How do I know if I have a hidden leak on my property?

The clearest sign is a water bill that keeps rising with no obvious cause, or a water meter that keeps spinning after every tap and appliance is off. You might also notice damp patches in the yard, discoloured ceilings, mould, a musty smell, or a warm spot on a floor tile. If you're seeing any of these on your Central Coast property, it's worth booking a proper leak detection assessment rather than waiting to see if it gets worse.

Can leak detection be done without digging up my yard or slab?

Yes, in most cases. We use CCTV inspection, acoustic detection, thermal imaging, ground-penetrating radar and tracer gas testing specifically because they locate a leak without excavation. These methods let us pinpoint the exact spot before any digging happens, so only the precise area needing repair is disturbed. Non-invasive leak detection is standard practice for us across the Central Coast, and it keeps your landscaping, driveway or flooring largely intact.

Do you provide a written report after a leak detection job?

Yes. Every leak detection job on the Central Coast ends with a written report covering the cause, exact location, severity, an estimated repair cost and method, and any safety concerns. We also include photos and, where relevant, CCTV footage. This report is yours to keep, and you can use it to get repair quotes or to support an insurance claim if the leak has caused damage.

What suburbs across the Central Coast do you service?

We cover the whole Central Coast region, including Gosford, The Entrance, Erina, Terrigal, Wyong, Woy Woy and Narara, along with Toukley, Budgewoi, Kincumber, Avoca Beach, Umina Beach and Point Clare. If you're anywhere on the Central Coast and you're not sure whether your suburb is included, call us. We'll confirm straight away and get a plumber out to assess your leak detection needs.

How often should older Central Coast homes get a leak inspection?

We generally recommend an inspection every one to two years for homes over 30 years old, especially slab-on-ground properties or those with original galvanised steel or copper plumbing. Coastal humidity and salt air accelerate corrosion here more than inland, so ageing pipework fails earlier than it would elsewhere. Regular leak detection catches small problems before they become an expensive repair, particularly in the older Central Coast suburbs where this kind of plumbing is common.

Leak Detection Central Coast | Eagle Service Solutions

Leak detection finds hidden water, gas, roof and slab leaks without digging up your property. On the Central Coast, we use CCTV cameras, acoustic sensors, thermal imaging and tracer gas to locate a leak accurately, typically for $220 to $500+. Every job comes with a fixed price and a lifetime labour guarantee, in writing.

Eagle Service Solutions provides leak detection across the Central Coast, for homeowners and businesses dealing with anything from a minor drip behind a bathroom wall to a major underground pipe failure threatening a foundation. Our leak detection service covers hidden water leaks, gas leaks, roof leaks, slab leaks and underground pipe failures throughout Gosford, The Entrance, Erina, Terrigal, Wyong, Woy Woy and Narara, along with diagnosing hot water system failures and tracing sewer line issues.

We handle every type of leak detection a Central Coast home or business might need, including:

Hidden water leaks behind walls, under floors or inside ceiling cavities
Slab leaks beneath concrete foundations in slab-on-ground homes
Underground pipe leaks affecting your yard, driveway or foundation
Gas leak detection for suspected leaks in supply lines and fittings
Roof leak detection, including leaks that travel before showing a ceiling stain
Hot water system leak diagnosis covering tanks, valves and connecting pipework
Sewer and stormwater line leak tracing using CCTV inspection

Service	Estimated Cost (incl. GST)	What's typically involved
Basic leak detection	$220 – $550+	Investigating water supply leaks, slab leaks, or general unexplained moisture using standard detection methods.
Gas leak detection	$280 – $520+	Tracer gas testing and electronic detection, checking appliances and supply lines for a suspected gas leak.
Thermal imaging survey	$350 – $620+	A full infrared scan of walls, floors, ceilings and slabs to locate hidden leaks without cutting into anything.

Leak detection finds leaks that aren't visible to the eye: concealed behind walls, under concrete slabs, buried underground or hidden in ceiling cavities. Our goal is to pinpoint the leak without damaging your property, cutting water loss, safety risk and the cost of unnecessary excavation.

Leak detection matters more here than in most places. Coastal humidity and salt air corrode pipes, fittings and joints faster than inland. Soil ranges from sandy near the shoreline to mixed clay and loam further in, and both shift through wet and dry cycles, stressing buried pipes. Add decades-old suburban plumbing, much of it galvanised steel or copper, and you've got conditions that call for regular inspection and early leak detection, rather than waiting for a problem to surface.

