A million-home city built in every era from Victorian terrace to canal-side loft gives leaks a million places to hide. We narrow it down to one — the exact failure point — using tracer gas, acoustics and thermal imaging, for a fee fixed at £480 + VAT.
Our Birmingham diary spans the whole city: leaseholders in Jewellery Quarter conversions with water appearing two floors below its source, families in the interwar semis of Hall Green and Erdington watching heating pressure fall week after week, landlords with student houses in Selly Oak, and businesses whose premises cannot afford speculative strip-out. In each case we identify the failed pipe before any repair decision is made.
We are candid about distance: Birmingham is a planned-route destination for us, not a same-day one, and most surveys are diarised within a few working days of your call. What never varies is the price — £480 + VAT agreed up front — and the standard of evidence you receive at the end, whether the leak took an hour to find or fought us all afternoon.
That evidence takes the form of an insurance-grade report: the confirmed location, thermal captures, moisture readings and photographs, ready to hand straight to a loss adjuster, freeholder or contractor.
Local knowledge
The back-to-backs that once packed Birmingham's inner ring are nearly all gone — a preserved court on Hurst Street survives as a museum — but the Victorian terraces that succeeded them still line Small Heath, Balsall Heath and Handsworth, complete with lead-to-copper hybrid plumbing and floors that hide slow supply leaks for years. In the city core, the Jewellery Quarter's canal-side factories and warehouses have become apartments where original structural quirks meet modern pressurised systems, and a single failed connection can stain ceilings across several units before the source building even knows.
The city's huge interwar expansion produced mile upon mile of 1930s semis — Hall Green, Kings Heath, Erdington — and the vast municipal estate at Kingstanding, most with heating pipework now buried under generations of screed and flooring. Bournville's garden-village homes bring their own gentle, ageing pipework, while Selly Oak's student HMOs near the university run domestic plumbing at commercial intensity. Each era fails differently, and the survey method has to match.
WHAT WE FIND IN BIRMINGHAM
Coverage
From the city core and the Jewellery Quarter we range south through Edgbaston, Selly Oak and Bournville to Northfield and Kings Norton, east into Digbeth and Small Heath, and north through Handsworth to Erdington and Kingstanding.
Postcode areas covered: B1 · B3 · B5 · B12 · B13 · B14 · B15 · B16 · B17 · B18 · B20 · B21 · B23 · B28 · B29 · B30 · B31 · B38
Our methods
Big-city surveying is about elimination at speed. We start from the meter and the pressure evidence, divide the system into testable sections, and work through them with the right sensor for each build type: acoustic listening along Victorian terrace runs, thermal imaging over interwar screeds to expose warm plumes from heating leaks, and tracer gas for conversions where pipework wanders between flats with no drawings to follow. A borescope and calibrated moisture meters then verify the find, so the repair contractor opens one hole in the right place instead of five in the wrong ones.
A safe hydrogen-nitrogen mix escapes through the smallest defects — traced above ground to pinpoint the leak.
Non-toxicInfrared surveying reveals temperature anomalies behind floors, walls and ceilings.
Non-contactAmplifies the distinctive sound of pressurised water escaping from mains, copper and MDPE pipework.
UndergroundA flexible camera inspects wall cavities, floor voids and boxing-in through the smallest access point.
Minimal accessComparative readings across plaster, timber and concrete map water migration and confirm findings.
Evidence-gradePricing
Many leak detection companies charge £100+ per hour with no way of knowing the final bill. Our Trace & Find survey is a fixed £480 + VAT — however long it takes to find your leak.
A complete leak detection survey with the right equipment for your property.
no hourly rates · no hidden costs
Once located, repairs are quoted separately — every repair varies by leak type, pipework and access.
Priced individually to reflect the size, complexity and requirements of each project.
Answer a few quick questions and we will point you to the right fixed price.
Birmingham FAQs
Answers specific to Birmingham properties and how we work in the area.
This is one of the most frequent faults in Birmingham's interwar suburbs. The heating circuit is usually leaking within the floor screed, so we pressure-test the system, sweep the floors with thermal imaging and confirm the exact point with tracer gas — no carpet-up exploratory digging.
We travel from South Wales on planned routes, so Birmingham appointments are typically confirmed within a few working days of calling 01639 999 999. We will advise on isolating the leak in the meantime if water is actively escaping.
We can establish which circuit, in which unit, has failed. By isolating and gas-testing runs individually we trace the water back through the building's voids to its origin, then document the finding so leaseholders, the management company and insurers have one agreed set of facts.
Yes — that is its job. It records the verified leak position alongside thermal images, moisture data and photographs, the evidence adjusters look for under the trace and access section of most buildings policies. The survey itself is a fixed £480 + VAT.
We do — offices, hospitality, industrial units and managed residential blocks. The same non-invasive methods apply, and we plan visits to fit around your operating hours where possible, including weekends from 9am to 2pm.
Book a non-invasive Trace & Find survey for a fixed £480 + VAT — we locate the source fast, with a full report for your records or insurer.
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