What Do Plumbers Check For When Detecting Leaks?

Water leaks in a home can cause serious damage, whether it’s a small leak rotting away at a cabinet for weeks or a burst pipe that fills your home with water overnight. Scoping out leaks is an important part of home maintenance, but it’s also something that a plumber Fontana, CA location can help with. 

These are some of the techniques you can expect plumbers to use when they inspect your home and search for leaks. 

Visual Inspection

Sometimes, it’s possible to find leaks just by looking for visual evidence around the house. This is how many homeowners spot leaks themselves. A skilled plumber Fontana local may do the same when you call and say you suspect a leak.

Visual checks can also give you information about the leak. For example, some damage takes longer to show up, and once it does appear, it indicates that the leak has been an issue for some time. The location of the damage also tells you where a pipe may be leaking.

A visual check for leaks might include an indoor and outdoor check. Here are some things plumbers look out for during a visual check of a home. 

Indoors:

One of the telltale signs of a leak indoors is bubbled or peeling walls. Whether your walls are painted or wallpapered, consistent exposure to water will start to damage them. This is a sign of a long-term leak, and may indicate structural damage. 

Mold and mildew are another visual sign that an area of the house is experiencing a leak. Leaks can cause mold, but so can condensation from pipes. Mold is an especially common problem in basements.

Water stains are another indication that there’s a leak in the house. Stains on the ceiling may mean there’s a leak in the roof, but it may also be from upstairs plumbing. 

Outdoors:

Leaks can show up outside your home, too. You may not spend as much time outside, so these are sometimes harder to find. Outdoor leaks aren’t as visually obvious, but there are still signs to watch out for.

Puddles or damp spots in your front yard are a strong sign that there is some kind of leak in your water line. Areas that are muddy for no apparent reason could be absorbing water from a pipe.

If you have a pool, that’s another possible source of a leak.

If your pool seems to be constantly losing water, and you need to add water multiple times a week, that’s a sign that it is leaking water.  A deck that is cracking, sinking, or even lifting, could be another sign of a pool leak. 

Listening Equipment

Some plumbers use acoustic equipment to listen for leaks in the pipes below. This equipment is highly specialized and is designed to work on pipes made of various different materials. Locating leaks acoustically is beneficial because it saves time and reduces invasive work on the house. 

High-quality acoustic equipment allows plumbers to listen for the rushing of water in pipes. Skilled plumbers can identify leaks according to the sounds they make and make a plan of action accordingly. 

Listening discs, which work similar to stethoscopes, are sometimes used to listen for leaks. Soil probes are another form of listening device, and these can quickly find leaks in yards and under soil. 

Tiny leaks tend to make louder, higher-frequency noises, because the water is leaving quickly and under high pressure. Larger leaks are quieter, and can be harder to find because the water doesn’t rush out as quickly. 

Video Inspection

Video inspection is another non-invasive way to learn more about issues with your plumbing. 

During the inspection, a plumber will send a tiny camera into your drain, equipped with lights, and it sends back a video feed of the inside of your pipes.

Once inside, the camera can travel up and down pipes, giving a clear view of what they look like from the inside. This process will show the condition of the pipes, letting you know if it’s necessary to do something more invasive, like digging, to fix them.

This option can pick up on corrosion and fitting issues that are harder to pick up through acoustic equipment. Video inspection is a useful diagnostic tool to locate hard-to-find pipe issues. 

Thermal Imaging

Thermal imaging cameras are a useful tool for detecting leaks. This tool doesn’t necessarily detect moisture, but it can show differences in temperature that reveal when water is collecting in walls or other hidden areas inside a house.

High-quality thermal imaging cameras are a great way to catch the subtle temperature changes caused by leaks.

Water tends to change the temperature of an area, so plumbers look for unexplained temperature patches in the walls and floors. Sometimes a leak will appear cooler than the surrounding area, but other times it will be hotter, because of a hot water leak.

Thermal imaging can also reveal the shape of a leak. These are called moisture patterns. For example, water leaks starting at the top of a wall will spread downward in a triangle shape. In ceilings, plumbers look for spreading patches. 

Moisture Meters

Moisture meters are designed to measure the levels of moisture in building materials, like walls and flooring. They can help detect leaks by measuring the moisture, even in areas that don’t show any outward signs of leakage.

Moisture meters work on brick, drywall, concrete, and other materials. Plumbers can use techniques to compare moisture measurements in different locations to pinpoint the exact location of the leak.

There are two kinds of moisture meters: pin-type and pinless. Pin-type meters have two pins that pierce the test material to give a reading of the interior moisture level. Pinless meters are noninvasive, and can read moisture levels up to about an inch into the surface of a material. 

If you think you may have a leak in your home, it’s important to address it as soon as possible to avoid serious damage to your home. You can contact our commercial plumbing repair company for service at any time of the day, because we offer 24/7 service. Give us a call at Bobby Blue Plumbing today.