Slab Leak
Slab Leak
Slab Leak
Do you have a high water bill and live in Midland/Odessa area? Do you hear a faint hissing sound like water running in the wall or
underneath a cabinet? Do you have a warm spot on your floor? Is the ground near your foundation unusually saturated? All of these
can be symptoms of a slab leak if you have a slab foundation. Specifically, a leak on the pressurized fresh water pipes (hot and cold)
that deliver water to all of the faucets in your home.
If you encounter any of these symptoms of a "Water Leak", you should contact
A-Terry's Plumbing, the licensed expert to inspect and repair your
water leak issues today. Our team will handle the necessary repairs or installations for you alleviating you of any worries
and giving you peace of mind the task will be performed correctly in a timely manner.
Most
houses and office buildings in the Midland/Odessa area, built before 2010 have copper water lines. If you have a concrete slab
as the foundation of your house or office building and were plumbed with copper water lines, then those copper pipes run underneath
the foundation. Finding and fixing these pipes when they develop a leak can be challenging because they are not easily accessible.
The best solution to resolve the water leak will depend on the way your house or office building was constructed and where the
leak is located.
There are three (3) primary ways to resolve a Slab Leak under a concrete slab foundation:
- Jack-Hammer
- Tunneling
- Re-Routing
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Jack Hammer
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Jack Hammer
The
step for this type of repair is accurately locating the water leak. If you miss the location, you might end up punching multiple
holes through the concrete and making a larger mess inside the home or office. There are different tools professionals use to pinpoint the leak
under all the dirt and concrete. Professionals use tracing equipment to trace the path that the copper line runs under the slab.
They use listening equipment to “Hear Their Way” to the point where the noise is loudest.
They can also use infrared thermometers to narrow down any hot spots from a leak on a hot water line.
Once the evidence points to a specific location, the flooring and concrete is demolished with a jack-hammer and the dirt is
excavated until the pipe becomes
accessible.
A skilled professional will be able to do this process with minimal mess and make the flooring repair process as painless as possible.
Sometimes this is the best way to repair a slab leak under a concrete slab foundation. However, it is the most invasive method
and requires flooring to be re-installed. This type of repair only repairs the one spot that is leaking. Another leak could
develop on that same line in the future. Finally, even with the best equipment and skill, there is no guarantee that the leak
will be found on the first attempt. Factors like insulated lines or concrete foundation beams can make locating and repairing
the leak very difficult.
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Tunneling
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Tunneling
Digging
a tunnel is the least invasive way for the interior of the home or office to make the repair. In order to repair a leak in this way,
you must start by pinpointing the leak in the same way that you do when you are jack-hammering through the slab.
Once the leak is located, you need to find the nearest exterior wall. At that point, you dig an access pit about 3’ deep. Then,
you tunnel horizontally under the slab until you reach the location of the leak. As you might imagine, this is a huge amount of
work and is typically performed by hand by a full excavation crew. There is no heavy equipment that is suited for this type of task.
One of the advantages to tunneling is that you have the ability to replace a larger section of the damaged lines, if necessary. But
you are still limited to what can be exposed in the tunnel. Sometimes, the water leak is coming from a pipe encased in concrete and
this concrete needs to be chipped out with a small jack-hammer so that the repair can be made.
This type of repair requires a lot of work, but sometimes this is the best method for making the repair. If preventing damage
on the inside of the home or office is a high priority and the leak is close to an exterior wall, this becomes a more appealing
option, especially if re-routing is not easily accomplished.
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Re-Route
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Re-Route
A
re-route does not focus on locating and repairing a leak on a water line. Instead, a re-route is concerned with discovering which
line is leaking under the slab and where the water line ends come up above the slab. Using the different professional listening
and tracing equipment locate the water leak will be used to locate the points where multiple copper pipes connect together in the
wall which are called “Manifolds”. Once the manifold is exposed, pressure testing tools
and methods are used to identify which line(s) are leaking. Once the leaking water line(s) have been identified, the
entire old copper line is abandoned under the slab, and a new line is run overhead from “Point A” to “Point B” through the walls
and through the attic space.
Re-routing
is a very good option because it eliminates the entire line and prevents potential leaks in the future. It does
usually require cutting open the sheetrock wall in a few places, so that is one of the disadvantages. Overall, it is generally
considered the best method of repairing a slab leak where practical, especially if the house or business office is a single story.
Re-routing can be challenging if the house or business office has multiple stories. A lot depends on the framing of your home and how the water
lines are run. A good knowledge of plumbing systems in home and office construction is necessary to do the job correctly. It is the
most technically advanced method of repairing a slab leak.
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