
Slab Leak
Close the main and call if you can hear water moving with every fixture shut, because a line failing under concrete has nowhere to show itself until the damage is already done.
When this becomes an emergency
- A patch of concrete floor that's noticeably warm underfoot.
- Water seeping up through a joint or a crack in a garage or addition floor.
- A meter that keeps moving with everything in the house closed.
- Heating that runs constantly in one zone without warming the room.
What a pro does
Slabs are less common in New York than basements, but they're far from rare. Ranch homes built after the war, additions and attached garages poured on grade, and a good number of newer builds around the Hudson Valley and the western suburbs all sit on concrete. Radiant floor heating adds to the list, since those are water lines buried in the slab by design. Locating is most of the work. The plumber isolates the suspect line, pressurises it and listens across the floor with acoustic gear, and on a hot or heating line a thermal scan often shows the track of escaping water before anything else does. Where a heating loop is involved the system pressure gets watched over time, because a loop that needs topping up regularly is losing water somewhere. Once the position is known the options get laid out honestly. A single break in sound pipe can be opened and repaired locally. A line that's failed before, or a heating loop that's had multiple leaks, is usually better abandoned and replaced on a new route than chased through the floor a second time.
Frequently asked questions
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