Have a leak? We can help!
There are two types of problems associated with leaks:
- You received an abnormally large water bill.
- You have a leak ( seen or unseen )
A visible leak is when you can actually see water coming out of a pipe, pooling somewhere, dripping down a wall, etc. However, many leaks are not visible and are within your walls and within your pipes. This is why you need a leak detection service like the one we provide to locate leaks in homes and businesses from Delray Beach to Davie, Boca Raton to Jupiter.
In your plumbing system you have two types of pipes – pressurized water-service lines and periodic sewer lines. Pressurized water service lines are the pipes that bring hot and cold potable (drinkable) water to your faucets and fixtures. These pressurized water service lines always have water pressure in them and if there is a leak, they will leak continuously. The leak will consist of fresh, clean water.
Sewer lines are the pipes that carry waste water away. They are ‘periodic’ as they only have water in them when waste water needs to be removed – when you flush the toilet, run the sink or shower, etc. If one of these pipes is leaking, you will only see water leak out when a fixture is used. It will consist of dirty, sewer water.
Large Water Bill?
If you have an abnormally large water bill, you don’t have a sewer line leak as these do not affect the water coming into our house. You may have a potable water leak. There are a couple of steps you can take to determine if you have a one, or if something else may be causing it (one big culprit can be a bad sprinkler system timer – over running the sprinkler system for instance).
- Turn off all the fixtures in your house to make sure no water is being used.
- Locate your water meter box. This is usually in a covered box near the front of the house, next to the property line.
- Open the meter and see if any of the needles are spinning. The one you want to pay attention to is the ‘leak indicator’ which usually is in the shape of a triangle. If it is, water is flowing through the meter and you have a leak.
- If the needles aren’t spinning – they still might be, just too slowly for you to tell. We call this a pin-hole leak in a pipe. Write down the meter reading and go back inside.
- Wait 30-60 minutes and do not use any water (don’t flush the toilet, turn on a faucet etc).
- Go back out to the meter and check the meter reading. If the reading has changed, you have a slow leak.
- Contact the plumber – E-Schedule online or call the Experts:
Palm Beach County(Boca Raton, Delray Beach north to West Palm Beach and Jupiter
561-368-5111
Broward County(Davie to Fort Lauderdale to Parkland and Deerfield Beach)
954-786-0477
…and one of our highly trained technicians will be able to get your problem fixed right away!
Don’t forget, your satisfaction is guaranteed!
Visible Water Leak
If you can see water pooling somewhere – running down the wall, coming out of the floor or toilet, etc., we need to find the location of the leak. You see, a water leak isn’t always what it may seem.
Water will travel through the path of least resistance via the force of gravity. What this means is that many times a leak may appear to be coming from one spot, but is really originating from another source. Frequently the forces that cause one leak can cause multiple leaks.
There are a number of methods that our leak specialists can use to locate a leak.
ACOUSTIC
When water leaks in a pressurized pipe, water flows through the surrounding soil very quickly. This causes the pipes to vibrate at the water leak. This vibration flows throughout the entire pipe – by using our sophisticated leak detection equipment, we can localize the source of the leak.
LINE LOCATOR + SEWER VIDEO CAMERA
Many times a leak is occurring in the sewer pipe system of your home. There are a number of possible causes of a leak:
- Tree roots: Roots can find their way into the pipe system and as they grow separate the plumbing fittings.
- Collapse: Earth settlement can cause downward or lateral pressure on the pipe and cause it to deform and break.
- Mis-alignment: A bad installation can function initially, but over time gives way to leaks.
To determine the cause and location of a leak, we use a combination of a line locator and sewer video camera. We insert the sewer video camera into the plumbing line through a clean-out and can view on a TV screen in the inside of the pipe. Once we find the location of the problem, we use a line locator which tells us exactly how many feet into the sewer pipe the problem is.
SMOKE TEST
A smoke test is another way of locating a sewer line leak. We force a large quantity of harmless special-effects smoke into the sewer system. We can then find the leak by seeing where the smoke is exiting the pipe system.
THERMAL IMAGING
Thermal Imaging leak detection uses state of the art technology to find temperature differences in materials. This is the technology you see on hit TV shows like CSI: Miami. Since hot and cold water tend to have different temperatures than the ambient air, we can “see-through” walls to locate the source of the water leak.
What to do if you have a leak:
- Stop using water! If it’s a sewer line leak, you don’t want to use any fixtures or put any water down any drains.
- Shut off the water: Locate your main shut off valve outside and disable the water. If the leak is at a specific fixture and you have an emergency shut-off valve, you can disable the water at that location only.
- Clamp & Blanket: If you see the leak, you can try putting some type of water barrier (plastic or rubber works) over the leak and then laying a blanket on top. Use any type of clamp (a belt can work here too) to tighten it.
- Epoxy, Putty or Pencil: You can try putting some epoxy or putty over the source of the leak. If its a small circular leak, try wedging a pencil point inside. These are TEMPORARY fixes only that should be used to mitigate the damage.
- E-Schedule online or call the Experts:
Palm Beach County
561-368-5111
Broward & Dade
954-786-0477
…and one of our highly trained technicians will be able to get your problem fixed right away!
Don’t forget, your satisfaction is guaranteed!