Leaks are one of the most common plumbing problems. When they occur at your home or place of business, they can cause a lot of problems if they are not located and sealed quickly. In the old days, a plumber would inspect an area and dig it up or drill the walls just to confirm whether there was a leak or not. This method was both costly and ineffective. Nowadays, leaks can be detected far more easily using non-invasive methods that do not involve any digging or drilling.
Causes of Leaks
Leaks can be caused by many things. Most of the time they are caused by conditions that compromise the integrity of plumbing systems. Such causes include temperature variations during the winter when pipes freeze and heat up too quickly, roots boring into pipes, excess water pressure, corrosion, damaged joints, broken seals, and so on.
How to Detect Leaks
So, how do you know if you have a leak? That’s easy. Here’s how to detect leaks in water and sewer lines:
Water Lines
These usually run from the pump or meter and throughout the house. They may run through your lawn, back yard, driveway, and into the walls of your house. When there’s a leak in the waterline, you may notice a drop in water pressure, see cracks on the pavement of your driveway, wet spots on the walls of your house, and have an unexplainable increased water bill. A simple way to detect a water line leak is to turn off all the taps in your house and check your meter after an hour or two. If the reading has gone up, you probably have a leak.
Sewer Lines
Sewer lines run under your house. Signs that your sewer line is leaking include a gurgling sound when you flush your toilet, a bad odor coming from the sewer line or an increase in lush vegetation along the sewer line.
Sewer Camera Inspection
Although you can use the methods above to determine whether or not you have a leak, the only sure way is to contact plumbers who offer leak detection services. With their expertise, they will easily find any holes or openings where water or sewage may escape from. One such method is through the use of a sewer camera. Whenever you suspect that you have a leak in your plumbing lines, the safest course of action is to order for a plumbing leak detection service as soon as possible.
Inspecting your sewer and water lines using cameras can help to identify issues such as root intrusion, blockages, leaking pipe joints, cracked pipes and so on. All these issues can lead to serious leaks which will cost you more money to fix over time.
At the end of the day, leaks are inconveniences that may destroy the areas surrounding them and cost you a lot of money. This is why you should get them fixed as soon as possible. With the detection techniques described above and the foolproof camera inspection, you can get any leaks located and fixed before they develop into even bigger problems. Stay leak free!