Leak Detection for Caravan and Holiday Parks

Last updated: 27 August 2026 · DCI Leak Detection

A caravan or holiday park runs its own private water network from the metered connection, often hundreds of metres of pipe feeding standpipes, hydrants, wash blocks and individual pitches. That scale is exactly what makes holiday park leak detection a different job to a single house. There is more pipe to search, more history to check against, and a hard deadline: the season opens on a set date whether the network is ready or not. This guide covers how a hidden leak on that kind of network gets found, and what park operators can do between seasons to catch problems early.

Why a holiday park network is a different job

A domestic leak search usually covers one property and a short run of pipe from the boundary stop tap to the house. A holiday park network is a small water utility in miniature: one metered supply point feeding a private distribution system that branches out to dozens or hundreds of pitches, static units, toilet and shower blocks, and often an on-site laundry or bar. Some of that pipe runs under hardstanding roads, some under grass pitches, and some was laid decades ago in sections as the park expanded.

That scale changes the maths. A leak that would be obvious in a three-bedroom house, a wet patch by the back door, can sit quietly under a pitch or access road on a large site for weeks, showing up only as a bill that looks a bit high. Because the network is commercial, the tools used to search it lean more heavily on underground water leak detection equipment designed for longer pipe runs, and the job is planned as commercial leak detection from the outset rather than treated as a scaled-up house call.

The metered supply makes the cost visible fast

Because parks are metered commercial customers, a leak translates directly into a rising bill, and that bill is usually the first alarm. The trick is knowing whether a rise reflects more guests using more water, or water leaving the network before it reaches a tap at all.

Signs your park has a hidden leak

None of these prove a leak on their own, but taken together they are the pattern operators should watch for through the season:

• A bill that outpaces occupancy. Usage should track roughly with how full the park is. A rise well beyond that, especially early or late season when occupancy is lower, is the clearest flag.
• Flow with everything off. If the meter keeps turning with every pitch, standpipe and wash block isolated, water is going somewhere it shouldn't.
• Pressure that drops at the far end of the site. Pitches furthest from the supply point losing pressure, particularly at peak times, can point to a leak between the meter and that section rather than simple demand.
• Damp or unusually green ground along a pipe run, on a road edge, verge or hardstanding join, especially if it persists in dry weather.
• A wash block or laundry with a pressure or hot water complaint that comes and goes without an obvious cause.

How the leak gets narrowed down

The approach on a park network follows the same non-invasive principle as a house, just applied at a larger scale and usually alongside the park's own valve records and meter history.

1. Review the network map and billing history. Knowing where valves, joints and past repairs sit, and when the bill first moved, narrows the search area before anyone sets foot on site.
2. Acoustic correlation. Sensors placed at two access points, such as valve chambers or hydrants, listen for the leak's sound as it travels through the pipe wall. The time difference between the two signals calculates a position along the run, often to within a metre or two on suitable pipe.
3. Tracer gas, where correlation is inconclusive. A safe mix of 5% hydrogen and 95% nitrogen is introduced into the pipe and detected at the surface with a sensitive probe, useful on plastic supply pipe or noisy ground where sound alone is harder to read.
4. Thermal imaging to confirm a wet, cooler patch under hardstanding or turf where surface conditions allow it, adding a second line of evidence before any dig is proposed.
5. A small, targeted excavation once the position is confirmed, rather than trenching along the suspected route.

The aim throughout is to keep the eventual dig as small as possible. On a working holiday park, closing off more ground than necessary means lost pitches and disrupted guests, so the non-invasive stage protects the park's income while the search is underway.

Per-pitch isolation: the single biggest time-saver

Of everything covered here, the single factor that most affects how fast a leak gets found is whether the park's pitches can be isolated individually or in small zones.

Where each pitch, or a small cluster of pitches, has its own isolation valve, a leak search becomes a process of elimination: close a section, watch the meter, reopen it, move to the next. A section with flow that doesn't stop, or that only returns to normal once isolated, is the one to focus the acoustic and tracer gas work on. This can rule out large parts of a network in an afternoon.

Parks built or extended without that level of isolation, often older sites where the whole network was laid as one continuous run, don't have that shortcut. The search then relies more heavily on acoustic survey across the full pipe length, which takes longer and needs more access points. If your park is planning any upgrade work, adding isolation valves at pitch or zone level is one of the more useful investments for future leak control, even though it isn't itself a leak repair.

Seasonal opening checks

Cornwall and Devon parks that close, or scale right back, over winter face a specific risk: months of freezing weather, ground movement and zero usage on some runs, followed by a hard opening date. A short pre-season routine catches most of what winter leaves behind.

1. Take a full meter reading with every pitch, standpipe and wash block isolated, and leave it closed overnight if possible.
2. Compare that reading against a second one taken the next morning. Any movement means a leak somewhere on the network.
3. Walk the site looking for soft or unusually green ground, especially along pipe runs and at valve chambers.
4. Open pitches and zones one at a time, watching the meter as each is brought online, so a leak on one section doesn't get masked by normal usage elsewhere.
5. Check pressure at the far end of the network, since a drop there can indicate a leak between the supply point and that section even when nearer pitches read normally.

Where this routine flags a problem, getting a trace done before the season starts, rather than mid-summer with pitches full, avoids disruption at the worst possible time and gives a clean baseline for the year.

Long networks across Cornwall & Devon parks

The South West has a high concentration of caravan and holiday parks, many built in phases over several decades on coastal and rural sites, which means network age and layout varies a lot from one park to the next. Older parks that grew pitch by pitch sometimes have pipe runs laid at different times, in different materials, with isolation added only in the more recently developed sections. We see this pattern most weeks across the region: a leak turns up not because the whole network is old, but because one particular phase of pipework, often the oldest, has finally reached the point where a joint or a run gives way.

Ground conditions matter too. Granite and shillet subsoil common across parts of Cornwall drains differently to the heavier clay found in some Devon valleys, which affects how quickly a leak shows up on the surface and how easily acoustic signals travel through the pipe and surrounding ground. None of that changes the method, but it does change how long a search takes and where the first checks are worth focusing.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides: Protecting Your Holiday Let From Water Leaks · Commercial Leak Detection Guide · Leak Correlators: How Pros Pinpoint Buried Leaks