Leak Detection in Southgate and Oakwood

Southgate and Oakwood grew up around the Piccadilly line, so the housing is overwhelmingly 1930s: semis and detached houses with bay fronts, long back gardens and the supply pipe running under the front garden and the hall. Edwardian houses survive around Southgate Green, and there are inter-war and post-war blocks of flats near Southgate Circus and Arnos Grove. In the semis the supply pipe is often still the original lead or steel, and the heating was added later with pipes buried under a solid kitchen floor.

We cover all of N14, including Southgate, Oakwood, Southgate Green, Osidge and the Arnos Grove end of the district. Typical calls are a water meter that keeps turning, a wet patch in the front garden or on the path, and a boiler losing pressure. For supply pipes we lift the stop tap chamber lid, listen along the route with the acoustic ground microphone and confirm with tracer gas at the chamber, so the dig is a single small hole. Indoors, heating leaks under solid floors are located with tracer gas and the thermal camera.

Parking is mostly on the driveway or unrestricted away from the stations, though the roads around Southgate Circus and Oakwood station have daytime restrictions. The equipment comes in on a trolley. Outside, we protect paving and lawns while we work and mark the leak point before anyone digs. The written report sets out the pipe route, the readings, photographs and the marked point, prepared for a trace and access claim and for any supply pipe query with the water company.