Traced with equipment where they are hidden, and found with food colouring where they are hiding in plain sight. The toilet is the one nobody checks.
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Most leaks give you something. A stain, a drip, a damp cupboard, a noise at night. The one that costs households the most gives you nothing at all, because the water is going exactly where water from that fixture is supposed to go.
A cistern that is passing water into the pan runs continuously. Not when you flush, but always. There is no sound, nothing on the floor, and nothing about the bathroom that looks wrong, which is why these run for years and turn up only as a bill that seems higher than it ought to be.
Two checks find it and both are free. Lift the lid off the cistern and look at the water level: if it is sitting at or above the top of the overflow tube, water is going down that tube right now. And put a few drops of food colouring in the cistern, leave it twenty minutes without flushing, and see whether colour appears in the bowl.
The repair is at the cheaper end of everything on this site. Usually an inlet valve, an outlet valve or the seal between cistern and pan. It is the diagnosis nobody does, rather than the repair nobody can afford.
Check the cistern before anything else. Twenty minutes, some food colouring, and it is the most likely explanation there is.
Lift the cistern lid and look at where the water sits. At or above the top of the overflow tube means it is running down that tube and into the pan continuously, right now, while you are looking at it.
That is the simplest version of this fault and it takes ten seconds to check. The inlet valve is not shutting off and the cistern is passing everything it takes in.
Below the overflow is not a clear result. It rules out that one mechanism and leaves the others, which is what the next test is for.
A few drops of food colouring into the cistern, then leave the toilet completely alone for twenty minutes. Do not flush it and do not let anybody else.
Come back and look at the water in the bowl. Colour in the pan means water is passing from the cistern past the outlet seal, continuously, without anybody flushing.
Clear water in the pan after twenty minutes means that seal is doing its job. It is a genuinely definitive test and it costs nothing.
This is what makes a small pass significant. It is not losing water on flushing, it is losing water every minute of every day, and nothing about it is visible or audible.
A trickle you would not notice adds up to a real number over a quarter. Cisterns are one of the two or three most common explanations for a water bill that has gone up with nothing wet to show for it.
There is no puddle, no stain and no sound. That is precisely why it runs for months.
Inlet valve, outlet valve, or the seal between cistern and pan. All three are inexpensive parts and none of them is a long job.
It is worth doing properly rather than adjusting. A float bent back into position is a few weeks of relief on a valve that has already worn out.
If the cistern is one of a matching set or an unusual model, say so when you book. Parts vary by brand and era and it is the difference between one visit and two.
Turn everything off, including the machine and the dishwasher, and watch the smallest dial on the meter for two minutes. A moving dial means water is genuinely leaving the property.
Then isolate the toilet at its own tap and watch again. If the dial stops, you have found your leak and it is a cheap one.
If it keeps moving with the toilet isolated, the cistern was not the whole story and there is something else to find.
Close the valve on the inlet to the unit and watch the dial a second time. The result splits the property in two and it costs nothing.
Cold side if it keeps going, hot side or the unit itself if it stops.
Worth checking the relief valve discharge before assuming the cylinder is the problem. A steady weep from it looks exactly like a hidden leak and is neither hidden nor expensive.
The braided hoses behind cisterns and under vanities last around five years and they do not fail gently. They go all at once, at full mains pressure, frequently while the house is empty.
They are cheap and quick to replace and they are the most common single cause of a genuinely ruinous indoor flood.
If you cannot remember when yours were changed, that is your answer. Turning the isolating valves off when you go away for a week costs nothing in the meantime.
For everything that is not a cistern, 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.
So the wet spot is a clue rather than an address, and cutting into it is frequently the wrong first move.
Locating properly means acoustic listening, thermal imaging or pressure testing sections until the line losing water identifies itself. It costs less than guessing wrong once.
What a burst costs is decided between the failure and somebody closing the water. Everything after that is a repair. Everything during it is carpet, cabinetry and plaster.
Find your meter and its stop tap now, on a dry day, and check the tap actually turns. Discovering a seized one during a burst is the worst possible time.
Know the isolating valves indoors as well, under sinks and behind toilets, because closing one of those handles a specific failure without taking water off the whole house.
Acoustic listening picks up the sound a pressurised leak makes through soil, slab and wall. Thermal imaging finds the heat signature a hot water leak leaves behind a surface.
Pressure testing shuts off sections in turn until the one losing water identifies itself. Between the three, most leaks get located before anything is opened up.
The aim is always to know where it is before cutting. On a house with tiled or timber floors that is the difference between a repair and a renovation.
On blocks this size, a reticulation system is frequently the largest single water use on the property, and a failed solenoid or a split poly line does exactly what a leaking cistern does. Continuously, invisibly, and into the ground.
It also defeats the meter test if the controller happens to run during it. Turn the controller off entirely before you watch the dial, not just to a rest day.
If the dial stops when the irrigation is isolated, that is your answer and it is a cheaper one than most alternatives on this page.
Fixed price agreed before anything starts. These are indicative 2026 ranges.
Water stopped and the situation stabilised, at any hour.
Inlet valve, outlet valve or the seal, whichever is passing.
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.
On a bill that has climbed with nothing visibly wet, that is the first question rather than the last one.
Food colouring in the cistern, the water level against the overflow, and the meter with everything closed.
Where it is not the toilet: acoustic listening, pressure testing and thermal imaging until it is a point.
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 569What Cherrybrook locals ask us before booking a plumber.
Ask us yours
Put a few drops of food colouring into the cistern, then leave it alone for twenty minutes without flushing. If colour appears in the bowl, water is passing from the cistern into the pan continuously. It is the simplest diagnostic in plumbing and it costs whatever food colouring costs.
Yes, and it takes ten seconds. Lift the cistern lid and look at the water level. If it is sitting at or above the top of the overflow tube, water is running down that tube into the pan every minute of every day.
Enough to show on a bill, and it is genuinely continuous, which is what makes it significant. We are not going to put a number on your particular household because that depends on how badly it is passing, but it runs twenty four hours a day and it has probably been running for a long time.
Because there is nothing to notice. No sound, no puddle, nothing on the floor. The water goes exactly where water from a toilet is supposed to go, just continuously instead of when you flush. It is the most common invisible waste in a house.
It is one of the cheaper jobs on the list. Usually an inlet valve, an outlet valve or the seal between the cistern and the pan, and none of those are large pieces of work.
Turn the water off at the meter before anything else, then ring. How much a burst costs is almost entirely decided by how long the supply stayed on.
A cistern repaired 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.
If the bill has climbed and nothing is wet, do the food colouring test before you ring. Twenty minutes, and it either answers the question or rules out the likeliest cause.
Tested, located, repaired, and written up.
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