Central Coast properties see the same leak types again and again, each with a local cause:

Underground pipe leaks under slab-on-ground homes around Terrigal and The Entrance, causing rising damp, mould and structural settlement if left
Hot water system failures in older homes, where thermal expansion and metal fatigue in ageing copper or steel pipes cause slow leaks you might only notice as a warm floor tile or a discoloured ceiling
Fixture leaks around toilets, sinks, taps and drains from deteriorating seals, cracked tiles and loose grout, sped up by the coastal environment
Subfloor damage from water finding its way through a floor waste or bath connection before it's ever visible

Many Central Coast homes are brick-and-tile or weatherboard, with plumbing mixing galvanised steel, copper, PVC or polybutylene installed across different decades. Salt corrosion attacks metal fittings relentlessly, and slab construction usually rules out crawl space access, exactly why we treat leak detection as essential here, rather than guesswork.

Six signs point to a hidden leak on your property, and catching them early can save you a significant repair bill. If you're seeing any of the following, call us for a proper assessment rather than trying trial-and-error DIY fixes that waste time and let the damage spread:

A water bill that keeps climbing with no obvious explanation
Your water meter still spinning after every tap and appliance is off
Wet or unusually green patches in the yard with no recent rain
Discoloured walls or ceilings, peeling paint, mould or a musty smell
Water pressure dropping across the home or at one fixture in particular
Hissing or bubbling sounds coming from behind a wall
Warm patches on floor tiles suggesting a hot water leak under the slab

Professional leak detection consistently beats guesswork, because a data-driven approach pinpoints the exact source before anyone starts cutting into a wall or digging up a yard.

Acoustic leak detection uses sensitive microphones and hydrophones to pick up pressurised water escaping through a crack, joint or hole. A leak noise correlator placed at two points along a pipe triangulates the exact position fast, our go-to method for pressurised supply lines near the surface. Electronic moisture sensors scan walls, floors and ceilings for elevated moisture without any damage, mapping your property's problem areas even where nothing is visible yet. Thermal imaging reveals heat differences from a hot water leak under a slab or behind a wall, and flags a cold water leak near a warm surface too. We often combine acoustic and thermal methods on one job for redundancy and precision.

Ground-penetrating radar sends pulses into the ground to flag voids, water saturation or a broken pipe at depths where acoustic tools lose accuracy, valuable for deep underground leaks that would otherwise mean expensive digging. Pressure testing isolates a section of your plumbing or gas system, applies controlled pressure and watches for a drop that confirms a leak exists, before we bring in a location-specific tool. Tracer gas testing introduces a non-toxic helium or hydrogen mix into a closed pipeline, and our sniffers detect gas escaping at the leak point, even under concrete or deep underground. These methods keep your landscaping, flooring and walls intact while we work.

When you call us in, we start with an initial property assessment: visiting your home, listening to your concerns and checking visible signs such as dampness, wet patches, water pressure and how your water meter behaves, since meter monitoring often reveals a concealed leak on its own. From there we choose the right equipment for your situation:

Acoustic listeners, thermal imaging or moisture mapping for a first non-invasive sweep
CCTV inspection for pipe interiors and sewer or stormwater lines
Tracer gas or ground-penetrating radar for deep or elusive leaks
Pressure testing to confirm a leak exists before we locate it precisely

Once we've located the leak, we mark its position, whether that's above the slab, under concrete or behind a wall, then photograph and measure it for depth and orientation. You then get a written report covering the cause, location, severity, an estimated repair cost and method, any safety concerns and prevention steps, one you can also use to support an insurance claim.

Coastal soil here is mostly sandy with low water-holding capacity, so a leak spreads underground fast without ever pooling on the surface, and that same sand dampens the acoustic signals we'd normally rely on. Seasonal wet and dry cycles shift the soil further, stressing buried pipes and creating new failure points. Our solution leans on moisture sensors, ground-penetrating radar and tracer gas methods that don't depend on soil-transmitted sound, so we can still detect a leak reliably in sandy ground. This is a genuinely local problem: Central Coast Council's own leak detection program scanned 1,614 kilometres of water mains from July 2024, found 391 leaks, and cut water loss by an estimated 623 megalitres a year.

Established suburbs including The Entrance, Terrigal, Gosford and Narara often run on plumbing that's decades old, built from galvanised steel, copper or polybutylene with weakened joints and corroded fittings. Slab homes from 40 to 60 years ago typically give limited access to the pipework, and the pipes are often undersized by today's standards. We use gentle, non-invasive methods that won't damage brittle old pipes, combining acoustic and tracer gas techniques while avoiding pressure spikes that could turn a small failure into a bigger one. For waste and sewer lines in older properties, CCTV inspection is our first choice, assessing the pipe's condition from the inside without any excavation.

