Traced with equipment rather than by opening walls, and on a property with automatic watering, tested in the order that finds the silent one first.
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A leak inside the house announces itself eventually. A stain on a ceiling, a warm patch on a floor, a cupboard that smells. Unpleasant, but at least it tells you.
A leak on a garden irrigation line does none of that, and it is the one that runs longest. It operates at three in the morning when the controller says so. The water goes into soil, which is where that water is supposed to go. There is no stain, no sound, nothing to trip over.
So it can run for a year, and frequently does. The only evidence is a water bill that has risen for no reason anybody can point at, and by the time somebody notices that pattern the money is long gone.
The good news is the test is simple and mostly free. Shut the isolating valve on the irrigation, close every tap and appliance inside, and watch the smallest dial on the meter. If it settles, the leak is on the garden side and we narrow it zone by zone. If it keeps moving, we look at the house instead.
Shut the supply off before anything else, then ring. We will stay on the line while you find it.
They run when nobody is awake and they put water where water is meant to go. Every property of this size with automatic watering has a system that is designed to be invisible in operation.
Which means a failure in it is invisible too. There is no puddle out of place, no sound, and nothing to walk past and notice.
That is not a flaw in the system. It is the reason this page starts here rather than with burst pipes.
Which is why a jump with no change in habits is worth acting on rather than watching for another quarter to see whether it settles.
By the time a second bill confirms it, the leak has been running for six months. The first bill was the information.
Nothing else about the property will tell you. On a garden this size, extra water simply looks like a garden that is doing well.
The single most useful test on a property with automatic watering. Turn the irrigation controller off entirely, close every tap in the house, and watch the smallest dial on the meter for a couple of minutes.
Off entirely rather than to a rest day, because a rest day leaves a schedule running around it and will run during your measurement.
If the dial stops when the irrigation is isolated, you have found it and it is a cheaper problem than most of the alternatives.
That is water genuinely leaving the system somewhere on your side of the meter. It is a definitive test rather than an indication.
A dial that sits perfectly still with everything closed points at usage rather than a fault, and on these blocks that usually means the pool, the irrigation or a cistern.
Do it twice if the result surprises you, and leave a couple of hours between. A cistern refilling or an ice maker cycling will move the dial and neither is a leak.
It is the single most useful thing a householder can do after confirming a loss, and it takes two minutes and no equipment.
Keep moving means the fault is on the cold side of the property. Stop means it is the unit or the hot distribution past it.
Before that becomes bad news, check the relief valve outlet. A valve discharging continuously has failed to seal, which reads identically and is a much smaller job.
Not on the night, in the dark, in the rain. Now, on a dry afternoon, with nothing happening.
On a block this size the meter can be a long way from the house and a long way from a light, which matters at two in the morning.
Check the tap actually turns while you are there. On properties of this age they seize, and a seized one is its own small job on a quiet Tuesday.
Behind a shed, under planting, along a boundary, beyond a hedge. On a large garden there is a great deal of ground nobody has reason to walk across for months at a time.
So a leak on an external line can run in ground nobody sees, and surface water disperses into soil that is watered anyway.
Which is why walking around looking for a wet patch works on a small block and quietly fails on a large one.
Acoustic listening picks up the noise a pressurised leak makes through soil and structure. Thermal imaging finds the heat signature of a hot water leak behind a surface. Pressure testing isolates sections until the one losing water identifies itself.
The sequence matters. Meter first to confirm loss, then isolate to narrow the side, then locate to a point.
Between them, most leaks get located to a small area before anything is cut, which on an established garden is the difference between a repair and a rebuild.
The connectors feeding taps and cisterns sit at full mains pressure permanently, inside cupboards, and they are rated for about five years.
When one fails it does so completely and immediately. There is no leak that grows, which is why the first anybody knows is usually a ceiling.
Replacing them all together is the sensible version, because they went in on the same day and they will reach the end at roughly the same time.
Water follows the fall of a joist, the back of a stud or the top of a slab and appears wherever it finally escapes. A ceiling stain can be metres from the fitting that failed.
Underground it is worse, because it follows whatever path the ground gives it, frequently a service trench, and may never surface at all.
So the wet spot is a starting point rather than a location, and locating properly costs less than opening the wrong thing once.
Fixed price agreed before anything starts. These are indicative 2026 ranges.
Water stopped and the situation stabilised, at any hour.
Zone by zone, to find the leak nothing else will show you.
Acoustic, pressure and thermal, with nothing opened to find it.
Depending on the pipe, the material and how it has to be reached.
Where it was, what failed, and what we did about it.
Whether the property has automatic watering, and where its isolating valve is. On a jumped bill that is where we start.
Irrigation isolated, everything indoors closed, and the meter watched. Five minutes halves the search.
Zone by zone outside, or acoustic, pressure and thermal inside, until it is a point rather than an area.
What failed, where, and what it took, at the figure agreed before we started.
Shut it off at the meter and ring. A licensed plumber can be heading toward you while you are still on the call.
Call 1300 381 569Outside, and specifically at anything automatic. A leak on a garden irrigation line is the hardest domestic leak to notice, because it runs in the small hours when nobody is watching and the water is going into ground it is supposed to be going into. There is no stain, no sound and no mess.
By isolating the garden system and watching the meter. If the meter settles once the irrigation is shut off, the leak is on that side, and we can narrow it down zone by zone from there. If it keeps moving, we go looking at the house.
The first half, yes. Shut the irrigation isolating valve, close every tap and appliance inside, then watch the smallest dial on the meter for a few minutes. Whether it moves, and whether shutting the garden off changes that, is most of the diagnosis.
Turn the water off at the meter before anything else, then ring. How much a burst costs is largely decided by how long the supply stayed on.
Acoustic listening, pressure testing and thermal imaging, chosen to suit what is leaking and where it runs. None of them require opening a wall to have a look.
It costs the same money and it lasts longer, because nothing ever draws attention to it. Plenty of them run for a year or more. It is the single most expensive silent fault on a property like this.
Isolating and testing an irrigation system is $150 to $350. Locating a concealed leak is $250 to $600. A burst repair is $300 to $900. Emergency isolation and make-safe is $200 to $450.
Tell us whether the property has automatic watering and what the meter does with everything off. Those two answers halve the search before anybody arrives.
Split, located, opened once, and repaired at the figure agreed.
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