Pricing
The hour you call sets the rate, not the panic in your voice
Two things decide what an out-of-hours visit costs: which time band the engineer works in, and what the visit has to achieve when they get there. Both are settled on the phone before anyone travels. Nothing is added on the doorstep, and the repair is a separate figure quoted after the leak is found.
Rates by time of day
The band is read off the clock when the engineer starts work. A call taken at 11pm that is booked for the following morning is charged at the standard band, not the night band.
| Service | 7AM – 5PMStandard hours | 5PM – 12AMEvenings | 12AM – 7AMNight / emergency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leak Detection | POA | POA | POA |
| Thermal Imaging Survey | POA | POA | POA |
| Acoustic Detection | POA | POA | POA |
| Trace & Access (Insurance) | POA | POA | POA |
| Emergency Plumber | POA | POA | POA |
“POA” means the rate for that slot hasn’t been published yet. Call for a confirmed figure.
How the number is settled before the van moves
Four questions, asked in this order, on every call.
01
You describe what the water is doing
Running, dripping, staining, or invisible with only a gauge or a meter to go on. That single answer decides whether this is a now job or a morning job, and it is the first thing we ask.
02
We say which band applies before you commit
Standard hours, evening or night. The band is read off the clock, not off how worried you sound. If waiting until 7am puts you in the cheapest band and nothing is at risk, we will say that on the call.
03
The visit type fixes the fee
Stabilise-first, detection survey, or supply-pipe trace. Each is a different job with a different fee, agreed while you are still on the phone rather than announced on the doorstep.
04
Repair is quoted after, never before
We do not price a repair for a leak nobody has found yet. Once it is located you get a separate figure, and you are free to decline it and use our findings elsewhere.
Six calls, six different visits
We price the visit, not a menu item. These are the six shapes almost every call takes, what each one is expected to achieve on the night, and how urgent it honestly is.
Live leak, water still running
- Stop tap and isolation talked through on the call
- Water off or contained as the first job on site
- Source traced once the flow has stopped
- Temporary make-safe if parts are not on the van
- Out-of-hours band confirmed before dispatch
Booked as a stabilise-first visit. Finding it matters less than stopping it in the first twenty minutes.
Boiler losing pressure tonight
- Circuits isolated and pressure tested
- Boiler ruled in or out before pipe hunting
- Heating left usable where it safely can be
- Same-visit repair when the pipe is reachable
- No find, no fee on the detection element
Rarely a flood, usually a call that can be triaged rather than raced. We say so instead of selling you a night rate.
Ceiling staining, nothing visible yet
- Moisture mapped before anything is opened
- Acoustic and thermal survey of the suspect area
- Tracer gas where plastic pipe or screed mutes sound
- Single marked point rather than a general area
- No find, no fee on multi-method visits
A diagnosis, not an emergency. Booked into the first daytime slot unless the stain is spreading while you watch it.
Meter spinning with everything off
- Stopcock test confirmed before we travel
- Supply pipe isolated and pressure tested
- Acoustic correlation along the pipe run
- One marked dig point, not exploratory holes
- Advice on notifying your water company first
Urgent for your bill rather than your floor. We will tell you if the water company should look before you pay us.
Flat above, water coming through
- Both flats surveyed where access is arranged
- Origin established rather than assumed
- Managing agent kept in the loop on findings
- Made safe on the visit where the source is reachable
- Written findings if the neighbours disagree later
Access is the bottleneck, not the survey. Tell us on the call whether the flat above will open the door.
Pool or external system losing water
- Bucket test reviewed before we quote
- Circulation and return lines pressure tested
- Shell, fittings and pipe runs checked in turn
- No draining down to start the survey
- Repair or stabilisation options given on site
Loss per day sets the urgency. A slow drop books daytime; a visible fall in one night does not.
A night visit that stops the water and a morning visit that finishes the repair usually costs less than forcing the whole job into the small hours. Where that is true, we will tell you on the call.
Sanity-check any quote against published figures
Checkatrade publishes a UK average of £162 for leak detection, with most jobs landing between £115 and £234, a full recorded spread from £80 to £1,600, and hourly diagnostic rates of £95 to £145. Those are third-party figures, not ours, and they are worth holding up against every quote you receive, including ours.
The spread tells you something useful. The bottom of that range is an accessible joint found in twenty minutes. The top is a leak under a screeded floor that takes a full day and several methods. Anyone quoting a single national number for both is guessing, which is why our published rates sit in a table against time bands and why an unpublished slot reads POA instead of a figure we made up.
An open-ended hourly rate is where out-of-hours bills get away from people, because the clock is running at the worst time of day. A stated band and a stated visit type cap that before anyone sets off.
Never on our invoices
- Weekend or bank holiday multipliers
- Equipment or consumables surcharges
- Report administration fees
- Charges for work you did not approve first
- A repair priced before the leak was found
- A night rate for a job that could wait for daylight
Pricing questions
Does calling at 2am cost more than calling at 2pm?
Yes, and we tell you the difference before an engineer sets off. The time bands on this page are the whole mechanism: the uplift is attached to the hour the engineer works, not to how urgent the call sounds. If the honest answer is that your leak will keep until the standard band opens, we say so and book you into it.
What actually gets charged when you stop the water but cannot fix it that night?
The visit that stopped it. Making safe, isolating, containing and diagnosing is the job you called for at that hour, and it is priced as that visit type. The permanent repair is a separate quote given once we know what the pipe needs, and it is usually cheaper in the standard band, so we will often book the fix for the morning rather than charge you a night rate to finish it.
Is there a surcharge for bank holidays or Sundays?
There is no separate weekend or holiday multiplier. A Sunday afternoon sits in the same standard band as a Tuesday afternoon, and a Sunday at 3am sits in the night band exactly as a Tuesday at 3am would. Whatever applies is stated when you book and does not move afterwards.
Why is nothing on this page a fixed number?
Because a number printed on a web page has no idea what your property is, what hour you are calling at, or whether the water is still running. Rates are confirmed on the call against the band and the visit type, which is what the table above describes. Where a figure is published, it appears in the table; where it has not been set, the table says POA rather than inventing one.
How do your rates compare with published market figures?
Checkatrade publishes a UK leak detection average of £162, with typical jobs between £115 and £234 and a full spread of £80 to £1,600, plus hourly diagnostic rates of £95 to £145. Those are useful sanity checks on any quote you receive from anyone. The wide spread is real: an accessible joint and a leak under a screeded floor are not the same job, which is why we quote the job rather than an average.
If I am not sure it is even a leak, am I paying to find out?
Not on the phone. Triage costs nothing: describe the symptoms and we will tell you what we think it is, including when we think it is condensation, an overflowing tank, a failed expansion vessel or something your water company should look at first. Sending an engineer to a job that did not need one helps nobody.
Is there a call-out fee on top of the detection fee?
Where a call-out or minimum charge applies it is shown on this page and confirmed when you book. There are no equipment surcharges or report admin fees added after the visit.
Can I get the figure confirmed in writing before anyone travels?
Yes. Send the symptoms, the property type and the postcode through the contact form and LDL247 will reply with the visit type, the band that applies and the earliest slot. If it is genuinely running now, phoning is faster than typing.
Related service pages
Tell us what the water is doing
That one answer decides the band, the visit type and the fee. We will confirm all three before anyone sets off, at any hour.
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