Leak Detection
Finding the leak before the slab gets opened
Under-slab water lines, gas leaks, and the camera work that tells us exactly where the break sits instead of guessing at a wall or a floor.
Chapter 01
Under-slab: how we find it without opening the whole floor
A slab leak in a Porter or Kingwood house usually shows up sideways. A warm patch on the tile, a water bill that jumped for no reason, the meter still spinning after every fixture in the house is off. We isolate the plumbing system from the meter, pressure it up, and read the gauge over time. A slow bleed on the gauge confirms there's a leak before we've cut anything.
From there we listen for it and narrow the section, then open the smallest possible area of slab or wall to reach the pipe. We've done this enough times on the gumbo clay soil through here that we know it's usually the pipe that's failed, not the slab that's cracked, and the two get fixed very differently.
Under-slab cast iron rough-in plumbing against house framing
The pipe camera, and what the footage tells you that a guess cannot
We run a video camera down sewer and water lines before we recommend a repair. It shows the actual condition of the pipe: a root intrusion, a bellied section holding standing water, a joint that's separated, a collapse. You see the same footage we do.
That matters most on older cast iron, which is common on houses and commercial buildings built before the newer material codes came in. A camera tells you whether one section needs replacing or the whole run does, and it keeps us from digging up a yard or a parking lot to find out the hard way.
Chapter 03
Gas leaks: what to do in the first five minutes, and when to stop and call
If you smell gas, get everyone out, don't flip a light switch on the way, and call us or your gas company from outside the house. That's not a marketing line, that's what we tell every caller before we even ask the address.
Once we're on site we pressure test the line and use gas detection equipment to find the exact point of the leak, whether it's a fitting at a grill drop someone added themselves or an older line that's finally corroded through. We repair it and re-test before we sign off, because a leak that's fixed but untested isn't actually fixed.
Why we test after, not just before
A repair that isn't pressure tested afterward is a guess dressed up as a fix. Every leak job we close gets tested again before we leave, water or gas, residential or commercial, so the number on the gauge is the last thing that tells us the job's done, not the last thing we hope.
Pride Plumbing, Inc. Licensed by the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners, MPL 15928. Licensed and insured. Call 281-361-7217.