Water Leak Repair Costs Can Be Lower If You Use the Right Tools

Water leaks are one of the most dangerous and irritating problems for your home or building. There are a few types of leaks that can drive you crazy, but most of the time the ordinary water leaks are easy to locate and repair if you know what you are doing and are experienced in water leak repair.  There are three main concerns when it comes to a water leak.  One is to detect where the leak is coming from.  Second, the work involved in order to reach the source of the water leak, if its a leaking underground water pipe, above the ceiling in the wall, behind kitchen cabinets or in the bathroom behind the wall tiles or under the floor tiles it makes a tremendous difference if the water line is exposed for plumber and access is important, not only to get the job completed quickly, but also to reduce the cost of water leaks.

When you hire a plumber there is a big difference depending on the experience of the plumber and the type of tools that he uses in terms of the bill you will get and the time it will take to fix the water leaks.  Using modern tools will reduce the process, sometimes by as much as 80%.  The following video shows modern tools that can fix water leaks faster when PEX water pipes leak or copper water pipes leak.

Water Leaks That are Coming From The Floor

When you see water coming up from your floor, if you have a wooden floor it might be easier to access it underneath, if you have a crawl space or basement it is even easier. If you have a tile floor or concrete, it may be much more complicated if you don’t have access from a room under it so water leak detection is the first step and the key to know where to open and how much.  A plumber that does not have a leak detector is more likely to get a wrong conclusion in finding the leak source and might need to break tiles and open concrete where it is unnecessary to open.   There is another issue, in construction, the more you break the harder it gets to fix it.  Most homeowners have one or two extra tiles on the side but if you have to break 20 tiles to find the leak, you will be more likely to need to use patch tiles to repair or you might need to replace the entire floor.  Make sure you know the options before they start breaking your tiles.

[youtube https://youtube.com/watch?v=XT_wH00LOcA]

Water Leaks That are Coming From Walls

If you see water coming from your wall, it is more likely from a water pipeline that is running across the room or going from a first to second or third floor and up.  It might be a frozen or burst pipe in the winter or it might be from a connection between the pipe and a fitting.  Anyway, the access through drywall is much easier than if its behind a kitchen cabinet that needs to be carefully removed or if its behind wall tiles and the tiles need to be removed one by one, and again a plumber experienced water leaks looking for this leak will make the job smaller and neater and minimize the risk of cutting through electricity wires, other hot or cold water pipes or even gas lines that are located within the hidden walls.  Making a hole in sheetrock and exposing the line, cutting and repairing the existing pipe is considered a small job than removing tiles or a back splash in the kitchen or granite.

Remember when water is leaking in the walls you have to be extra careful with electrical lines outlets and switches that the water won’t go through them.  On different occassions we suggest to leave open holes on the bottom of the walls and the top of the walls in order to get the air in and out of the wall to prevent the moisture and mold from damaging the wiring.  In some rare cases, the client has had to change the drywall as its soaked with water and even construction items such as ceilings and walls that are located in the attic, basement or walls in other neighboring rooms need to be replaced.  The quicker you call the plumber to find and locate the leak the less water damage you will have and the easier it will be for the plumber to pinpoint the source of the leak.   It is much easier for us as plumbers to locate the leak when it has just started and we can trace the water stains back to the source, we can target one spot and not just see an entire wet ceiling or wall.

Water Leaks That are Coming From Underground

Water leaks that come from underground are more likely to be complicated as the pipe is buried deep in the ground. For instance a main water pipe supply that is going underground from the main city pipe to the house, the first connection is in the water meter so if the water is leaking around the water meter it is usually an easy fix compared to finding the leak from the water meter through the water pipe to the street.  The water lines may be 3, 4 or 6 feet underground and when you have a underground leaking pipe then you usually need to excavate through mud until you reach the leaking pipe and we need to have enough room around the pipe to sit and cut the pipe and repair the pipe.  The entire pipe area must be in a completely dry environment unless, and this is the point I want to make, we use special high pressure tools that do require the use of fire and lead, so we can re-connect and repair the water pipe through pressure.  The difference in time savings is sometimes between 20 minutes to 4 hours, and of course the bill is charged accordingly as when the plumber finishes the job quickly and moves on to the next client he can charge you less and you can save money.

So knowledge, experience, and using the right equipment are a strong base, and at the end of the day you want to go with a plumber that will serve you well and reduce the costs of plumbing leak repair and detection.

As always, please feel free to contact Quest Plumbing, Air Conditioning and Heating at 201.399.2160  anytime of the day or night if you need any help.