Leak Detection in Hackney and Stoke Newington

The terraces of London Fields, Dalston, Hackney Downs and Stoke Newington are Victorian, many converted into two or three flats with bathrooms stacked over kitchens and living rooms. Older houses in the heart of Stoke Newington and around Victoria Park add basements and long gravity pipe runs. Homerton and Hackney Wick mix post-war estates with warehouse conversions and new apartment blocks along the canal. Stamford Hill has large late Victorian houses in multiple occupation. In all of these, suspended timber floors hide pipework in the void, and a slow drip can soak joists for months before a stain appears.

We cover E8, E9 and N16. The common calls are a ceiling stain in the flat below a bathroom, a musty smell from a floor void, a boiler losing pressure and a meter that will not stop. Dye tests and moisture readings prove which bath, shower or waste is responsible. The borescope camera looks into floor voids through a small hole rather than lifting boards. Thermal imaging traces heating pipework and tracer gas finds pinholes in pipes that will not hold pressure. The acoustic ground microphone handles supply pipes under front gardens and pavements.

Nearly every road in Hackney and Stoke Newington is permit controlled, so we plan for that and bring the kit in on a trolley from wherever the van can stop. Working in flats, we keep the equipment to the rooms involved and leave the shared hallway clear. Allow between two and four hours for the survey. The written report with photographs, thermal images and readings is prepared for a trace and access claim and sets out which flat the leak comes from, which freeholders and managing agents find useful.