Claims Evidence
Underfloor Heating Leak Detection London
With underfloor heating the repair is rarely the expensive part. The floor above it usually is. That puts most of the money on a claim into the reinstatement line, and how well that line holds up is decided before anyone touches the floor, by how far the survey managed to narrow the failure.
How a screed failure is itemised
| Invoice line | How it is treated | When it is settled |
|---|---|---|
| Isolating and testing each loop | Detection line, logged loop by loop | Fixed fee confirmed at booking |
| Narrowing the failure to one bay | Detection line, and it governs everything after it | Thermal under load, then tracer gas |
| Lifting the floor finish | Access line, and the finish is the expensive part | Quoted once the bay is confirmed |
| Matching or replacing the finish | Reinstatement, and matching items clauses bite here | Checked against your wording before lifting |
| Rescreeding and recommissioning | Split between repair and reinstatement lines | After the repaired loop holds pressure |
Fee basis, not a quote, and not a statement of what your own policy covers. Our detection figure is fixed and confirmed in writing before anyone travels.
There is a second thing worth knowing before anything is lifted. Most buildings wordings contain a matching items clause, and what it says governs whether an insurer will replace a whole floor to match or only the part that had to come up. That is in your schedule, it takes two minutes to read, and it changes how you want the access sequenced.
So the survey runs loop by loop, with results logged for the circuits that held as well as the one that did not, and thermal under working load is followed by tracer gas until the failure sits inside a single bay. Then the access is quoted against that, and the photographs of the floor go in before the first board moves.
A fixed detection figure agreed before attendance, covering the loop testing, the survey and the written findings. Lifting the finish, repairing the screed and replacing or matching the floor are quoted separately, since they fall under different parts of a policy.
What you get
- Reports structured for insurance claims, explicitly outlining trace and access justification.
- Use of thermal imaging and acoustic listening equipment for targeted, minimally invasive investigation.
- Documentation of system type (screed, chipboard, retrofit) and leak impact on property structure.
- Clear identification of the necessary floor removal area to access the leak for repair.
- Detailed photographic evidence of the leak source and the proposed access pathway.
- Expert testimony on the necessity of the works, supporting your claim submission.
How it works
A method, not a guess
01
Read the wording before lifting anything
We ask you to check the matching items clause and the trace and access limit in your own schedule. Both affect how much floor should come up and in what order, and both are much easier to act on while the floor is still intact.
02
Isolate and test every loop
Each circuit is closed off at the manifold and pressure tested on its own. The loops that hold are recorded with their results, because an adjuster asking why only one bay was opened needs to see that the others were cleared rather than assumed.
03
Narrow to a bay, not a room
Thermal imaging under load gives the pattern, tracer gas through the screed fixes the point. The opening is then sized to a finding. A room sized opening on a room sized suspicion is the access line that gets challenged.
04
Photograph the floor before it moves
The condition, type and layout of the finish recorded before the first cut, because reinstatement arguments turn on the state of the material and nobody can evidence that afterwards.
Six things to settle before anyone lifts an underfloor heated floor
What your matching items clause actually says
Most buildings wordings contain a clause dealing with what happens when a damaged part of a set cannot be reasonably matched. Some undertake to replace the undamaged remainder, some cap that at a proportion, and some exclude it entirely. With underfloor heating this clause frequently decides the largest figure on the whole claim, because the floor finish is worth more than the pipe beneath it. Read it before anybody lifts anything. It takes two minutes, it is in your schedule, and it occasionally changes whether you want the access sequenced differently or whether you claim at all.
Whether every loop was tested, not just the failing one
A manifold makes individual circuit testing straightforward, and a survey that treats the system as a single entity throws that advantage away. What you want on the file is each loop isolated, pressure tested and logged with its result, including the ones that held. That record is what makes it obvious why one bay was opened and not the rest. Without it, an assessor looking at an expensive floor that has been cut into has no way of knowing whether the choice of location was evidenced or convenient, and the question cannot be answered retrospectively.
How far the failure was narrowed before the first cut
This is the number that governs the entire cost of the job. A failure narrowed to a room means opening a room. A failure narrowed to a single bay between two joists or one section of screed means opening that. Thermal imaging under working load gives the pattern of the run, and tracer gas through the screed reduces it to a surface point. Both take time on the day and both save considerably more than they cost. Ask any contractor what precision they expect to achieve before breaking out, and be wary of an answer that is a room name.
What condition the floor was in before work started
Reinstatement disputes turn on the state of the material, and once a floor has been lifted nobody can evidence what it looked like beforehand. Photographs of the finish, its type, its layout and any pre existing wear or damage, taken before the first cut, protect you in both directions. They stop a contractor being blamed for damage that was already there, and they stop an insurer treating a good floor as though it were already at the end of its life. This costs five minutes and is routinely skipped.
