Which London firm is cheapest for leak detection?

There is no answer that holds for every job, because the structures are not comparable. Aspect publishes from £54.00 plus VAT per half hour with a one-hour minimum, Pimlico £165 per hour excluding VAT on a rate card dated 15 January 2026, ADI £495 to £595 plus VAT as a fixed investigation price, and 0800 Homefix £950.00 plus VAT as a starting figure, all as at 19 September 2026. On a forty-minute job the half-hourly rate wins; on an all-day search the fixed price does.

Why will some firms not publish a price at all?

Because scope genuinely varies and a number on a page invites a comparison the firm may lose. Dyno-Rod and Metro Rod both publish no leak detection rates and quote on arrival, and Metro Rod’s terms state that a price given before attending is an estimate subject to change after inspection. That is a legitimate model; it just means you cannot compare before booking.

Is a fixed price for leak detection better than an hourly rate?

It is better if the leak turns out to be hard, because the risk of a long day sits with the firm. It is worse if the leak is easy, because you have bought a day and used ninety minutes. Since you cannot tell which you have, the more useful question is what happens if the search fails.

Do these prices include the repair?

Generally not. Every figure in this article is for finding the leak. Repair, and the making good of whatever had to be opened, are priced separately by every firm listed. Ask which of the three you are being quoted for before you agree anything.

Do you charge more at night or at weekends?

No. Our rate is £150 per hour whenever we attend, with no out-of-hours uplift and no call-out fee. Several published London rate cards do carry time-of-day bands, so it is worth asking any firm which band your appointment falls into.

How London Leak Detection Is Actually Priced

There are four pricing structures in the London market and they are not comparable on the headline number: half-hourly with a one-hour minimum, hourly with a one-hour minimum, a fixed day rate, and quote-on-arrival with nothing published at all. Which one is cheapest depends entirely on how long your leak takes to find, which is the one thing nobody knows when you book.

Leak Fix LondonLast updated 19 September 2026

Thermal imaging survey being carried out to trace a hidden leak

What the market actually publishes

Most firms in this trade do not put a number on a page. The ones that do are worth reading closely, because the number on its own tells you very little until you know the unit it is charged in and the minimum attached to it.

Every figure below was read from that company's own published page and is dated. Prices move, and several of these pages say so themselves, so treat the date as part of the figure.

Firm	Published leak detection price	Unit and minimum	As at
Aspect	From £54.00 plus VAT	Per half hour, one-hour minimum, charges rounded up to the next half hour	19 Sep 2026
Pimlico Plumbers	£165 excluding VAT	Per hour, 7am to 6pm only, one-hour minimum then 15-minute increments	Rate card dated 15 Jan 2026, read from a 7 Jun 2026 archive snapshot on 19 Sep 2026
ADI Leak Detection	From £495 plus VAT (half day) or £595 plus VAT (full day)	Fixed price per investigation, not hourly	19 Sep 2026
0800 Homefix	£950.00 plus VAT, described on their rate page as a starting price	Priced as a trace and access product, separate from their hourly labour	19 Sep 2026
Dyno-Rod	None published	Fixed-price quote given on arrival, no call-out charge	19 Sep 2026
Metro Rod	None published	Free quote; their terms state a price given before attending is an estimate only and subject to change after inspection	19 Sep 2026
HomeServe	No standalone detection product found	Sold as insurance cover, or as repairs through a monthly membership	19 Sep 2026
Leak Fix London	£150 per hour	Per hour, fixed before we attend, no find no fee	Current

Read that table twice and the useful thing is not the spread. It is that four different products are being sold under one phrase.

The four structures, and what each one is really selling

Half-hourly with a minimum

Aspect publishes a leak detection rate from £54.00 plus VAT per half hour with a one-hour minimum charge, and their terms state that beyond the minimum, charges are made by the half hour rounded up to the next half hour. They also publish that they do not charge a call-out fee for a plumber, and that they do not charge for parking, fuel, the Congestion Charge or ULEZ, with parts and materials charged separately.

Our own arithmetic, not their published figure: £54.00 plus VAT per half hour with a one-hour minimum means the first hour is £108.00 plus VAT. Their rate guide describes its figures as starting-from prices and says actual rates vary by postcode, so treat that as a floor rather than a quote.

What this structure sells you is granularity. A short job is genuinely short. What it does not do is cap anything, and the rounding rule means a job that runs to two hours and five minutes is billed as two and a half.

Hourly with a minimum

Pimlico's rate card lists Leak Detection at £165 per hour excluding VAT, for 7am to 6pm only, with no evening or overnight leak detection rate published. The card states a one-hour minimum charge and 15-minute increments thereafter, and carries the line that the rates are effective as of 15 January 2026. The leak detection line has a footnote on the same page defining it as including thermal, acoustic or gassing detection. Their site was behind bot protection when this was checked, so the figures here are attested to a dated Internet Archive snapshot of their own page, not a live fetch.

This is the same shape as our own pricing and the same shape as most of the trade. The rate is knowable, the total is not.

