Leak Detection Haringey

The ladder streets between Green Lanes and Wightman Road, and much of Tottenham and Wood Green besides, are made of Victorian and Edwardian terraces converted into an upstairs and a downstairs flat. That conversion almost never gave each flat its own incoming supply. One rising main enters at the front of the ground-floor flat and feeds both, which means the upper flat cannot turn its own water off without knocking on a door downstairs. At night, with no side access and no communal hallway in most of these houses, that single fact governs everything. Crouch End and Muswell Hill hold larger Edwardian houses still in single occupation where the problem is simply the age of the pipework, and the newer blocks at Tottenham Hale have managed cover and a valve on every floor. Many of these conversions were done long before current building standards, so the separating floor between the two flats is frequently the original timber one with nothing added. Sound carries, and so does water. The upside is that a leak announces itself downstairs very quickly rather than soaking into a concrete deck for a week, which means a household that acts on it promptly usually catches it before the ceiling is lost.