Leak detection in Liverpool, Bootle and Prescot
Leak detection in Liverpool, Bootle, Prescot and Ormskirk, from Red Rose Leak Detection, traces water escaping from central heating, from the pipes inside a home or business and from the buried supply pipe, in the districts listed below.
Which Liverpool postcode districts are covered?
Liverpool's covered postcode districts are the 40 L districts below, grouped by post town: Liverpool itself, Bootle, Prescot and Ormskirk, each one on Red Rose Leak Detection's list.
- Liverpool
- L1, L2, L3, L4, L5, L6, L7, L8, L9, L10, L11, L12, L13, L14, L15, L16, L17, L18, L19, L21, L22, L23, L24, L25, L26, L27, L28, L29, L31, L32, L33, L36, L37, L38
- Liverpool, Bootle
- L20
- Bootle
- L30
- Prescot
- L34, L35
- Ormskirk
- L39, L40
Wirral's CH districts and Southport's PR districts are covered too, and they sit with every other area in the full table of coverage by town and postcode district.
Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2026. Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0.
How old are the homes where Liverpool leaks are traced?
Liverpool's homes are older than England's as a whole: 25.6% of the homes in the Liverpool council area were built before 1900, against 14.9% across England, and 51.6% before 1945 (Council Tax stock of properties, 31 March 2026).
- Homes built before 1900 and 1945
- 25.6% of the homes in the Liverpool council area were built before 1900, against 14.9% across England, and 51.6% before 1945, against 34.6% (Council Tax stock of properties, 31 March 2026).Source: Valuation Office Agency, Council Tax: stock of properties 2026
- Against other council areas
- Liverpool's share of homes built before 1900 is higher than that of Manchester, Wirral, Stockport, Bolton, Preston, Warrington or Cheshire West and Chester (Council Tax stock of properties, 31 March 2026).Source: Valuation Office Agency, Council Tax: stock of properties 2026
- Households in a terraced house
- 37.9% of Liverpool households lived in a terraced house in 2021, against 23.0% across England and 28.1% across the North West.Source: Office for National Statistics, Census 2021 TS044 Accommodation type
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Age reaches the pipework as well as the brickwork. United Utilities says the government banned the use of lead in water pipes in 1970 and that “Any properties built before 1970 may still have lead pipework”.
Terraces put homes wall to wall. When water comes through from next door or from a flat upstairs, Citizens Advice's first step is a conversation with the neighbour, and the answer to who pays when a leak damages the flat below depends on whose pipe it was and who owns or rents each home.
Which sources feed Liverpool's water supply?
Liverpool's water supply is fed from the River Dee and from Lake Vyrnwy in Wales, United Utilities' water quality checker says for the city centre, while Fazakerley, Norris Green, Speke and Halewood are supplied from the Dee alone.
Both sources are treated outside the city. United Utilities says Vyrnwy water is treated at Oswestry in Shropshire and Dee water at its Huntington works in Chester, and that both aqueducts “terminate at a large storage reservoir in the Prescot area of Liverpool”. The Vyrnwy aqueduct was officially opened on 14 July 1892, and in March 2025 United Utilities said two of its cast iron pipes “will be slip lined with newer pipes constructed of polyethylene”.
The aqueducts and street mains are United Utilities' to maintain. Its pipe stops at the property boundary, and the buried length from there to the house is the owner's, where a leak calls for underground water leak detection.
Which leaks are traced in Liverpool homes?
Liverpool homes call for four kinds of investigation: a heating system that keeps losing pressure, a water pipe leaking out of sight indoors, a leak on the buried supply pipe, and the hidden leak behind a home insurance claim.
- Radiators and the pipes beneath a floor are where central heating leak detection looks first when the boiler needs topping up again and again.
- In an older terraced house the water pipes can run inside walls and under floors, so pipe leak detection reads pressure, sound, heat, gas and moisture to find the one point that is leaking.
- Under a front path or yard, the owner's supply pipe is traced from above with listening, gas and pressure tests, before a floorboard or a flagstone comes up.
- An insurer may want a leak found and its position recorded before an escape of water claim goes ahead, and many policies pay for that search as trace and access cover, which does not pay for the repair itself.
When is a Liverpool leak United Utilities' job?
A Liverpool leak is United Utilities' job when it is on the water main, on the communication pipe up to the property boundary, or at the external stop tap in the footpath; from the boundary inwards, the supply pipe and every pipe in the home are the owner's.
United Utilities: the main in the road, the communication pipe to the boundary, the external stop tap in the footpath
The owner: the supply pipe from the boundary, the internal stop tap and every pipe indoors
To report a leak on the company's side, use United Utilities' Report a problem page, which covers leaks in the street, on the main and at the external stop tap. Tenants pass a supply pipe leak to their landlord: in United Utilities' words, “If you live in a rented property, it is your landlord's responsibility to repair the leak.”
Bootle, Prescot and Ormskirk follow the same split, and so does the rest of Merseyside, set out with the region's other towns under leak detection across the North West.