Who is doing the reinstatement, and is it quoted
A common and expensive gap: the detection contractor finds the leak, a plumber repairs the pipe, and the question of rescreeding and relaying an engineered or stone floor is discovered afterwards to belong to nobody. By then the scope has to be built from what is left rather than from what was recorded. Establish at the outset who is quoting for making good and on what basis, and get the figure separated from the repair, because the two sit in different places in a policy and a merged invoice cannot be part settled.
Whether the repair will be proved before the floor closes
The repaired loop should be brought back to pressure and held, with the result recorded, before anything covers it. It is a short test and the file is far stronger for it. Relaying a floor over a repair nobody proved is a genuinely expensive gamble, and if the same area fails again the first question anyone asks is what evidence existed that the original repair held. Verbal confirmation from whoever did the work is not evidence. A recorded pressure result with a time against it is.
Compare like for like
Screed, floor finish and the reinstatement line
With underfloor heating the finish above the failure is often worth more than the repair beneath it, and that puts almost all the money in the reinstatement line rather than the repair line. How well that line survives depends on one thing: whether the failure was narrowed to a single bay before anybody started lifting.
| What to check | A one line invoice | A lift and look firm | Emergency Leak Detection 247 |
|---|---|---|---|
| How far the failure is narrowed | To a room, if that. The opening up then has to cover the uncertainty, and the reinstatement line grows to match. | To an area. Better, but an area still means lifting more finish than a point would. | Thermal under load to find the pattern, then tracer gas to reduce it to one bay, so the opening is sized to a finding rather than to a doubt. |
| Loop by loop testing | Skipped. The whole manifold is treated as one system, so nothing on file shows which loop failed. | Sometimes, though the results are not usually written up in a form an assessor can use. | Each loop is isolated and tested separately, and the result for every loop is logged, including the ones that held. |
| Matching items exposure | Never raised. You discover at reinstatement that the remaining floor cannot be matched and nobody checked the wording. | Not their concern. They lift what is in the way and hand the problem on. | We flag before lifting that matching items wording governs how far a floor has to be replaced, so you can check your own schedule while the floor is still intact. |
| Protecting the finish during access | Whatever is quickest. Engineered board and stone lift badly when nobody planned for putting them back. | Variable, and rarely documented, which makes damage arguments after the fact unwinnable. | How the finish was lifted and what condition it was in is photographed as it happens, because reinstatement disputes turn on the state of the material. |
| Justification recorded at the time | Reconstructed for the invoice, which is the version an adjuster discounts. | Absent. The decision to lift was taken by whoever was holding the bar. | The reason each bay was opened, and what was known when that decision was taken, written while the hole is open. |
| The screed itself | Bundled into one figure with everything else, so none of it can be assessed separately. | Quoted as repair, which mixes an insured reinstatement element with an uninsured pipe element. | Breaking out, repair of the loop and rescreeding are separated on the invoice, because the pipe and the floor sit under different parts of the wording. |
| Recommissioning evidence | None. There is nothing to show the repaired loop was proved before the floor went back. | Verbal confirmation, which is worth what it is written on. | The repaired loop is held at pressure and the result recorded before anything is covered, so the file shows the repair was proved, not assumed. |
| If nothing is found | You pay anyway and are advised to get a second opinion. | You pay for the access already taken, whether or not it produced anything. | Where we attend a confirmed live loss and cannot locate it, the detection fee is waived and you keep the record of every loop tested. |
What claimants ask
The questions policyholders and agents ask most
Underfloor heating discussions on the housing and DIY discussions have a distinctive flavour. The leak is usually the least of it. What people are actually arguing about is the floor on top, who agreed to lift it, and what the insurer said when it turned out the remaining three quarters could not be matched.
The floor that could not be matched
Probably the single most common underfloor heating complaint on the insurance discussions. A section is lifted to reach a failure, the original finish is discontinued, and the argument begins over whether the rest of the floor gets replaced. The replies invariably point at the matching items wording. Our take is to raise it before lifting rather than after, because the clause is in your schedule, it is short, and knowing what it says changes how you want the access approached.
Rooms opened on a suspicion
A recurring and expensive pattern: a contractor lifts a large area because the leak was narrowed no further than a room, and the reinstatement figure then dwarfs the repair. Forum regulars increasingly advise asking what precision the survey will achieve before agreeing to any breaking out. Our position is the same one we work to, which is that nothing gets opened until thermal and tracer gas agree on a bay, because the opening is where the money is.
Pressure dropping with no wet floor anywhere
A durable thread type where a sealed system loses pressure, the underfloor circuits are suspected, and the fault turns out to be an expansion vessel or a passing relief valve. Regulars now routinely tell posters to have those checked before commissioning anything. Our take is that eliminating the boiler components first costs under an hour, and that a contractor quoting for whole floor detection without asking how the system behaves when it heats is guessing expensively.
