Broken water line

[D45]

What year was your house built?

 

[FredWanaker]

walk the area between where the irrigation system ties in, and the valves. See if any of that is wet. Are there any areas farther out where there is like a faucet for the garden, etc..

 

[JackOfDiamonds]

House was built in 1999. I tried turning on my sprinklers to see if anything happened...my logic was that if the sprinkler system isolation valve was leaking past, then it should cause pressure to build in the sprinkler system and so it should make some noise or pop up partially/temporarily if I turned a zone on from the controller. But it was dead and I also pulled off a solenoid from one of the nearest sprinkler valves and nothing squirted out at all. So I don't think the water is going into the sprinkler system.

 

[BillK]

Have you called the city and asked them to come out and take a look ???? There is always the very remote possibility that there is something wrong with the meter ?? Have you tried listening like I mentioned earlier to see if you can actually hear water running at the meter ? You might even try putting a stethoscope on the line where it comes into your crawl space. Or just use a screwdriver with the handle end up against your ear. If there is enough water moving for the meter to spin then you should be able to hear it.

I would call the city no matter what.

 

[FredWanaker]

the two homes across the street were model homes built in 1984. It was 10 years before one owner discovered that he was paying the irrigation water bill for both homes because the irrigation was tied together as model homes, and never separated when they were sold.

 

[Milton Shaw]

I found a ground stethoscope at a flea market 15 years or so ago. It has a large heavy disk that goes on the ground or pavement and you can hear the leaking water. This works here as the water pipes are usually only 18 inches or so deep. The water locaters have something similar only electronic that they can hear with. With your water line 3 or more feet under ground you could have a major leak and not see any results on the surface. My daughter manages an apartment complex and has used it often as its the right age for copper pipes under slabs to be leaking now. Amazon lists several types. The Lisle automotive type with a metal probe could be used but don't push the probe in the ground with the stethoscope attached as you will probably break the plastic.

 

[HoosierBuddy]

It's not the meter....but I do agree a good move would be to call the city and see if they'll send out someone knowledgeable to take a look. Those guys look for water leaks every day. They may spot a telltale sign that you're not seeing. They can also give you info on who they would recommend to repair or replace the line. They know who does a good job and who doesn't, I guarantee.

 

[JackOfDiamonds]

Do you mean the city or the water company? Actually it was the water company that called me and told me that I probably had a leak since their algorithm showed my water usage was more than doubled this month. They supposedly sent a guy out to look at the meter and visually check it vs. the electronic reading although I never saw him. He also said the meter was spinning then even though nobody was home (and I don't have any leaking toilets or anything).

 

[BillK]

Do you mean the city or the water company? Actually it was the water company that called me and told me that I probably had a leak since their algorithm showed my water usage was more than doubled this month. They supposedly sent a guy out to look at the meter and visually check it vs. the electronic reading although I never saw him. He also said the meter was spinning then even though nobody was home (and I don't have any leaking toilets or anything).

I guess the water company in your case. Here the County is the water company. I would ask them if they can suggest a way to find it. Try and see if they will time it so you can meet the guy. Its either that or call a plumber. The longer you wait the more is going to leak out $$$$$

 

[metlmunchr]

Are you absolutely sure you don't have a leaking toilet? I had one leaking a couple years ago with an attendant high water bill and couldn't hear anything. A bit of food coloring in the tank showed it up in a couple minutes.

 

[FredWanaker]

I think you confirmed that when both the irrigation line, and the main house line were shut off at their gate / ball valves, the meter still spun, is this correct?

 

[JackOfDiamonds]

Correct. By something like 1 gallon per minute.

 

[FredWanaker]

That is 1500 gallons a day. a 15' x 30' pool holds about 10,000 gallons. One would think that much water in a week should show up somehow.

 

[nadogail]

A leaky flapper valve in your toilet will really screw up your water usage numbers. They are inexpensive and cheap to DIY. Terribly expensive to ignore.

 

[nadogail]

A truck was driven across a portion of the lawn, next to the water meter box and it’s weight cracked the supply line to the sprinkler manifold. It had soaked the soil and the digging in the mud was easy but sloppy.

 

[FredWanaker]

A leaky flapper valve in your toilet will really screw up your water usage numbers. They are inexpensive and cheap to DIY. Terribly expensive to ignore.

he said that if he turns the house off at the front gate/ball valve it continues. Same for irrigation. If he is correct then it has to be between the meter and main / irrigation shut offs.

 

[FredWanaker]

Did you verify that it was spinning? We had a problem once where a small water truck doing work in the area was hooking up to the front of the house while we were at work. I had 90 psi pressure, and 3/4" hose on the front that reached the street. I removed it and the guy went away. His mistake was not coiling the hose back up the same way I did.

