How we work: the kitchen leak that the owners never saw

Illustrative case: this is how the service works. Details do not refer to a specific client.

Picture a three-bedroom villa in Orihuela Costa. The owners live in Manchester and come over four or five times a year. This time they're flying in on Friday with their two grandchildren. The house has been closed for six weeks, with a fortnightly visit and two flood sensors: one under the kitchen sink and one next to the water heater.

Wednesday, 10:42

The kitchen sensor sends an alert. That's all it does: it detects water on the floor and pings our phones. It doesn't say how much water, or where it comes from. So the first thing we do is not to message the owners with bad news. It's to go and look.

Wednesday, 11:20

We're inside the house in under forty minutes. Under the sink, the braided hose that feeds the cold tap has split near the nut. It isn't spraying, it's weeping: a steady trickle that has already soaked the bottom of the cabinet and started to spread across the floor towards the dishwasher. We close the stopcock, take photos and only then write to the owners.

The message is short: what we found, a photo, the water already off, and what we propose. A replacement hose costs very little; the job takes half an hour. They reply with a thumbs up.

Wednesday, afternoon

The hose is replaced, the water back on and checked for drips. The base of the cabinet is chipboard, so we take it out, dry everything with a fan and a dehumidifier and leave the cabinet open. Water on the floor dried with no marks on the tiles. The sensor goes back in place, dry.

Thursday, extra visit

We go back the next morning to check that everything is still dry, put the cabinet base back and run the dishwasher empty to make sure there's nothing else. Since we're there, we air the house, run the taps, turn the fridge on and make the beds for Friday.

Friday

The owners arrive. The house smells of clean sheets, not damp. Their only trace of the leak is a few photos on WhatsApp and a line in the house logbook: date, cause, part replaced, cost.

Why it ended well

• The sensor caught it the same morning, not weeks later
• Someone with a key was close enough to be there within the hour
• The water went off before anyone discussed anything else
• The owners got photos and a clear proposal, not a vague scare
• The repair was recorded, so the next time anyone opens that cabinet they know the hose is new

Without the sensor, that trickle would most likely have run until the next routine visit, or until Friday. Swollen kitchen units, a lifted floor and a holiday spent dealing with insurers instead of on the beach.