Leak detection for nurseries and early years settings

Why a small setting is the easiest place to prove a leak

A nursery's genuine water use is small and predictable. That is the diagnostic advantage: on a site this size a continuous flow of even a few litres a minute is enormous relative to the baseline, and it shows on a meter within minutes rather than needing a week of logging.

The reading takes one visit. Close the building at the end of the day, note the meter, note it again first thing. If the dial has moved, something is running.

The estate profile a survey has to work around

Early years settings occupy buildings that were rarely designed for them. A converted house, a former caretaker's lodge, a modular unit relocated twice, or a wing of a primary school partitioned off. The pipework predates the use in almost every case.

• Converted domestic property with original supply pipework, sometimes lead up to the boundary
• Modular buildings with shallow, unmapped service connections
• Wings of a larger school with no separate meter, so the nursery's use is invisible inside the school total
• Recent fit-outs for hygiene and changing facilities, where new pipework meets old

Where the loss usually is in an early years setting

Because the building is small, the leak is usually either the incoming supply or a single fitting. There is not much network in between.

• The buried supply between the boundary and the building
• A cistern with a passing float valve, discharging quietly to the overflow
• Hot water fittings in the changing area, which get heavy use and are replaced piecemeal
• External and garden taps

Locating a leak in a building with almost no plant

The survey is short. Isolate at the stop tap and check whether flow stops, which separates a supply leak from an internal one. If it is internal, isolate fitting by fitting. If it is the supply, correlate along the buried run from the boundary to the building.

In a converted or modular building the run is rarely where anyone thinks it is, so pipe location before any excavation is not optional.

The strictest access rules in the sector

Early years settings apply the tightest contractor controls of any education setting, and they are right to. Expect to be escorted at all times, expect to work in areas cleared of children, and expect the setting to want the work done outside session hours wherever it can be.

Ask any contractor for their DBS position and safeguarding policy before booking. In a setting this small, an engineer will not be able to avoid being near children in the way they can on a secondary site.

Finding a window in a 51-week year

Many private and voluntary settings close only for a week or two at Christmas and a few staff training days. Maintained nursery schools follow the school year and have proper holidays.

For a private setting, plan detection for an evening or an inset day, and repair for whichever closure comes next. A leak large enough to matter is worth a day's closure; a slow one is worth waiting for the Christmas break.

What it costs and who pays for it

The commercial question in early years is usually tenure rather than budget. Many settings occupy premises they do not own, so the first thing to establish is whether the leak is on the landlord's supply or inside the demise.

Where a nursery sits inside a school, the water is normally on the school's meter and the repair sits in the school's programme, which means the nursery manager has to raise it through the school rather than commission it directly.