 

[tonyciambrone]

I had a black poly water line fail at my office underground- no way to pinpoint.

110' or so all covered with concrete and asphalt. Conventional wisdom was cut the pavement and dig a trench, lay pipe, re-pave.

What I ended up finding instead was horizontal directional drilling- maybe overkill for you but it may be what someone else reading this needs. Busted up some pavement near the wellhead, cut a 1 sq ft section of concrete floor out of the office and bored a hole.

I had them run a 2" black poly "sleeve" and then they pulled a 1.5" black poly water line inside the sleeve. Should protect it from rocks and if I ever need a new line they can pull a new one through the sleeve.

 

[redmondjp]

I had a black poly water line fail at my office underground- no way to pinpoint.

110' or so all covered with concrete and asphalt. Conventional wisdom was cut the pavement and dig a trench, lay pipe, re-pave.

What I ended up finding instead was horizontal directional drilling- maybe overkill for you but it may be what someone else reading this needs. Busted up some pavement near the wellhead, cut a 1 sq ft section of concrete floor out of the office and bored a hole.

I had them run a 2" black poly "sleeve" and then they pulled a 1.5" black poly water line inside the sleeve. Should protect it from rocks and if I ever need a new line they can pull a new one through the sleeve.

If I were king, most buried utilities would be done in this manner. In my area, all of the underground AC power cables are direct-buried underneath the sidewalks. They are approaching 45-55 years old now and have had the magic silicone-injection life extension treatments done at least once. Eventually our electric utility will have to dig all of them up and replace them, causing a huge disruption to the neighborhood streets and sidewalks. They will probably direct-bore new ones and abandon the old ones in place because this is far less disruptive to the surface, but it can still be difficult due to potential intersections with other underground utilities (known or unknown, or BFRs which are big rocks that can stop that process cold).

 

[tonyciambrone]

If I were king, most buried utilities would be done in this manner.

Yeah I really hate seeing stuff done within my lifetime being redone. Would've cost an extra $300 to do when they put the well in, or $5500 and alot headache later.

On a municipal scale the cost of being cheap and lazy is unimaginable. I see low time horizon problems constantly in Illinois.

 

[grissom]

I had a black poly water line fail at my office underground- no way to pinpoint.

110' or so all covered with concrete and asphalt. Conventional wisdom was cut the pavement and dig a trench, lay pipe, re-pave.

What I ended up finding instead was horizontal directional drilling- maybe overkill for you but it may be what someone else reading this needs. Busted up some pavement near the wellhead, cut a 1 sq ft section of concrete floor out of the office and bored a hole.

I had them run a 2" black poly "sleeve" and then they pulled a 1.5" black poly water line inside the sleeve. Should protect it from rocks and if I ever need a new line they can pull a new one through the sleeve.

We had trenchless piping done and they pulled a wire at the same time so that the pipe could be located in the future if needed

 

[man-a-fre]

My water softener valve stuck once and caused this to happen, was dumping water down the drain for a few days, emptied all the salt too.

 

[Mr. D]

Call a professional to come out and have a look.

 

[BillK]

Still have not told us if you can hear it running either at the meter or at the house entrance. Is the water line metal or plastic ?

 

[JackOfDiamonds]

I don't know what the water line is yet. Near the meter, it's steel, but I assume it transitions to plastic for the run to the house. I can't hear anything.

I have a plumber coming but plumbers are all swamped of course. They won't get here for another week. Until then I'm going to check the meter every day and just make sure it's not getting worse. Right now it takes 38 seconds for the meter to move 0.1 cf.

 

[BillK]

Right now it takes 38 seconds for the meter to move 0.1 cf.

.1 cf or .1 gal ????? I have never heard of a water meter that measures in Cubic Ft. But gas meters do for sure.

 

[JRC3]

.1 cf or .1 gal ????? I have never heard of a water meter that measures in Cubic Ft. But gas meters do for sure.

 

[BillK]

Interesting. Around here everything is in gallons. Thats how you can check the meter to see if its correct. Fill up a 5 gallon bucket and the meter should move 5 gallons

Learn something every day

 

[KEH]

I'm going through this stuff. I'm on rural water company water, water comes from the next county. It has been raining enough to make water run down the driveway ditch and eventually to the highway ditch. My water line from the road is, I think, 1 1/4 inch black plastic which has been there maybe 30 years with no leaks. The drive way ditch has had water in it by so has ditch on the other side of the driveway. Water line is along the ditch on one side. Water company called wife and told her we had leak. This was yesterday PM after I had been out. We have a couple of wrenches to turn water off which we have used several times during the years so I got one and went to cut off water as I had done in the past. I tried a Vise Grip which did not make the valve turn. Since it was on the water company's side of the valve I didn't want to put a lot of effort on it for fear of breaking something. Called water company and they came out and cut the water off and let me borrow a tool to use. I had called a plumber and we searched for the leak along the wet ditch. His procedure was to dig a small hole in the ditch and see if more water came in which it did. We called it quits for the night and I turned the water back on and we showered, etc for the night and I turned the water off for the night. This morning I had a medical appointment and after getting back I checked the now dry ditch and turned the water back on. Wife helped check for newly wet ground which after a while she found. Plumber said when I called that he will come back Monday. This is in a warm climate so the pipe is not too deep.

