About us
Finding it is half the job. Proving it is the other half.
Emergency Leak Detection 247 is a London leak detection and emergency plumbing company that ended up specialising in the paperwork. Not by choice at first. We kept locating leaks accurately and then watching claims stall because nobody had written the finding down in a form that survived being read by a stranger. So we rebuilt the service around the document, and the fieldwork around what the document has to prove.
Three people read what we write
They want different things from the same visit, and a report that serves only one of them creates work for the other two. This is how we think about who is going to open the file.
The policyholder
Needs to know what happened and what it will cost them
You want the leak stopped and you want to know which parts of the bill your policy is likely to reach. So the report opens with findings in plain English before it gets technical: what failed, where, what got wet, and which of those things is repairable today. You should be able to read the first page and understand your own situation without a glossary.
The loss adjuster
Needs findings they can rely on without having been there
An adjuster is deciding on paper whether an event falls inside a wording. They are looking for cause, origin, the method that established each, moisture readings with locations, and dated photographs that match the narrative. Anything asserted without a method behind it is the thing that generates a request for further information and adds three weeks to a settlement.
The managing agent
Needs the origin pinned to a demise
In a block, the question is rarely what leaked. It is whose it was. Communal riser or private demise, above the ceiling or below the floor, freeholder or leaseholder. That single determination decides who instructs the repair and which policy responds, so we state it precisely and we state the limits of what the evidence can support.
What is in the document, and why each line is there
None of this is decoration. Each item exists because leaving it out is a reason a claim gets queried.
Cause
The mechanism of failure, described specifically. A corroded compression olive, a split flexible tail, a failed shower tray seal. Not "a leak was found".
Origin
The physical location, referenced to something a stranger can find again: room, wall, distance from a fixed feature, depth below finished floor.
Method
Which techniques produced which finding, and in what order. This is what separates a measurement from an opinion.
Moisture data
Readings taken at identified points, so the extent of wetting can be argued from numbers rather than from a photograph of a stain.
Photographic record
Dated images of the failure, the access taken to reach it, and the affected areas, in a sequence that follows the narrative.
Access taken
What was opened and why it had to be opened. Trace and access lines get queried when nobody wrote down the justification at the time.
What was eliminated
The circuits tested and cleared. Negative findings are evidence too, and they are what steers a claim away from the wrong cause.
Limits of the finding
Where the evidence stops. We would rather write that a second visit is needed than sign off a conclusion the data does not carry.
The fieldwork behind it
We locate hidden water leaks under floors, inside walls, buried in screed and underground between the meter and the building, using acoustic listening equipment, thermal imaging, tracer gas, moisture mapping and per circuit pressure testing. Our engineers are qualified plumbers carrying pipe and fittings, so a leak located in the morning is often repaired the same day.
Around that sit the jobs a leak drags behind it: emergency attendance while water is still escaping, burst pipe repair, trace and access reporting, and commercial surveys for agents dealing with water travelling between flats. Every one of those can produce a claim document, and the method used in the field is chosen partly for how well it will evidence later.
We work across all 33 London boroughs. The borough pages on this site describe how each area's housing stock actually fails, because a Victorian conversion, a 1930s mansion block and a boosted mains riser in a new tower fail in different places, and knowing that before arriving shortens the survey.
What we commit to
- The detection fee is confirmed before anyone travels
- Out of hours attendance is stated as an exact figure, not a multiplier
- Repairs are quoted separately from detection, and can be declined
- Nothing is opened up until the evidence says where
- Access taken is recorded at the time, with the reason for it
- Reports are written for someone who was not present
What we refuse to do
- We do not dress a twenty minute find up as a full survey
- We do not write a conclusion the readings do not support
- We do not attribute a leak to a neighbour without evidence
- We do not quote for detection on a pipe you do not own
- We do not add report fees that were not agreed at booking
Where our remit stops
We are a contractor, not an adviser
We are not brokers, loss assessors or regulated advisers. We do not tell you how to present a claim, what to say to your insurer, or whether to accept an offer. We establish facts and write them down. Where you want someone acting for you on the claim itself, that is a regulated loss assessor, and it is a different job from ours.
We do not act for your insurer
Unless an insurer or their adjuster has instructed us directly, and we will tell you plainly when that is the case, we are working for whoever engaged us. Our findings do not change depending on who is paying, which is the only reason a report is worth anything to either side.
We cannot promise an outcome
No contractor can guarantee a claim is paid. Coverage is decided by your wording and your insurer, and by the Financial Ombudsman Service if it is disputed. Under ICOBS 8.1.1R an insurer must handle claims promptly and fairly, and under ICOBS 8.1.2R must not unreasonably reject one, but that is the regulator's framework, not a promise we are in a position to make.
We say when the answer is nothing
Some surveys end with no escape of water at all: condensation, a roof defect, a failed seal, a boiler losing pressure through its own expansion vessel rather than through a pipe. That result is written up the same way, because a documented negative is what stops a claim being built on the wrong premise.
Bring us the argument nobody can settle
A stalled claim, a neighbour who denies it, an adjuster asking for information nobody recorded. Those are the jobs this company was built for, and the detection fee is waived if we cannot find it.
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