Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Help Sourcing Plumbing Leak

Call the insurance company... go all Karen.

"House is almost to the point of being inhabitable and getting worse... electrical wire arcing... black mold starting... don't know what to do... don't want someone to die of electrocution... house could be a total loss."

MAYBE... JUST MAYBE... they will throw a Service Pro team at ya.

Ya gonna have to sell it though...

Web help... not so much.

Have them send out a 2022 Fema Camper

Pitbull smell and formaldehyde fumes at cost plus

Out Of Stock...

BUT a well used 2005 Hurricane Katrina camper... from the Lower 9th Ward... No Problem.

This is going to be expensive. I’d never own a home with water lines under the slab.

Not necessarily the case in this situation if they are all encased in conduits. Pull out the old line and pull the new one through.

^^^ This ^^^

My first two prime suspects...

Many a water leak has been traced to the above.

And leaking water beneath floor doesn't necessarily always show near the source of leak, either.

Generally speaking, just the main cold water feed into many houses built on slabs is inside concrete slab, then branches out through walls and possibly ceiling to water heater, kitchen / bathroom(s), laundry room, outside hose hydrants.



Best of Luck to you...

Did you already get the common stuff checked out? Dishwasher, icemaker...etc. if it leaks there and gets under the flooring.....it can run.

Exercise the valves. This is something nobody does and then 19 years later they need to shut down a supply line and the valve is filled with minerals.

If the leak is enough to push water above the slab, there should be water at that same elevation in one of the conduits. A pex leak in the middle of a cased run would be pretty abnormal without some mechanical disturbance.

If the manifold valves work and depending on how bad the leak is, you might be able to hear the water getting past the valve just before it’s fully closed.

The simplest proved to be the problem.

Small line from the RO to the dispenser at the sink was the culprit.

Lots of clues that sent us in other directions. Plumber initially suspected the icemaker supply line. Never thought the ro line with a slow leak could have done this, but, sure enough.

Big result, beyond messing up the flooring, was that shutting off valves at the manifold trying to trace the source resulted in leaks starting there. So a replacement manifold is on the way.

Not here, they don't meet building codes. Foundations need to be below frost line 24". It's a cheap way to build, not necessarily the best way to build. To the op, hope you find the fix.

Cold as heck here too.

Guy that built the house commented he didn't want a crawl space because he hated the old dirt smell you get in the crawl space. One of many dumb things and reasonings he did and had.

Lines are contained in conduits. If we had to, we could pull a new/replacement line.

As it is, just another experience to look back on.

This^ plus, the reason for these manifolds is to enable shutting down one fixture at a time to allow service or repair in an emergency. (Also to reduce the lengths of full diameter pipes). Hopefully the manifolds are accessible and have individual valving. Then it is a process of elimination. Be sure it is water lines and not radiant heat.

The manifold is accessible.

Water leak has been found and it was an RO line to the kitchen sink leaking.

But while trying to narrow down the source of the leak, the manifold valves started leaking. So now we are waiting for a new manifold to replace the old one.

What depth is frost line?

I have built 8 houses turnkey. All on crawl space or basement. I hate slabs.

What is an RO line?

Reverse osmosis water filtration line.

I hate plumbing problems. I hate the word plumbing.

Slabs are nice for zero steps.

The push in connectors on the RO line coming to the sink were leaking.

When I glanced in under there, there was no water pooling and the floor of the cabinet was not swelled up that would normally occur when water has been leaking for a bit. So i wrote it off as a suspect.

Just waiting to get parts to replace the manifold now so I can have all water at all locations on and good to go.

Thanks for everyone's input. Even the guy that chastised me for working on figuring sch!t out on my own and suggested I call a plumbing service in England.