Waterfront and coastal properties bring their own access problems: tightly landscaped gardens, steep terrain, decks, limited ground clearance and constant salt spray. Pipes here are often buried deep, run through rock, or pass under a concrete deck or retaining wall. We use portable, compact equipment, run thermal imaging from an upper floor, extend our acoustic sensors' cable reach, and bring in tracer gas for deeply buried mains, using whatever access point suits your property, a roof space, crawl space or floor void.

Leak detection on the Central Coast, whether tracing a hidden slab leak, a failing pressure limiting valve or unexplained water loss, is diagnosed against AS/NZS 3500.1, the water services part of the AS/NZS 3500 series that sets requirements for pipe sizing, pressure, jointing and backflow protection under National Construction Code Volume Three. Because Central Coast Council is the region's own water supply and sewerage authority under the Water Management Act 2000, rather than Sydney Water or Hunter Water, unexplained consumption spikes and suspected mains side leaks are reported directly to Council, which also administers the leak allowance and water loss provisions available to account holders. Any repair identified through leak detection that alters existing water or drainage infrastructure is treated as notifiable work, lodged with Council as a Notice of Work, and finalised with a certificate of compliance, under a licence issued through the Home Building Act 1989 and Plumbing and Drainage Act 2011.

We've been fixing plumbing problems across the Central Coast for more than 15 years, and leak detection is one of the jobs we're asked to do most. Every job we complete carries a lifetime labour guarantee, in writing, and every quote is fixed before we start, so you'll never face a surprise invoice. Our lice nsed plumbers use CCTV inspection, acoustic detection, thermal imaging, ground-penetrating radar and tracer gas testing, choosing whichever combination suits your property rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

We're available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with a response time under 60 minutes for emergency calls. When you need leak detection on the Central Coast, you're calling a local team with three decades of experience finding the answer, not guessing at it.

We provide leak detection across the whole Central Coast region, from the northern lakes around Toukley and Budgewoi, through Wyong and Tuggerah, down to Gosford, Erina and Terrigal, and out to the peninsula suburbs of Woy Woy, Umina Beach and Ettalong. We also cover the waterway suburbs around Brisbane Water and Tuggerah Lake, including Kincumber, Avoca Beach and Point Clare, where waterfront access and older infrastructure often make leak detection more complex. Wherever you are on the Central Coast, from a home near Erina Fair to a waterfront property on Brisbane Water, our team can get to you and find the leak.

If you suspect a leak on your Central Coast property, three steps matter most: document it, isolate it if needed, and call us. We back every job with more than 15 years of local trade experience and a lifetime labour guarantee in writing. Here's what to do right now:

Document what you're seeing: photos, your current water meter reading, any unusual sounds or smells
Turn off the water at the mains if it's a major or emergency leak, to limit further damage
Call us for a professional assessment; we're available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with a response time under 60 minutes for emergency calls

"They responded very quickly and did my job that day. The workman was very polite and friendly and did an excellent job."

"Jarrod was very professional, provided options and answered questions."

"Dale was great. He turned up on time, very friendly and completely professional. Would definitely use again!"

"Eagle Service Solutions have great communication, showed up on time, the team were friendly, helpful and the job was neat, clean and tidy... this is the second time I have used them and can't fault their work."

"Colin arrived on time, was friendly, knowledgeable and efficient. Highly recommend."

"Josh, Tyson and Col were wonderful, we had a range hood ducted through the roof, the level of work was excellent, would recommend and definitely reuse."

"Dylan, Will and Doug were thorough and clearly communicated with me about the work being done. Great communication with head office."

"Josh has great customer service skills... he organised a plumber Doug to come to my house and investigate a water issue... Doug and his team dug trenches and worked out how to capture the water before it went under my house."

"Dylan did a fantastic job repairing and replacing a damaged section of our sewer line... he kept us informed throughout the job and delivered a high-quality result while leaving everything clean and tidy."

"I recently used Eagle Service Solutions to upgrade my old gas storage hot water system to a continuous flow system. The team were prompt and professional, and the installation was completed quickly. I'm very happy with the result."

"Huge thank you to Dale... who came to our house on short notice to attend to our leaking shower. Dale was efficient, professional and polite, and took the time to explain the issues to us."

"I had a hot water system installed by Angelina and Braydon this morning, excellent service, they were punctual and very friendly."

"Super happy to have Ben as our tradie today. His attention to detail, expertise and professionalism is certainly appreciated. Top job Ben!"

"THE BEST! For customer service, for high quality workmanship and for price. I've been on the coast for 40 years and wish I'd found these guys sooner. I've used them 3 times now and they have been fantastic, the whole team are very professional."

"Absolutely fantastic."