diff --git a/tests/funcs.sh b/tests/funcs.sh
index f2a1f1d..951757e 100644
--- a/tests/funcs.sh
+++ b/tests/funcs.sh
@@ -5,6 +5,14 @@
 # want to use any of the functions
 #
 
+function assure_installed_valgrind {
+    valgrind --version &> /dev/null
+    if (( $? != 0 )); then
+		msg="Valgrind seems to not be installed."
+		err "$msg" "$msg"
+	fi
+}
+
 
 function needle { #needle #haystack
 	python -c "import re; print(re.search(r'$1', '$2').group(0))"
diff --git a/tests/memleaks.sh b/tests/memleaks.sh
index 39c0ac7..2faeb43 100755
--- a/tests/memleaks.sh
+++ b/tests/memleaks.sh
@@ -55,6 +55,7 @@ function test_thread_free_multi { #threads #times
 
 
 # Run tests
+assure_installed_valgrind
 test_thread_free 1
 test_thread_free 2
 test_thread_free 4