School leak detection in London
London's schools sit on London Clay in the densest concentration of Victorian board school buildings in the country, with no rural sites at all.
11 engineers covering Greater London
Part of ADI’s 23-engineer team across England, Scotland and Wales. This is the total for the Greater London 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 London
- Open schools in the region
- 3,111
- Special and boarding schools
- 254 special, 29 boarding
- Schools in rural areas
- 0
- Academy trusts operating in the region
- 339
- Water wholesalers serving the region
- Thames Water, Affinity Water, Essex & Suffolk Water, SES Water
- Ground and water conditions
- London Clay, which shrinks and swells more than almost any other UK soil through drought and recovery, and very hard water from the chalk aquifer.
- School building programmes in the region
- The densest concentration of Victorian board schools in the country, built by the London School Board from 1870, alongside major post-war London County Council programmes.
- Largest school site by capacity
- Lycee Francais Charles de Gaulle, 3,805 places
Across 33 local authorities, teaching 1,400,846 pupils. By phase: primary 1,754, secondary 459, nursery 74, 16 plus 47, all-through 42.
Source: Department for Education, Get Information About Schools: all establishment data extract (opens in a new tab) ().
1,667 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) ().
No schools in this region are classified as rural, so every site is on a mains connection inside a built-up area.
Source: Department for Education, Get Information About Schools: all establishment data extract (opens in a new tab) ().
913 academies, and 1,123 schools in total sit inside a trust. The largest by school count are Harris Federation (50), Ark Schools (27), United Learning Trust (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 Kensington and Chelsea. 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. London is outlined. Counts come from the four national school registers, not from an estimate.
What this means for a survey in London
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 London
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 London
Looking for a general leak detection company rather than a school specialist? Our sister directory lists leak detection companies across London. 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.