Leak Detection
A water bill that jumped, a warm spot on the floor, the sound of running water when nothing is on. We find it before anyone starts cutting.
Tell us what changed and when. A jump in the bill, a damp spot, a meter that keeps turning, all of it helps.
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The majority of Pinellas County housing is slab on grade, which means the water supply lines for much of the house run in or under a poured concrete floor. When one of those lines develops a pinhole, the water does not appear on your ceiling. It goes into the fill under the slab, and the first symptoms are indirect.
The usual tells are a water bill that climbed with no change in habits, a section of floor that feels warm underfoot because the leak is on the hot side, a faint hiss or trickle when the house is quiet, cracks appearing in tile or terrazzo, or a musty smell that will not go away. Sometimes it is a toilet that runs and nobody notices, which is a much cheaper problem and worth ruling out first.
The point of leak detection is precision. Finding the general area is not enough when the difference between right and wrong is a hole cut in a living room floor. We locate it, mark it, and then talk about how to fix it.
Detection is a process of narrowing. Each step rules out a category so the last step can be exact.
Meter isolation test with the house shut down. That single check separates a real leak from a running toilet or a misread bill.
A pressure leak and a drain leak look similar through a floor and are completely different repairs.
Shutting zones down one at a time narrows it to a run rather than a house.
Acoustic listening, pressure testing and thermal imaging get it down to a small area rather than a room.
Spot repair through the slab, rerouting the line overhead, or repiping the house. You get told what each one involves before anything opens.
Once the leak is located there are usually three ways forward, and the right one depends on the pipe, not on what is quickest.
Spot repair. Open the floor at the marked point, cut out the failed section, replace it, and close up. It is the cheapest option and it makes sense when the rest of the system is in good condition and this was a one off, such as physical damage rather than age.
Reroute. Abandon the run under the slab and route a new line through the attic and down the walls to the same fixtures. Nothing gets dug, and the new line is accessible forever after. This is often the sensible answer for a single problem run in a house that is otherwise fine.
Repipe. If you have had more than one pinhole, the material is telling you something. Copper that is failing from the inside in one place is usually failing in others, and each future leak is another floor to open. At that point replacing the supply system is cheaper over five years than paying for repairs one at a time.
We will tell you which of the three we would choose and why. If it is the cheap one, we will say that too.
Detection is the diagnosis. These are the repairs it points at.
No. Locating is done from the surface using acoustic, pressure and thermal methods. Concrete only gets opened if you choose a spot repair, and then only at the marked point.
Shut every fixture in the house and watch the meter. If it is still moving, water is going somewhere. A running toilet is the single most common false alarm and the cheapest thing to rule out.
Not always, but it is a strong hint, because it means the hot side is losing water beneath you. It is worth checking rather than living with.
Policies differ. Many cover the resulting water damage and the access work rather than the pipe itself. A written report of what was found and where helps whatever the policy says.
It can be. It can also be a failing pressure regulator or scale in the supply lines. The meter test tells us which conversation we are having.
Most residential jobs are a few hours. Houses with several additions and multiple pipe materials take longer because there are more zones to isolate.
We locate it precisely before anything gets cut, anywhere in Pinellas County.