plumbing leak in slab...

CasterTroy said:
I would venture to say that you have 2 possible culprits. (just speculation)

You may have an unusually low PH (high acid), which doesn't allow scaling of the insides of your pipes (quite the opposite of many municipal water systems trying to RAISE the scale level of piping to coat old primary water lines to keep them from failing...I.E. the more scale, the thicker the wall of the pipes and less likelihood they have to replace them due to failure)

And/or you have a high pressure/velocity issue (well pump too high or PRV not functioning properly) which Pex fittings will reveal as well.
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Water pressure is fine, was the suspect on the first leak. I will though check the PH level now that you have my curiosity up to see what it is. All I know is my water is the best I have had in a house from a well. No lime build up, no smell, is not hard and taste (if there is such a thing in good water) is second to none.

Now back to the regular scheduled poster, sorry for the side track!
 
Dave,
I'll leave the plumbing to the rest of the experts here. The wall fishing is easier than you are thinking though.


Pex is flexible enough it doesn't have to be perfect in line.

If it's an interior wall . Drill your top plate and drop a small chain in it. When I was fishing walls regularly I used to buy ceiling fan pull chain in bulk. Drop way too much in the hole.

When you drill the bottom you can either fish in the hole with a small hook. (I like using insulation supports with a bent tight hook on one end and a 90 handle on the other ) or stick a flexible magnet in the hole and it will find the chain for you. They used to sell a tool commercially called a magic noodle just for this. But you can buy everything for <10 at Lowes. Once you have the chain out electrical tape it to the pipe and pull through.
 
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6BangBronk said:
Seen 2 fixes for slab on grade houses where the owners just ran new lines down the hallway and called it good. Quick, easy, cheap and 100% effective...
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:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
 
ha, a guy on the DIY forum made a great point.
All of our copper piping in the house is already gone, except for some small bits of the grey lines... due to water acidity. We have a treatment system now, but it was eaten long ago and replaced by the PO.
So it's very possible this leak is due to the same cause.
which means that even if I found it and patched, there's equal chance of another one.

Sounds like re-routing is it. Ron that LSD toolset looks to be worth every penny. Boy I can think of several times I could have used it already.
 
RatLabGuy said:
ha, a guy on the DIY forum made a great point.
All of our copper piping in the house is already gone, except for some small bits of the grey lines... due to water acidity. We have a treatment system now, but it was eaten long ago and replaced by the PO.
So it's very possible this leak is due to the same cause.
which means that even if I found it and patched, there's equal chance of another one.
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:rolleyes:

I told you that like 20 posts ago.
 
Wow, I can't believe I didn't report back on this.
Sure thought I did, I took pics and everything.

BLUF: I ended up re-routing the lines.
When from the basement, up to the attic, over and across and back down inside the walls.

Got the drop-line hook tool @Ron suggested - worth every penny. Found a spot where I could run 4 PEX lines from the basement all the way up to the attic. That in itself was a chore, finding a spot between 2 joints where I knew there was nothing in the wall AND it was within reasonable access of the existing water lines... got really lucky on where a wall is. The tricky part was measuring perfectly so when I drilled a hole in the floor plate up from the basement, and top plate down from the attic, they lined up, but since I'm a measurement ninja, 3 of the 4 holes were dead on (dropped the bob through the top hole and it literally fell through the bottom), 4th off by 1/2" (damnit) but the magnet found it quickly. Used the chain to pull down a string, used the string to pull up the PEX. Having a 12 y/o helper there was priceless.
So then once I had the lines up in teh attic, I realized the one for the washer, on an exterior wall, I had no way to really get to the top of teh wall b/c it was down in the eaves, too narrow for my hands, let alone a drill. Fortunately, the section of wall happens to be inside a set of cabinets - which really as shelves with cabinet fronts - so I cut a hole in the drywall up near the ceiling, drilled the holes up from there. BTW a 90 deg drill chuck is a wonderful thing. Pulled the hoses down then pushed rest of the way through the wall. Again, being an extrior wall I also had to push through all the old R13 insulation.