Hope this helps give op and whoever some ideas for their plumbing problems. BTW I'm in a rural area with a 200 yard long driveway so I don't expect any problems from neighbors or government.

KEH

 

[KEH]

BTW, It's now raining again here in SC. Not as bad as in Atlanta where they have stopped qualifying for the Sunday NASCAR race.

KEH

 

[JackOfDiamonds]

I ventured into my crawlspace and found this. Apparently the line has already been replaced once, and somehow it's leaking again. Or else it took them two tries to install it whenever they built the house.

 

[The Cobbler]

.1 cf or .1 gal ????? I have never heard of a water meter that measures in Cubic Ft. But gas meters do for sure.

cubic feet, gallons and here we are measured by cubic metres

 

[Firebrick43]

I ventured into my crawlspace and found this. Apparently the line has already been replaced once, and somehow it's leaking again. Or else it took them two tries to install it whenever they built the house.

Possibly laid the pipe straight in the trench? A lot of people will instead of snaking it. Settling pulls things tight and pops fittings. Neighbor had it happen several times because of it. Also, do you have a rocky soil? HDPE is not recommended in soils with sharp rocks and soil movement from freezing/thawing and wet/dry tends to have the rocks puncture it. PVC is better in that situation. Of course PVC work hardens so most soils HDPE is better.

 

[cos]

If any of your valves are gate type or rubber seal, don't assume they a tight. They should outlaw them.

 

[KEH]

Friday's water leak that I posted about above is now fixed. Plumber came and worked all day on it. Saturday night and Sunday night I drove to the meter and turned the water back on, we took showers, then I drove back down and turned the water off. This AM the plumber came, I turned the water on then off at his signal. He started digging. The issue was that the pipe passed under a maple tree and some large roots pushed the pipe to one side and cracked it. Pipe was white PVC, schedule 40, and showed no other signs of wear. Plumber used Sawzall to cut pipe. We used his drop cord plus 2 of mine to reach the job, which worked ok except it was difficult cutting several large roots. He put in elbows to clear the remains of the largest root along with a short section of pipe after cutting the original pipe. There are 7 more trees along that line and if there are more tree problems relocating the pipe is called for. Hope others posting with problems are successful also.

KEH

 

[428PI]

I have a 35 dollar a year rider on my insurance which pays for the repair. Double check your insurance. I actually got back payed 5k for some sewer work 5 years ago and didn't realize the rider would pay for it.

 

[BillK]

I ventured into my crawlspace and found this. Apparently the line has already been replaced once, and somehow it's leaking again. Or else it took them two tries to install it whenever they built the house.

Cant tell from your picture. Its leaking there in the crawlspace ? I wonder if the other pipe is a "spare" ? Is there enough room from where it is leaking to do a repair ?

 

[JackOfDiamonds]

There's no leaks in the crawlspace. We don't know where it's even leaking yet. Plumber is supposed to come Thursday... they said they had 80 leaking water lines scheduled right now.

 

[tthornto]

Glad you got it fixed, just in case it might help someone else:

I have used a Harbor Freight Mechanics Stethescope to locate an underslab leak, for an outdoor leak I bet you could place the probe into the ground in the vicinity of the water line and narrow down the area to dig based on how clearly you can hear the leak and if the probe comes out dry, or wet. I got really lucky and was able to run just a short length of pex through the wall to completely bypass the leaking section of copper that was under the slab.

I isolated which section of pipe was leaking by placing the stethescope on the pipe at every shutoff, it was loudest on the output of the water heater, and the leak stopped when I shutoff the water going into the water heater. water heater was in garage next to the furnace, both on an elevated platform that also served as air return for the furnace. I crawled inside the air return and found where the hot water line went down into the slab (leak could be heard clearly), and 5-6 feet away there was 3 lines coming up out of the slab. On 1 of those lines the leak could be heard just as loud as where the hot line first went under the slab. so I cut the 2 lines that I could hear the leak loudest on and ran a piece of pex between them. Total cost of the repair was about $35 for pex, fittings, and a scrap of drywall I removed to access the repair area better. The water district refunded me the $35 that I had receipts for along with a few hundred dollars of water charges, likely one of the cheapest under slab leak repairs they have ever given a refund for.