Water coming through the office ceiling: what to do first
Somebody has just spotted a brown tile, or water dripping onto a desk. What you do in the next hour decides how much kit gets ruined and how straightforward the claim is. Here is the order to do things in.
1. Make it safe
Water and office electrics do not mix. If water is coming through near a light fitting, a ceiling speaker, floor boxes or a comms cabinet, keep people away and get that circuit isolated before anyone touches anything. A tile that has taken on water gets heavy and can drop out of the grid without warning, so clear the desks underneath and put a sign up. Wet carpet tiles and vinyl are slippery, too.
2. Protect the desks and the kit
Unplug and move laptops, monitors and paperwork from the desks under the drip and the ones either side, because water runs along the ceiling grid and comes down further along than you would expect. Put a bin or a tray under the drip. If a tile is bulging with water, a small hole in the middle lets it drain into a bucket in a controlled way, rather than the whole tile giving way over someone's desk.
3. Rain or pipe?
This is the question that sends you to the right people, so settle it early.
| Pattern | Most likely | What to do now |
|---|---|---|
| Top floor only, started during or just after heavy rain | The flat roof, a rooflight, the plant deck or a roof terrace | Tell the landlord or managing agent; call a roofer or ADI to locate it |
| Under the washrooms or a kitchen, and worse when the building is busy | A WC, urinal, shower, sink waste or a supply pipe to them | Take that washroom or tea point out of use and see if it slows |
| Carries on day and night, whatever the weather | A pressurised pipe in the ceiling void or riser: a heating run or a water supply | Check boiler pressure and the water meter; isolate the supply to that area if you can |
| Under an air-conditioning unit, mostly on warm days | A blocked or leaking condensate drain | Mention it when you call; your air-conditioning contractor may be the first call |
4. The stain is not the leak
Water above a ceiling rarely falls where it starts. It runs along pipes, across the top of the tiles and down the ceiling grid before it finds a gap, so the leak can be several metres away from the brown tile, or a floor above it. Swapping the tile and waiting is the most common way to find out the hard way. Moisture mapping and thermal imaging show where the water is really coming from, and a borescope camera looks into the void through a small opening before anything larger comes out. How ADI investigates leaks in ceiling voids and risers.
5. Record it for the landlord and the insurer
Photograph the ceiling, the drip, anything damaged and the area above if you can get to it, with the date and time. Note when it was spotted, what the weather was doing and what you moved. If you rent the space, tell the landlord or managing agent the same day: in a multi-let building the leak may be in another tenant's space or in the landlord's pipework, and the lease decides who deals with it. Insurers call finding the source trace and access, and a clear timeline makes that conversation easier.
6. Check upstairs and the plant room
Ask the floor above whether they have seen anything: a wet floor in the washrooms, a leaking dishwasher, a dripping radiator valve. If the boiler has needed topping up more than usual, or the water meter turns when the building is empty, say so when you call. That points the survey at the pipework rather than the roof.
What not to do
- Do not just replace the stained tile and move on. Dry is not fixed, and the leak is still there.
- Do not push ceiling tiles up to look without isolating nearby electrics first, and do not stand on desks or chairs to do it.
- Do not let a contractor start cutting into walls or ceilings before the source is found and the landlord or insurer has said what they need.
When to call
If the drip carries on after the rain stops, if more than one floor is affected, if you cannot tell whether it is the roof or a pipe, or if a landlord or insurer is involved, call. Have the floor, the pattern you saw and the photographs ready.