After that being such a PITA, figured the bathroom fittings would be easy. Turns out when I removed the medicine cabinet (and on-wall style) there was a big hole behind it, presumably from a former from a recessed cavity. On one hand, great, b/c this gives me a way to reach in a receive the hoses, on the other, damnit that means yet another set of horizontal plates to line up holes in... out comes the drop tool... oh wait, this wall is for the garage, so it also has insulation, can't drop stuff through it... damnit, had to get a 6' long metal rod, poke around to get behind the insulation, and find my drilled holes in the big cabinet hole, use pole to pull wire back up, use wire to pull pip back down...
And then as luck would have it, that section of wall, behind the sink that not 1, but TWO 2x4s running horizontally, about 5" vertically offset and each facing opposite walls. So I had to very carefully bend/navigate the PEX around those inside the wall to get it through.
Holy crap what a PITA. Anything the least bit less flexible than PEX would have been impossible.
And in the process I learned that bathroom has some kind of old plumbing in it.

The good news is now it would not be a major ordeal for me to add water to my garage, just on the other side of that wall.
 
So why did I bring this up now???

Well, my one big fear for going this route is it means now those water lines run through non-conditioned space and in poorly insulated exterior walls. First time I used the sink during teh summer it was obvious, the first 20 seconds of "cold" water was quite warm. And "hot" during the inter takes forever to get warm.

These fears were verified today when Rachael went to start laundry and says, "Uh, hon, why isn't there any water at the washer?" My first thought was the well pump issue, but everything else works... that's when it hit me... it's only 16 degrees today....
checked in the attic, and, yep, its ballz cold up there, and yep, those PEX lines are frozen solid.
Damnit!

So I gotta add a heated line to them, just enough to prevent freezing.
 
Pex will withstand freezing when other products won't. I'm having issues with freezing pipes now in my house. We have a mother in law suite attached to the house but it is only used as storage so I keep the heat really low when it gets cold. Well, I checked the bathroom sink yesterday and it is froze. I'm scared it's not going to it through the week.
 
Can you get the pipes to the warm side of the insulation? You can put heat tape on them, but it tends to fail, and isn't considered a permanent solution.

We're going through something similar with a laundry remodel now. For a variety of reasons, we'll just double stud that exterior wall and put all of the insulation in the first stud bay, all of the pipes in the second.
 
RatLabGuy said:
But I wonder - is there any reason I couldn't just cut off and abandon the existing lines, and instead re-route new ones to the fixtures? .
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yes, this if it is possible is the way to go. busting up slabs is no fun and not easy or cheap.
 
I had this happen in a rental house 2 years ago, we ran new lines overhead in the attic and insulated them well, no issues yet. I may get a call this morning with it being 8 degrees when I left my house.
 
shawn said:
Can you get the pipes to the warm side of the insulation? You can put heat tape on them, but it tends to fail, and isn't considered a permanent solution.

We're going through something similar with a laundry remodel now. For a variety of reasons, we'll just double stud that exterior wall and put all of the insulation in the first stud bay, all of the pipes in the second.
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I'm going to trying burying them better in the insulation. The original attic insulation is only R13 (yikes), and the run is mostly across the joists at a diagonal anyway. However I recently added rolls of R30 (perforated batts) on top of it so I'll try burying it better under that.

... but at this point I might as well wait until it warms up and thaws out first...

I've seen the cable heaters like this
30 ft. Automatic Electric Heat Cable Kit-HC30A - The Home Depot
but unless I can get away w/ heating 2 lines together w/ it I'd have to buy 4 of them, seems kind of excessive.

Honestly, the lines going to the bathroom only serve the sink, and it rarely gets used during the winter, and that's the really long one so I may just wrap really well and call it a day.
Not having water at the laundry kinda sucks though - if it' doesn't warm up enough by Thursday we're all gonna have to buy new underwear...
 
At a minimum anything running in a non-conditioned space should have pipe insulation on it. I have one hot water line that runs through my attic (PO relocated water heater to former car-port closet after converting to living space). I have really thick insulation on that one pipe and layered fiberglass right over top of it after having an issue with it trying to freeze up years ago. No more issues.
 
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