What are the signs of a slab leak in a Red Oak house?
A warm spot on the floor with nothing under it, the sound of running water when every fixture is off, a water bill that jumped with no change in the household, and hairline cracks in the slab or the tile above it. Any one of those is worth a call; two together is a slab leak until proven otherwise.
Red Oak sits on Blackland Prairie clay that swells when it’s wet and shrinks hard in an August drought, and the slab rides that movement year after year. The copper cast into the concrete rides it too, except copper work-hardens instead of recovering. It thins and opens up, and the hot line usually goes first, which is why the warm spot is such a reliable tell.
How do you find a leak without cutting the floor?
Three tools, in order. First we isolate: shut the house down at branches and watch a gauge to confirm the loss is on the supply side and narrow it to one run. Then the electronic locator traces the line’s path and depth under the slab, so we know where to listen. Then the acoustic listening equipment, which picks up the sound of pressurized water escaping through concrete and lets us mark the floor within a few feet.
That mark is what the repair crew opens. Nothing gets cut on a guess, and if the sound isn’t there, we say so rather than open the floor to find out.
| What you notice |
Supply or drain side |
Who finds it |
| Warm spot, constant hiss, bill spike |
Supply (pressurized) |
Leak detection, this page |
| Wet spot only after a fixture runs |
Drain (waste) |
Hydrostatic testing, then a camera |
| Damp ceiling under a bathroom |
Either; usually a fixture seal |
Leak detection narrows it first |
| Green stripe in the yard, meter still turning |
Supply, outside the wall |
Leak detection, then outdoor repair |
| Sewer smell, slow drains |
Drain |
Camera, not acoustic gear |
What happens after you find it?
You get the location, the depth, and an honest read on the fix. A first pinhole on sound copper is a spot repair through the slab. A line that has failed before is telling you about its whole length, and a reroute overhead through the attic, out of the concrete entirely, costs more today and less over the life of the house. That decision and that work are plumbing leak repair; we don’t start it until you’ve seen the numbers.
What can{Q}t acoustic leak detection find?
Drain leaks. Acoustic gear listens for pressurized water escaping, and a waste line only carries water when something upstream runs, so there is nothing constant to hear. If your symptom is a wet spot that appears after a shower and dries by evening, or a sewer smell, the right test is hydrostatic testing, which fills the under-slab drain system and watches whether it holds, followed by a camera. We’d rather send you to the right test than sell you the wrong one.