Yes. The fee for a leak detection visit pays for the diagnostic work, the equipment and the time on site, and it applies whether the result is a pinpointed pipe leak or a clean bill of health for your pipework. I know that feels wrong when you are staring at a high water bill and a plumber has just told you there is no leak in the pipes. Here is why the fee works that way, what a "no leak found" result almost always means in practice, and the free check you can run yourself before you ring anyone.
What the leak detection fee actually covers
| Item | Covered by the $200 to $500+ fee? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Meter and pressure testing | Yes | Confirms whether water is moving when everything is off |
| Ruling out toilets, irrigation, pool fill and hot water valves | Yes | This step alone solves a good share of high-bill callouts |
| Acoustic listening, thermal imaging, tracer gas | Yes | Only brought out once the simple causes are excluded; pushes the job toward the top of the band |
| A written result you can give council or your insurer | Yes | Says what was tested and what was found |
| The repair | No | Quoted separately once the leak is located |
| A refund if no pipe leak is found | No | The work was done either way |
Why do I pay if nothing was found?
Because you are paying for an answer, not for a leak. A detection visit is a diagnostic service, the same way a mechanic charges to trace a fault whether or not the fault turns out to be serious. The acoustic gear, thermal camera and tracer gas kit cost real money to own and take real time to use properly, and the hours spent isolating sections of your plumbing and listening to each one are hours regardless of what they reveal. If the fee only applied when a leak turned up, every plumber would have an incentive to declare a leak somewhere, and you would be paying for a repair you might not need. A flat diagnostic fee is the honest structure. It sits at the lower end of $200 to $500+ when the answer comes quickly and climbs when it takes acoustic correlation across a slab or tracer gas through a long buried run to get there.
What does "no leak found" usually mean?
It almost never means the water bill was wrong and nothing is happening. It usually means the water was going somewhere that is not a broken pipe, and finding that place is the job. Across the Gold Coast homes we attend, the usual suspects are these.
- A running toilet. The flush valve or inlet valve in a cistern lets water trickle from the cistern into the bowl and away down the drain, silently and continuously. There is no puddle and often no sound, which is why it hides for months. This is the one we find most often.
- An irrigation valve. A solenoid valve on a garden system that has not closed fully, or a cracked dripper line, sends water into the soil where it simply disappears. The meter records it. The lawn looks fine.
- A pool auto-fill. If the pool has a leak or heavy evaporation, the auto-fill valve keeps topping it up from the mains, and the meter counts all of it. The pool never looks low, so nobody suspects it.
- A dripping relief valve on the hot water unit. A worn temperature and pressure relief valve can run steadily rather than the occasional dribble that is normal during heating. The water goes down the overflow pipe to a drain, unseen.
- A meter reading error. An estimated read followed by an actual read can land a whole quarter's catch-up on one bill. Nothing is leaking at all.
Every one of those shows up as a high bill and a moving meter, exactly like a pipe leak. Ruling them in or out is the answer you paid for, and if the answer is "your toilet has been running since Easter", that is a far cheaper problem than an under-slab pipe.
What we check before the acoustic gear comes off the van
A good detection visit runs from the cheapest check to the dearest, and the expensive equipment only comes out when the simple explanations are gone. Here is the order I work in.
- The meter, with everything off. Confirms the property is using water while nothing should be. No movement over a decent watch means no live leak at that moment, and the conversation changes.
- Isolate the garden and irrigation. Close the isolation valve to the irrigation system and any garden tap lines and watch the meter again. If the movement stops, the leak is outside and usually cheap to fix.
- Isolate the hot water unit. Shut the cold feed to the tank and watch the relief valve outlet and the meter. A relief valve that runs constantly is a replacement part, and one we carry.
- Check every toilet. A few drops of food dye in each cistern, wait, and look for colour in the bowl. Then listen for a cistern that hisses or refills without being flushed.
- Check the pool auto-fill. Turn it off at its valve and watch the meter. If your pool has an auto-fill, this step alone answers a surprising number of calls.
- Read the bill properly. An estimated reading followed by an actual one looks like a sudden leak on paper. Two minutes with the bill saves a morning with a listening stick.
Only when the meter is still turning with all of that isolated do we know the water is going into a pipe run we cannot see, and that is when acoustic listening, thermal imaging or tracer gas earns its place. Working in this order is also why most visits land in the lower part of the price band rather than the top.
The free meter test you can do first
You can do the first step yourself tonight and it costs nothing. Turn off every tap inside and out, make sure no washing machine, dishwasher, irrigation or pool fill is running, and do not flush anything. Find your water meter at the front boundary, lift the lid and look at the dial. Most meters have a small spinning indicator or a set of low digits that move with any flow at all. Take a photo of the reading, wait as long as you can manage without using water, then take a second photo. If the numbers have moved or the indicator is turning, water is leaving the meter while nothing should be using it. If nothing moved, you almost certainly do not have a live leak and the bill needs a different explanation, which is worth knowing before you spend $200 to $500+ finding that out from us.
If the meter is moving, run the dye test on your toilets before you ring, because if a bowl turns colour you have found your leak for the price of some food colouring, and the fix is a toilet repair at $120 to $300, not a detection job.
Is a "no leak found" report worth anything?
Yes, in two ways people do not expect. First, a written detection result that shows the pipework tested clean and names the real cause is useful if you want to query a bill with your water retailer or make an insurance or concealed-leak enquiry, because those processes want evidence, not a hunch. Second, it stops you spending money on the wrong repair. Homeowners who skip detection and go straight to digging or re-piping on a guess are the ones who end up with a trench, a bill and a toilet that is still running. Paying to know where the water is going is nearly always cheaper than paying to guess.
High water bill and no idea where it is going? Call Hills Plumbing & Gas on 0472 657 042 or book through our Leak Detection service page. Do the meter test first, tell me what it showed, and I will tell you straight whether you need a detection visit at all. QBCC licence 15243081.