What are the Common Symptoms of Leaky Plumbing?

• Cracks or wet spots appearing in your walls or floors
• Warm spots on the floor where hot water is contacting the underside
• Mildew or unusual moisture under carpets
• Hearing running water when all the fixtures in your home are turned off
• Higher than normal water bills even though rates haven’t gone up
• Nasty smells coming from floors or walls near drains or sewer piping
• Areas in your yard of unusual vegetation growth, wet or sinking ground
• Shifting or cracking of your foundation/slab

How to Identify Plumbing Leaks

You can also use your water meter to help identify water leaks on your property by using the following steps:

• Locate the water meter.
• Find the water supply shut-off valve, usually located where the main water pipe enters the foundation. In a home, this is often near an outside faucet. If there is no water supply shut-off valve, you should have one professionally installed!
• Turn off all faucets, indoors and outside, and all water-using appliances (washing machine, ice-maker, etc.)
• Check the reading of the one-cubic foot dial on the water-meter. Then wait at least thirty minutes and re-check the dial. The dial will not have moved if there are no leaks. But if the dial has moved, there is a leak either inside or underground.
• Now, close the main shut-off valve. If the meter’s one-cubic foot dial stops, it means the leak is inside the home, so you will want to check for running toilets or dripping faucets. But if the one-cubic foot dial changes even when the shut-off valve is closed, the leak is underground, somewhere between the water meter and the shut-off valve.

Plumbing Leak Detection Equipment

Detecting plumbing leaks can be a challenge because your home’s plumbing is often buried in concrete slab foundations and sealed in the walls.

If the source of a water or sewer leak is not obvious, you will want to contact an experienced leak detection company.

Trained technicians and specialized leak detection equipment can quickly find the source and repair it as soon as possible.

The good news is that today’s plumbing leak detection companies and their equipment can avoid tearing up floors, or tearing down walls or ceilings to find the source of the leak and fix it.

There are several different types of leak detection equipment available, including:

• Video inspection that can see into the pipes by sending a camera down the pipes to find the location and cause of a leak
• Ultrasonic detection that uses sound technology to measure sound loss variations in the pipes
• Infrared leak detection that allows plumbers to see what is inside walls,, beneath your floors, and underground the piping under ground
• Smoke detection in which harmless is pumped into the pipes to emerge where a pipe leaks

Detecting Leaks In The Sewer System In Your Slab Foundation

Hydrostatic Testing:

Leaks within the sewer system’s drain lines may be located using hydrostatic testing. Variously sized test balls are sent into place and inflated inside the plumbing lines by an air hose. With a test ball inflated inside the main drain line, the plumbing system is filled to the slab level, and the water is shut off. With no leaks, the water level will remain in place, but if it drops, water is escaping through at least one leak.

Technicians will continue to isolate segments of the plumbing system, introducing test balls through drains, traps, clean-outs, toilets drains, and even roof vents to perform hydrostatic tests on isolated portions of the sewer system.

Infrared Video Camera:

In the final stage, an in-line sewer video camera uses infrared technology to pinpoint leaks visually. The camera is inserted into the sewer system through existing clean-outs, roof vents, drains, traps, and toilet drains to see inside and and analyze the condition of a sub-slab drain system.  The camera reveals obstructions, breaks, stoppages or deteriorated pipes, and determines the necessary repairs.

Re-Route The Water Line

Fortunately, many water line leaks can simply be re-routed without the need for breaking up your floors and slab foundation.

For other more difficult situations there are new technologies that provide in-line repairs of the pipes. With in-line repair technology, slab leak repairs can be done in as little as one day, and at a significantly lower cost.

Trenchless Sewer & Pipe Repair

The newest technology is often called Trenchless Pipe Lining, or Cured-in-Place Pipe (CIPP). While trenching may be a cost effective option for exterior repairs, trenchless pipe lining is often the answer for in-slab or under-slab leaks.

With trenchless pipe-lining, pipes can be repaired in place with a patented permanent pipe lining approved by all regulatory agencies using a product that has a 50-year warranty.

Some of the benefits of Trenchless Pipe Lining (a.k.a. Cured In Place Pipe, CIPP) include:

• No extensive excavation is required.
• It is less expensive – pipe relining may cost 50%-70% less than excavation.
• The new lining is very strong and not subject to rust or corrosion
• It saves your floors – it’s nearly impossible to find new tile, marble, or terrazzo to match what was installed in the past.
• It is a much faster process. Pipe lining usually takes one day, rather than the two or three weeks required for excavation and replacement. When necessary, water will be shut off only for a few hours.
• In most cases, you can remain in your residence because pipe relining is done from outside the structure.
• It’s cleaner. Lines can be repaired in place without introducing their mold or sewer bacteria into your home or business, and there is no need to sanitize the property afterwards.
• Pipe lining is environmentally friendly and approved by the EPA

How Strong Is Cured-in-Place Pipe Lining?

Cured-in-place pipe-lining becomes a strong, new, inner pipe. Even if the old “host” pipe deteriorates completely, the new liner will remain open and be a load-bearing pipe.

