School leak detection in the West Midlands
West Midlands schools include a large amount of SCOLA system-built stock, where services run in accessible ducts rather than being cast into the structure.
15 engineers covering Midlands
Part of ADI’s 23-engineer team across England, Scotland and Wales. This is the total for the Midlands coverage area; individual county staffing and appointment availability are confirmed when booking.
ADI engineer coverage, checked 8 September 2026. See the counties served.
The school estate in the West Midlands
- Open schools in the region
- 2,742
- Special and boarding schools
- 268 special, 47 boarding
- Schools in rural areas
- 571
- Academy trusts operating in the region
- 302
- Water wholesalers serving the region
- Severn Trent Water, South Staffs Water
- Ground and water conditions
- Large areas of shrinkable clay and extensive made ground across the Black Country, with hard water from the Permo-Triassic sandstones.
- School building programmes in the region
- SCOLA, the Second Consortium of Local Authorities, operated across the West Midlands and the south, and its light steel-framed buildings are common in the region's secondary stock.
- Largest school site by capacity
- The de Ferrers Academy, 2,564 places
Across 14 local authorities, teaching 985,327 pupils. By phase: primary 1,778, secondary 378, nursery 55, 16 plus 32, middle deemed secondary 28, all-through 16, middle deemed primary 2.
Source: Department for Education, Get Information About Schools: all establishment data extract (opens in a new tab) ().
1,364 schools in the region have nursery classes attached, which is where most of the region's early years water use actually sits.
Source: Department for Education, Get Information About Schools: all establishment data extract (opens in a new tab) ().
A rural school is more likely to sit at the end of a long private supply run, and a minority are on private water supplies rather than a mains connection.
Source: Department for Education, Get Information About Schools: all establishment data extract (opens in a new tab) ().
1,450 academies, and 1,578 schools in total sit inside a trust. The largest by school count are St Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Multi-Academy Trust (64), St Raphael the Archangel Catholic Multi-Academy Trust (29), The Arthur Terry Learning Partnership (24).
Source: Department for Education, Get Information About Schools: all establishment data extract (opens in a new tab) ().
Leakage allowance schemes are set by the wholesaler, but a school's account is with its retailer. Ask your retailer which wholesaler scheme applies, what evidence it needs, and what the repair deadline is, before you commission the repair.
Source: MOSL, Our members: trading parties in the non-household water market (opens in a new tab) ().
Source: Department for Education, Get Information About Schools: all establishment data extract (opens in a new tab) ().
Source: Department for Education, Get Information About Schools: all establishment data extract (opens in a new tab) ().
In Staffordshire. A site of this size has a distribution network rather than a single supply run, which changes how a leak is isolated.
Source: Department for Education, Get Information About Schools: all establishment data extract (opens in a new tab) ().
The twelve regions arranged as a tile grid, shaded by open school count. the West Midlands is outlined. Counts come from the four national school registers, not from an estimate.
What this means for a survey in the West Midlands
The ground and water conditions above are the practical part. Hard water scales fittings and shortens the life of valves and mixers. Soft water is easier on scaling but less forgiving of some older metallic pipework. Shrinkable clay moves through a dry summer and pulls buried joints apart, and former coalfield ground settles differentially for decades after the workings closed.
None of that changes the sequence: measure at the meter, isolate to a branch, locate from the surface. It changes what we expect to find and where we look first.
Case studies from schools in the West Midlands
None published yet. Rather than write a plausible-sounding example, this page says so. When ADI supplies a school in this region that is happy to be named, or happy to be described anonymously, it will appear here with the measured loss and what the repair involved.
Arranging a survey in the West Midlands
Looking for a general leak detection company rather than a school specialist? Our sister directory lists leak detection companies across the West Midlands. Both sites are published by the same people, which is disclosed on the about page of each.
Sources for this page
- Source: Department for Education, Get Information About Schools: all establishment data extract (opens in a new tab) ().
- Source: MOSL, Our members: trading parties in the non-household water market (opens in a new tab) ().
Last reviewed . How this site sources and dates its figures.