Leak Detection Guides & Advice
Practical guides from MCR Leak Detection: finding hidden water leaks, trace and access insurance, boiler pressure problems, and what Scottish homeowners, landlords and businesses need to know. New guides are added regularly.
How to Find a Water Leak in a Wall or Ceiling
The stain is almost never where the leak is. How to read ring marks and timing clues, run isolation and dye tests, and use moisture mapping and thermal imaging to pinpoint a wall or ceiling leak before cutting a single hole.
Acoustic Leak Detection: How Engineers Hear Leaks Underground
A pressurised leak never stops hissing. How engineers use listening sticks, ground microphones and correlators to pinpoint underground leaks to a single dig point, and the conditions that make or break a survey.
How Thermal Imaging Finds Hidden Water Leaks
A thermal camera never sees water, only temperature. How engineers read warm plumes and cool shadows to pinpoint hidden leaks, where the method excels, and where acoustics or tracer gas take over.
Does Home Insurance Cover Water Leaks? Escape of Water Explained
Home insurance usually covers the damage a sudden water leak causes, but not the pipe repair itself. What escape of water cover includes, the gradual damage trap, and how trace and access cover pays to find the leak.
What Is Trace and Access Cover? Home Insurance Explained
Trace and access cover pays for finding a hidden leak and making good the access, not for fixing the pipe. Most buildings policies include it, with typical limits of 5,000 to 10,000 pounds. Here is what it covers and how to use it in a claim.
How to Check for a Water Leak When Your Home Has No Water Meter
Most Scottish homes have no water meter, so the classic meter test is useless. Here are the checks that work instead: the stop valve listening test, a boiler pressure diary, a room-by-room audit and the outside signs worth watching.
Who Is Responsible for Water Pipes in Scotland?
Scottish Water owns the main, the communication pipe and the boundary stopcock. The owner is responsible for the supply pipe and everything indoors, and flats often share a pipe. Here is the full Scottish position, with the official sources linked.
How to Trace Underground Water Pipes Before You Dig
Digging before you know where the pipe runs wrecks driveways and floods excavations. Here is how to trace underground water pipes yourself, why CAT scanners miss plastic pipe, and how professional tracing marks the route to a single small dig.
Wet Patch in the Garden or Driveway? Finding an Outside Leak
A wet patch that stays soggy through dry weather usually points to a leaking underground supply pipe. Here is how to rule out the innocent causes, the checks you can do yourself, and how outside leaks get pinpointed without digging up the garden.
How to Find an Underground Water Leak (and Who to Call)
A supply pipe can leak under a Scottish garden for months without a bill to give it away. Here are the signs, the DIY checks, how acoustic and tracer gas equipment pinpoints the spot, and who is responsible for the repair.
What Is Trace and Access? The Method Explained
Trace and access means locating a hidden leak with specialist equipment, then making good the opening needed to reach the pipe. Here is how the method works, what a survey involves and where your insurance fits in.
Where Is My Stopcock? How to Shut Off Your Water in an Emergency
The middle of a flood is a poor time to hunt for your stopcock. Here is where the valve hides in every type of Scottish home, what tenement dwellers share, and how to test it now so it turns when it matters.