Fixed price per investigation

ADI publishes fixed prices rather than an hourly rate: £495 plus VAT for a half-day roof or structural investigation, and £595 plus VAT for a full day on plumbing, central heating, water mains, underfloor heating, bathroom, drainage, ceiling or irrigation, with swimming pools at £1,190 plus VAT. Their FAQ states that they allocate a full day to every pipework leak detection investigation, and their London page gives a from-price of £495 plus VAT.

This is the structure that removes the most uncertainty, and it is a real advantage. You know the detection figure before anyone arrives. The trade-off is in the other direction: a leak that surrenders to a pressure test in forty minutes is charged as a day, because a day is what you bought.

Quote on arrival

Dyno-Rod publishes no rate card and no numeric prices. Their prices page is headed as fixed-price services and states that they never charge for call-outs and that you will always get a fixed price quote upfront, before any work begins, with a three-month guarantee. Metro Rod likewise publishes no prices, offering a free no-obligation quote; their terms state that any charges communicated before attending are an estimate only and are subject to change once the site has been inspected.

There is nothing improper about this. It is how most of the trade has always worked, and a firm that has looked at your floor genuinely does know more than one that has not. The practical consequence for you is that you cannot compare them against anything until an engineer is standing in your hallway, which is the moment you have least leverage and least patience.

Which structure actually suits your leak

The honest answer is that it depends on a variable you do not have.

If your leak is	The structure that tends to win
Visible, or obvious from a pressure test	Hourly or half-hourly. You are buying an hour, not a day.
Hidden under a solid floor with no record of the pipe run	A fixed price per investigation. The risk of a long day sits with them, not you.
Intermittent, and might need a second visit	Hourly with an outcome guarantee, because you may be buying two searches.
In a block, with access to the flat above unresolved	Hourly. Waiting time on a fixed day rate is your day being spent in a corridor.
At two in the morning, with water coming through a ceiling	Whoever is genuinely staffed at two in the morning.

That last row is not a throwaway. Aspect publishes 24-hour, 365-day availability on its leak detection page, Metro Rod and Dyno-Rod both advertise 24/7 cover, and a national operator with a staffed contact centre at 3am is a real thing that a small independent cannot conjure. If water is actively coming through a ceiling in the middle of the night, the right move is the firm that answers, not the firm with the tidiest rate card. Turn the water off at the stopcock first and the decision gets much less urgent.

Why we publish one number

Our rate is £150 per hour, fixed before we attend. It does not rise for a difficult property, an awkward access or an evening, and there is no call-out fee underneath it. If we do not find the leak, you do not pay for the time we spent looking.

A fixed hourly rate is not a fixed price, and we will not pretend otherwise: the total is the rate multiplied by hours nobody can count in advance. What the rate protects you from is being re-priced once somebody has seen your floor. The mechanics of that are set out in why leak detection is charged by the hour, and the published UK market averages sit in leak detection cost in London.

When not to buy detection from anyone

You can see the water coming out of something. A weeping compression nut does not need tracing. It needs a repair, and paying a detection rate to look at it is money for nothing.
You have not read the meter. Everything off, read it, wait an hour, read again. Free, and it turns a suspicion into evidence every later conversation depends on.
The leak is past your boundary stopcock. That pipe is the water company's, and so is the cost of finding it.
Your insurer has already instructed a contractor. Booking your own in parallel can cut across the claim. Ask them first.

Frequently asked

Which London firm is cheapest for leak detection?: There is no answer that holds for every job, because the structures are not comparable. Aspect publishes from £54.00 plus VAT per half hour with a one-hour minimum, Pimlico £165 per hour excluding VAT on a rate card dated 15 January 2026, ADI £495 to £595 plus VAT as a fixed investigation price, and 0800 Homefix £950.00 plus VAT as a starting figure, all as at 19 September 2026. On a forty-minute job the half-hourly rate wins; on an all-day search the fixed price does.
Why will some firms not publish a price at all?: Because scope genuinely varies and a number on a page invites a comparison the firm may lose. Dyno-Rod and Metro Rod both publish no leak detection rates and quote on arrival, and Metro Rod’s terms state that a price given before attending is an estimate subject to change after inspection. That is a legitimate model; it just means you cannot compare before booking.
Is a fixed price for leak detection better than an hourly rate?: It is better if the leak turns out to be hard, because the risk of a long day sits with the firm. It is worse if the leak is easy, because you have bought a day and used ninety minutes. Since you cannot tell which you have, the more useful question is what happens if the search fails.
Do these prices include the repair?: Generally not. Every figure in this article is for finding the leak. Repair, and the making good of whatever had to be opened, are priced separately by every firm listed. Ask which of the three you are being quoted for before you agree anything.
Do you charge more at night or at weekends?: No. Our rate is £150 per hour whenever we attend, with no out-of-hours uplift and no call-out fee. Several published London rate cards do carry time-of-day bands, so it is worth asking any firm which band your appointment falls into.

Sources

No find, no fee · £150 per hour. The rate is fixed before we attend and does not rise for a difficult property, an awkward access or an evening visit. The total depends on how long the job takes; the rate cannot change.