Ceiling damage on one floor can involve pipework and access controlled by several teams. ADI investigates hidden water leaks; this site helps facilities managers assemble the floor history, building contacts and access arrangements needed to brief the visit.
In a multi-occupancy office, the person reporting the stain may have no access to the riser beside it. Establish the contacts before the appointment so the investigation can be scoped around the actual building.
Record the floor, room and affected surface, when the mark changed, and any nearby kitchen, washroom or equipment use. Ask about earlier incidents in the same position.
Gather available service drawings and identify riser cupboards, plant areas and access restrictions. Note who can authorise a proposed isolation and which occupiers would need notice.
Confirm who is instructing the visit, who can arrange access outside the reporting tenant’s space, and where findings should be sent. Keep decisions about repair responsibility separate from the technical investigation.
Pick a part of the building, from the plant deck on the roof to the washrooms, the risers and the main under the car park, to see what a leak there looks like and how it is found.
What you notice. Stained ceiling tiles on the top floor after heavy rain, water round a rooflight or lift overrun, damp where a roof terrace meets the wall, a drip near the air-conditioning units on the plant deck.
How it is found. Moisture mapping and thermal imaging from inside; tracer gas or an electronic roof leak detector on the flat roof; a thermal-imaging drone over a large roof. ADI locates roof leaks and reports them. The repair is a roofer's job.
How we investigate flat roofs, terraces and plant decksWhat you notice. Toilets, showers and tea points are stacked floor above floor, so a leak upstairs turns up as a brown ceiling tile in a meeting room below. Lifting vinyl by a urinal, damp behind the dishwasher, a musty smell by the showers.
How it is found. Moisture mapping, thermal imaging, dye tests on WCs, urinals and showers, a borescope camera into the ceiling void, and pressure testing of the hot and cold supplies.
How we investigate washrooms, kitchens and tea pointsWhat you notice. Pipes run up through service risers and across ceiling voids, and cables share the space under a raised floor. Water dripping out of a light fitting, wet carpet tiles by a floor box, damp on a riser door.
How it is found. A borescope camera through a small opening, thermal imaging along the pipe route, acoustic listening on the risers and pressure testing each branch in turn.
How we investigate risers, ceiling voids and raised floorsWhat you notice. Boilers, calorifiers and pumps in the plant room feed radiators, fan coil units and hot water on every floor. A pressurisation unit topping up every day, a cold radiator at the end of a run, water under a fan coil unit.
How it is found. Pressure testing circuit by circuit, thermal imaging of flow and return pipework, tracer gas in the heating circuit and acoustic listening.
How we investigate heating, cooling and hot waterWhat you notice. Soil stacks, rainwater pipes and the drains under the lower ground floor. A wet basement wall, a smell in the bin store or car park, water coming up through a lower-floor slab.
How it is found. Drain camera surveys to look inside the pipe, and dye tests to follow water from a washroom, a gully or a downpipe.
How we investigate drains, basements and lower floorsWhat you notice. The supply pipe runs from the meter under the car park or pavement and into the plant room. A water bill that jumps, a meter turning at night when the building is empty, water surfacing through the tarmac.
How it is found. Acoustic ground microphones, leak-noise correlation, tracer gas and a trace wire to find the pipe, then a targeted excavation.
How we investigate incoming main and car parkEngineers combine these tests to follow a leak through ceiling voids, service ducts and washroom pipework before a floor or wall is opened.
A safe, non-flammable gas goes into the pipe and a detector finds where it escapes at the surface.
In an office building: Pipes under car parks, pipes in screed, flat roofs.
Sensitive microphones pick up the sound of water escaping under pressure.
In an office building: Buried supply pipes and risers, best when the building is quiet.
Sensors on either side of the leak work out how far along the pipe it sits.
In an office building: Long supply runs under car parks and business parks.
A thermal camera shows warm pipes and cold, wet patches behind walls, floors and ceilings.
In an office building: Heating pipes, runs across ceilings, and flat roofs by drone.
A camera on a flexible tube looks inside a void through one small hole.
In an office building: Ceiling voids, risers and boxed-in washroom pipes.
Meters map how wet walls and floors are, showing where the water started.
In an office building: How far water has spread across a floor or a run of ceiling tiles.