Screed repairs that were never proved
Posts where a floor was relaid and the same bay failed again within months, with nobody able to say whether the original repair had been tested. The advice that emerges is to insist on a recorded pressure test before the floor closes. Our take is identical and it is part of how we work, since the cost of the test is a few minutes and the cost of being wrong is the entire reinstatement a second time.
Confusion about which parts are insured at all
Threads where a policyholder expected everything to be covered and found the pipe itself was not, or that refilling and inhibitor were treated as maintenance. The consensus response is to get every element separately priced. We do that by default: detection, access, repair and reinstatement on separate lines, with commissioning items described as the maintenance they are, so the covered lines can be settled without waiting for a decision on the rest.
Questions
Asked before every booking
My floor cannot be matched. Will the insurer replace all of it?
That depends entirely on the matching items wording in your own schedule. Some policies undertake to replace undamaged parts of a set where a reasonable match is unavailable, some limit that to a stated proportion, and some exclude it. We are a detection contractor and cannot tell you what your policy will do. What we can do is keep the access to the smallest area the evidence supports and record the floor type and condition before anything is lifted, which is what the conversation with your insurer is going to rest on.
Can the failure be found without taking up the floor?
The location can, and that is the whole purpose of surveying first. Pressure testing tells us which loop has failed, thermal under load shows the pattern of the run and the anomaly within it, and tracer gas travels up through screed and tile to a surface point. Something still has to be opened to reach and repair the pipe. The difference is between opening one bay over a marked point and opening a room over a suspicion.
How is the work split across the invoice?
Four ways. Detection, which is the loop testing and the survey. Access, which is breaking out the finish and the screed to reach the failure. Repair, which is the pipe itself and is usually your own cost. Reinstatement, which is rescreeding and putting the floor back. They are separated because a trace and access extension responds to some of those and not others, and a merged figure cannot be part settled.
Should the system be recommissioned before the floor goes back?
Always, and the file should show it happened. The repaired loop is held at pressure and the result recorded before anything is covered over. A floor relaid over a repair that was never proved is an expensive thing to have to reopen, and an insurer looking at a recurrence will ask what evidence existed that the first repair held.
The manifold is in a cupboard we cannot reach. Does that stop the survey?
It limits it, and the report will say so. Without manifold access loops cannot be isolated individually, which means the survey can establish that the system is losing water but not which circuit is responsible. We would rather state that boundary than issue a conclusion the testing does not support, and we will set out what access would be needed to complete it.
How do you find a leak in an underfloor heating circuit?
By elimination, then by imaging, then by gas. Each loop is isolated at the manifold and pressure tested on its own, which identifies the circuit that is losing and clears the ones that are not. The system is then run up so the buried run shows thermally, and the anomaly is checked against moisture readings. Where the pattern narrows an area rather than fixing a point, tracer gas is introduced into the drained circuit and traced to where it surfaces. Each stage is recorded with its result.
Will the whole floor have to come up?
It should not, and how much comes up is decided by the survey rather than by the repair. A failure narrowed to a single bay supports opening that bay. Where a survey stops at room level, the opening has to cover the uncertainty. This is why the detection stage is worth doing properly on an expensive floor: the money in these claims sits in the reinstatement line, and the reinstatement line is sized by the precision of the finding that preceded it.
Can you detect a leak under tile, stone or engineered wood?
Yes, with different methods suiting different finishes. Thermal imaging works well through most finishes once the system is up to temperature, though thick stone slows the response and needs patience. Tracer gas travels up through screed, grout lines and board joints regardless of the finish above it. What changes with the finish is not whether the leak can be found but how carefully the eventual access has to be planned, which is why the floor type is one of the first things we ask about.
How is an underfloor heating leak claim usually split?
Into four parts. Detection, meaning the loop testing and the survey, which is normally a trace and access question. Access, meaning breaking out the finish and the screed. Repair, meaning the pipe itself, which is usually the policyholder's own cost. Reinstatement, meaning rescreeding and relaying the floor. Keeping them separate is what allows an insurer to settle the elements it covers without waiting on a decision about the elements it does not.
What if the leak is at a joint under a structural feature?
Then the report says where it is and what reaching it would involve, and that is a decision for you and your insurer rather than one we take on the day. Sometimes rerouting the affected loop is less destructive and less expensive than reaching the original failure, and where that is a realistic option we set it out alongside the direct repair so both can be priced. What we will not do is start opening up towards a target that has not been confirmed.
Do you refill and rebalance the system afterwards?
Yes, and it appears as its own line described as maintenance. Draining, refilling, rebalancing and dosing with inhibitor are routine servicing items that policies generally exclude. Including them inside a detection figure does not get them paid, it gets the detection figure queried, and the part that would otherwise have been settled is held up behind it. Separating them is better for you even though it makes the paperwork slightly longer.
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Covering all 33 boroughs
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