escapes at the leak, rises through the floor or wall, and a detector picks it up at the surface.
In an office building: Supply pipes under car parks and pavements, pipes buried in screed, flat roofs.
Ground and pipe microphones amplify the sound of water escaping under pressure. The loudest point is the leak.
In an office building: Buried supply pipes and pipework in risers, ideally before staff arrive or once the building is quiet.
Two sensors clamped to a pipe record the leak noise from either side; the correlator works out how far along the pipe the leak sits.
In an office building: Long supply runs across a business park or under a car park, where listening alone is slow.
A thermal camera shows warm pipes and cold, wet patches behind finished surfaces. It scans large areas quickly and is always paired with another method to confirm.
In an office building: Heating pipes behind plasterboard, pipe runs across ceilings, and flat roofs by drone.
A camera on a flexible tube goes through a small, easily made-good hole to look inside a void, a duct or a boxed-in pipe.
In an office building: Ceiling voids, risers, raised floors and boxed-in washroom pipework, before anything larger comes out.
Pin and pinless meters read moisture in walls, floors and concrete. Plotted across the area, the readings show where the water has travelled and where it started.
In an office building: Working out how far water has spread across a floor, a partition wall or a run of ceiling tiles.
Each circuit is isolated and held under pressure. A drop confirms a leak on that circuit; a steady gauge rules it out, and proves a repair afterwards.
In an office building: Buildings with separate supplies for each floor or tenant, and proving a repair before a floor goes back into use.
Real ADI investigations in buildings where people work, with the findings and what happened next taken from ADI’s published case studies.
Water was pooling on the foyer floor and the office flooring was discolouring. Thermal imaging, a pressure test and tracer gas put the leak under the kitchen threshold, where ADI dug down and repaired it.
Tell us the postcode, what you have noticed and which floors are affected. The office team will ask about the building, the supplies and access, and give you current availability and a quote.
Engineers need every relevant area, including plant rooms, risers, the roof and any other tenant's space on the same supply. Tell the office about building rules, sign-in and lift access.
A risk assessment and method statement are supplied for commercial work. The engineer meets your building contact and looks at the meter, stopcocks and plant room first.
Pressure testing separates the circuits. Thermal imaging, moisture mapping, acoustics, tracer gas and cameras then close in on the leak. Some tests need the water or heating off for a short while.
A report with photographs, findings and recommendations, written so it can go straight to an insurer, a landlord, a managing agent or a contractor.
Pipework and drainage leaks can be quoted and repaired, often on the same visit, and pressure tested afterwards. Roof and building-fabric leaks are located and reported for a roofer to fix.
Read the full review“He was able to locate the leak and provided a detailed report that could be shared with my insurer.”
Read the full review“He quickly set up the equipment, carried out a tracer gas test and pinpointed the leak to an area just outside our garage underneath the driveway.”
Read the full review“This is a large property and he traced leaks and sources of damp in walls and in heating pipes under concrete floors.”
Read the full review“Once the investigation was completed, Robert put everything back in place neatly and left the area tidy.”
Office Leak Detection, a specialist service from ADI Leak Detection. ADI started in 2011 and has more than twenty-five leak investigation engineers across England, Scotland and Wales. Businesses with offices up and down the country can use one provider and one report format for every building.
Usually. The methods are non-invasive: tracer gas, acoustics, thermal imaging, moisture mapping and camera inspection narrow the leak to a small area before anything is opened. Some jobs still need targeted access to confirm or repair the fault, and no survey can promise zero disturbance in every building, but we work to keep that to a tile or two and one small opening.
The engineer works around the building. Tell the office which floors are occupied, where meetings or client areas are, how sign-in works and when the building is quietest, and access is planned around that. Some tests need the water or heating off for a short period, and acoustic work goes better when it is quiet; we agree the timing with your building contact first.
Call the office with the postcode and the office team will give you current availability. ADI has more than twenty-five engineers across England, Scotland and Wales, and water coming through an office ceiling is treated as urgent. We do not promise arrival times on a website; you get a real answer on the phone.
Pipework and drainage leaks can be quoted and repaired, often on the same visit, and pressure tested afterwards. Roof and building-fabric leaks are located and reported for a roofer to fix. Repairs are charged separately from the survey and are quoted before any work starts.
In a shared building it often is. Water travels through ceiling voids and risers, so the stain in your office can start in a washroom upstairs, a neighbouring unit or the landlord's pipework. The engineer needs access to those areas too, so let the landlord or managing agent know before the visit. The report says where the leak actually is, with photographs, which gives everyone the same facts when working out who arranges the repair.
Often, but it depends on the policy. Insurers call finding and exposing a hidden leak trace and access, and many commercial buildings policies include it. ADI's report is written for that purpose: photographs, findings and recommendations, and for commercial work a risk assessment and method statement. Ask your insurer, landlord or managing agent what they need before the visit and tell us, so the report answers it.
Someone who knows the building: where the meter, stopcocks and plant room are, and which areas are affected. Access to every relevant area, including risers, the roof, locked cupboards and any other tenant's space on a shared supply. Lift access if the work is above the second floor. Parking within about 100 metres of the building for the equipment.
Describe what you have noticed, the type of building and the postcode. The office team will talk through the survey, give you a quote and current availability, and book the engineer.