Each circuit is held under pressure. A drop confirms a leak; a steady gauge proves a repair.
In an office building: Separate supplies for each floor or tenant.
These ADI cases concern commercial premises, a school and a care home. They show relevant pipe investigations in occupied buildings; the source records do not identify them as office commissions.
Water was pooling on the foyer floor and the office flooring was discolouring. Thermal imaging, a pressure test and tracer gas put the leak under the kitchen threshold, where ADI dug down and repaired it.
Prepare the floor history, access contacts and restrictions in one place. The facilities guide includes an on-page checklist for the building team.
Tell the office the postcode, what has been noticed and which floors are affected. They will ask about the building, how the supplies run and access, then give you a quote and current availability.
Plant rooms, risers, the roof and any other tenant’s space on the same supply may all be needed. Let the office know about sign-in, building rules and lift access.
Commercial work comes with a risk assessment and method statement. The engineer meets your building contact and starts at the meter, the stopcocks and the plant room.
Pressure tests split the system into circuits so the one losing water can be identified. Thermal imaging, moisture readings, acoustic equipment, tracer gas and inspection cameras narrow it down from there. A few tests mean turning the water or heating off for a short time.
The report sets out findings, photographs and recommendations, ready to send to an insurer, landlord, managing agent or contractor.
Pipework and drainage leaks can be quoted for repair, frequently on the same visit, with a pressure test afterwards. Roof and building fabric leaks are located and reported for a roofer.
Office Leak Detection is a specialist service from ADI Leak Detection. About the provider.
Read the full review“He was able to locate the leak and provided a detailed report that could be shared with my insurer.”
Read the full review“He quickly set up the equipment, carried out a tracer gas test and pinpointed the leak to an area just outside our garage underneath the driveway.”
Read the full review“This is a large property and he traced leaks and sources of damp in walls and in heating pipes under concrete floors.”
Read the full review“Once the investigation was completed, Robert put everything back in place neatly and left the area tidy.”
Office Leak Detection, a specialist service from ADI Leak Detection. ADI started in 2011 and has more than twenty-five leak investigation engineers across England, Scotland and Wales. Businesses with offices up and down the country can use one provider and one report format for every building.
Usually. The methods are non-invasive: tracer gas, acoustics, thermal imaging, moisture mapping and camera inspection narrow the leak to a small area before anything is opened. Some jobs still need targeted access to confirm or repair the fault, and no survey can promise zero disturbance in every building, but we work to keep that to a tile or two and one small opening.
The engineer works around the building. Tell the office which floors are occupied, where meetings or client areas are, how sign-in works and when the building is quietest, and access is planned around that. Some tests need the water or heating off for a short period, and acoustic work goes better when it is quiet; we agree the timing with your building contact first.
Call the office with the postcode and the office team will give you current availability. ADI has more than twenty-five engineers across England, Scotland and Wales, and water coming through an office ceiling is treated as urgent. We do not promise arrival times on a website; you get a real answer on the phone.
Pipework and drainage leaks can be quoted and repaired, often on the same visit, and pressure tested afterwards. Roof and building-fabric leaks are located and reported for a roofer to fix. Repairs are charged separately from the survey and are quoted before any work starts.
In a shared building it often is. Water travels through ceiling voids and risers, so the stain in your office can start in a washroom upstairs, a neighbouring unit or the landlord's pipework. The engineer needs access to those areas too, so let the landlord or managing agent know before the visit. The report says where the leak actually is, with photographs, which gives everyone the same facts when working out who arranges the repair.
Often, but it depends on the policy. Insurers call finding and exposing a hidden leak trace and access, and many commercial buildings policies include it. ADI's report is written for that purpose: photographs, findings and recommendations, and for commercial work a risk assessment and method statement. Ask your insurer, landlord or managing agent what they need before the visit and tell us, so the report answers it.
Someone who knows the building: where the meter, stopcocks and plant room are, and which areas are affected. Access to every relevant area, including risers, the roof, locked cupboards and any other tenant's space on a shared supply. Lift access if the work is above the second floor. Parking within about 100 metres of the building for the equipment.
Describe what you have noticed, the type of building and the postcode. The office team will talk through the survey, give you a quote and current availability, and book the engineer.