The lining has a 50-year engineered life and conforms to the required environmental and physical standards set by ASTM.

The pipe liner is a fabric tube which becomes saturated with a 2-part epoxy resin. Then it takes about thirty minutes for an exothermic chemical reaction in the resin to heat itself to 180 degrees Fahrenheit and become a rigid new inner lining as strong as a new pipe.

How Safe Is Cured-in-Place Pipe Lining?

Your plumber’s pipe-lining materials are approved by the National Sanitary Foundation (NSF) that validates anything relating to human food consumption.

Because the liners are used to restore pipes, drains, and culverts that send runoff into lakes and the ocean, the resins are approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Pipe-linings are also approved by IAPMO, a third-party listing agency specializing in plumbing and mechanical products.

CIPP is used in hotels, restaurants, hospitals, high-rise residential buildings, commercial buildings, airports, schools, and other public buildings, and even U.S. Naval ships.

Which Kinds of Pipes Can Be ReLined?

Cured-In-Place Pipe (CIPP) is versatile. It can repair the following types of pipes:

• cast iron pipes (some sewer pipes prior to the mid-1970s)
• clay pipes (some sewer pipes prior to the mid-1970s)
• storm drains
• drinking water lines
• sewer lines
• water mains
• HVAC pipe repair

CIPP is versatile enough to be used for potable water pipes, chiller lines, as hot water circulation systems, fire sprinkler systems, and HVAC systems.

Protect copper water lines with a pipe-liner. Today’s municipal water treatment systems have increased amounts of chloramines and other chemicals which eat away at copper water lines like never before.

Even new copper water line systems can show extensive pinhole leaks in as little as five to ten years. Pipe-liners seal and protect copper water lines from this kind of pipe-damage.

When Should I Choose Cured-In-Place Pipe Lining Over Excavation?

Basically, it depends on the location of the pipe needing repair or replacement.

You want a new pipe-lining where

1) pipes are not easily excavated, such as in or under the slab; and

2) where there is a long run of pipe to replace, even if exterior to the house or building.

Excavation can make replacing pipes 50% to 75% more expensive than lining them.

Lining the pipes is a non-invasive process, eliminating most destruction to buildings or landscape. The amount of necessary reconstruction for pipe-lining is minimal compared to excavation and replacement processes.

However, the materials for re-lining larger diameter pipes may cost more per running foot than most new pipes do.

If there is a small portion of pipe that needs to be replaced, and it is exterior to the building structure, a simple excavation and replacement will sometimes be more cost effective.

You will need a plumber to inspect your specific situation to determine whether excavation/replacement, or CIPP  re-lining will be the most cost effective option.

What are the Cost Factors for Cured-In-Place Pipe Lining Over Excavation?

• Access: Pipes might be accessible via a rooftop, digging a large hole, or even a street access hole that requires traffic control.
• Pipe Condition: Your existing pipe may require more extensive cleaning for obstructions, hard-water scale build-up, etc.
• Pipe Diameter: Liners for pipes over 3″ diameter use more liner fabric and resin, and require a more expensive technology to get the liner installed into the pipe.
• Project Size: Because the expense of required special equipment and processes, pipe relining costs become less per running foot the larger the project is. Conversely, the shorter the pipe to be lined, the more it costs per ft.

1. The Existing Pipe is Cleaned Out

Water jetting and/or pipe reaming first clears the pipe needing repair. From outside the house, access to the pipe is gained and high-pressure water jetting cleans out old rust, sludge, and hard-water scale or mineral deposits.

When necessary, tougher hardened scale can be removed by snaking out the pipe with special pipe reaming heads that clear out burrs and obstructions.

Finally, a water hose flushes out all the the loosened debris. Now any cracks and holes in the pipe will be visible for Step 2.

2. The Inside of the Pipe is Visibly Inspected Through Video

A video camera is run through the pipe to how much has to be relined and where any the incoming pipe connections are located.

3. The Liner is Prepared

The new  pipe lining fabric is prepared with cut-outs for the intersections of incoming pipes, and is cut to the correct length. Self-hardening resin is introduced into the liner. A powerful roller is used to force the resin throughout the inside of the pipe lining fabric until it is thoroughly saturated.

4. The Liner is Pulled or Inserted Into The pipe

The resin-saturated liner will either be pulled into the pipe using a cable, or shot into the pipe using pressurized air.  In either case, it must be precisely inserted so that the prepared cut-outs match the intersections of incoming pipes.

5. An Internal Calibration Tube is Inflated

Once the liner is properly installed inside the pipe, a calibration tube  is inflated and kept in place for 2-3 hours while the resin mixture reaches its curing temperature of 180 degrees Fahrenheit and thus hardens the liner into a new, full-strength pipe.

6. A New Video Of the Restored Pipe is Made

Cured-in-place pipe liners are expected to last a good 50-years. A video is made showing the interior of the new lined pipe to satisfy warranty requirements for future