Many homes in the Athens area are built on slabs. If your home or property is on a concrete slab, your plumbing is most likely embedded in the concrete. This makes accessing your plumbing and detecting leaks a lot more difficult. Not only are your pipes more difficult to access, but leaks are easy to miss until significant damage has occurred. Furthermore, slab leaks have the potential to compromise the structural integrity of your home.
How To Detect a Slab Leak
Though slab leaks are more difficult to detect than other types of plumbing leaks, there are signs that you can be aware of. As a homeowner, it is good to be mindful of the symptoms of a slab leak. The sooner you can call out a professional plumber, the less likely you will suffer extensive damage to your home.
Signs you may have a slab leak include:
- You hear water running under your floors, but your taps and plumbing appliances are off
- Carpets are damp or wet without an explanation
- You smell mold, mildew, or a general mustiness
- There are warm spots on your floor
- Floorboards are warped or buckling
- Your water pressure has decreased
- There is water pooling on your floor without a clear sign of where it is coming from
- There is standing water around your home’s foundation
- Your water bill has spiked
You can use your water meter to help you test if there is a slab leak. Turn off all plumbing fixtures and appliances. Then go and watch your water meter for 15 minutes. Your water meter will register whether any water was used during that time frame. If there was, this is a good indication that you have a leak somewhere, and you should call for professional slab leak detection.
How To Fix a Slab Leak
Slab leaks are notoriously complicated to repair. This is because accessing the leak involves digging into the concrete slab. Your flooring will have to be removed, and your plumber will have to hammer down into the concrete, uncover the broken pipe, and fix it. If you need a slab leak repair, you must work with a licensed, professional plumber like ours at Plumber Pro Service. Our Athens slab leak detection experts can pinpoint the leak’s location, diagnose the leak’s severity, and provide you with all viable repair options.
Many people worry that repairing a slab leak will involve repiping their whole home. However, this isn’t always the case. Depending on the nature of the leak, it may be simpler to reroute your home’s plumbing instead of repiping. Rerouting your plumbing after a slab leak does not involve digging into the slab, and consequently, is faster, less expensive, and causes less damage to your home.
