Slab Leaks
Slab leaks are perhaps the most frustrating of all plumbing problems. Due to the soft copper tubing used in construction many years ago, small leaks may form in water pipes embedded in concrete in older homes. This often happens where the soft pipe was kinked or bent while being laid. As the copper pipes are encased in the concrete slab, it can be very difficult just to find where the leak is, let alone repair it.
When faced with a slab leak it’s very important to do your homework first. Tearing up the whole slab is going to be very costly, so if you can pinpoint where the leak is occurring you may be able to save an awful lot of money.
There are leak detectors which can narrow down the area of the leak for you, usually to within about a meter. This can be a huge help since often a leak in concrete will follow the pipe for quite some distance before it finds a crack in the cement to work it’s way out of. By finding the exact location of the slab leak you can pass on tearing up the whole length of pipe searching for it.
Even if you know right where the leak is, it can still be cost effective sometimes to simply bypass the slab and run new pipes through the framing of your house. Whether or not this is the case can be difficult to assess though. If you know where the leak is, and your pipes are in good shape, you would probably be better off just fixing the slab leak. But if you aren’t sure where the leak is, or your pipes are probably going to fail again in other locations of the slab, you’d probably want to bypass the whole mess and leave the slab intact.