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How Do You Know a Buried Water Line Is Leaking?
Usually the ground tells you first. A patch of the yard that stays wet in dry weather, or a water bill that climbs for no reason you can find, is the standard giveaway.
The pipe in question is the water service line, the run that carries water from the meter to the house. Nobody sees it. It sits under mulch and roots and sprinkler heads, and it can leak for weeks while the only symptom is a soft spot in a planting bed. This one was three quarter inch PVC, and by the time we uncovered it you could see water sitting in the hole.
There is a quick test you can run before anyone digs. Shut off every faucet, the ice maker and the sprinklers, then look at the meter. If the dial or the small flow indicator keeps moving, water is leaving the system somewhere. If the house side is dry and the yard is wet, that points outdoors.
Herrell Plumbing has been finding and fixing these since 1970. Finding the exact spot is half the job, and we would rather open one small hole in the right place than three in the wrong ones.
What Does a Failed Section of Water Line Look Like?
Like this. Two holes, a crack joining them, and a pipe wall that gave up right beside a joint.
The joint is where we look first on a buried pressure line, because that is where the pipe takes the most strain. A water service line holds pressure all day, every day, so a weak spot does not heal. It opens a little more each time the ground shifts or the pressure cycles.
We cannot tell you from one cut out piece what started it. It could be movement in the soil, an old nick from a shovel or a trimmer, or a joint that was never quite right. What the pipe does tell you is that the line failed here and that the wall around the damage is not something to trust.
So we do not glue a fitting over a crack and hope. We shut the water off at the meter, cut back to pipe that is clean and sound on both sides of the damage, and take the bad length out entirely. It is slower than a patch. It is also the reason you do not dig the same hole next spring.
What Does the Finished Repair Look Like?
A short, clean run of new three quarter inch PVC with fresh joints, sitting in the bottom of a small hole.
That is the whole repair, and it is supposed to look unremarkable. The new pipe matches the old one in size, so the flow to the house does not change. Each joint is primed and cemented, then given time to cure before the water comes back on. Cement that has not set is how a repair leaks on the first afternoon.
Turning the water back on is the real test, and it happens before the hole gets closed. A repair you have only looked at is not finished. A repair you watched hold pressure is.
Then the soil goes back in layers, tamped as it goes, and the bed gets put back the way we found it. Repairs like this are part of our everyday plumbing services.
When Is a Water Line Leak a Repair and When Is It a Repipe?
One failed spot in an otherwise sound line is a repair. A line that keeps failing in different places is a repipe.
This job was the first kind. The rest of the pipe was fine, the leak was in one place, and a section replacement fixed it for good. Replacing a whole line when a short length was the problem helps nobody.
The picture changes when the leaks keep showing up. If you have patched a line more than once, or the pipe in the walls is giving you rusty water and weak pressure along with the yard leak, you are paying for repairs on something that is wearing out as a whole. That is when we talk to you about house repiping, and we will tell you plainly which one your house needs.
If you have a wet spot that will not dry up anywhere in Altamonte Springs or Seminole County, call the shop at (407) 273-6260. We will find the leak first and give you the price before any work starts.
Wet Spot in the Yard That Will Not Dry? We Will Find the Leak.
A leaking water line only gets more expensive the longer it runs. Call the shop at (407) 273-6260 and we will track down the spot, show you what failed, and fix it.