Unchecked plumbing leaks can damage your San Jose, CA home from its foundation to its ceiling. Unfortunately, plumbing leaks don’t always create standing pools of water or other conspicuous evidence. The good news is that there are ways to identify and locate leaky pipes, fixtures, and appliances before they devalue your home or render your living space unsafe.
Know the Likely Culprits
If you suspect a plumbing leak, it’s important to understand how your plumbing system works. When you know the most likely culprits, you’ll know how and where to look.
Water Supply Lines
Most homes in San Jose receive their fresh, potable water from the municipal water supply. Potable water gets piped into your home from your main water supply line.
You’ll find your main water supply line near the front curb or sidewalk. This pipe travels underground and into your building where it branches off to different service areas. Age-related corrosion, heavy buildups of hard water minerals, backflow issues, and soil shifting are several possible causes of water supply line leaks.
Wastewater Pipes and Sewer Lines
All your drains and plumbing-connected appliances empty into your home’s wastewater pipes. These pipes converge onto a single underground sewer line. This line travels from your home to the municipal sewer system or a private septic tank. As with water supply pipes, age, corrosion, soil changes, and hard water minerals can affect the integrity of wastewater pipes and sewer pipes over time.
While water supply pipes leak fresh, potable water, leaky wastewater pipes expose both buildings and their residents to dangerous chemical and biological contaminants. Although you’re bound to notice tell-tale odors around any plumbing leak, leaky wastewater pipes often emit noxious sewer gas odors. Pungent, rotten smells are often the first and most noticeable sign of leaking wastewater pipes.
Plumbing-Connected Appliances
Your washing machine, dishwasher, and water heater can develop plumbing leaks as well. Loose connections, frayed supply lines, and other age or wear-related changes are among the most common causes of leaks in plumbing-connected appliances. Many San Jose homes also have whole-house water purification or softening systems, water filtration systems, and refrigerator-based ice makers that can develop leaks, too.
Listen for Running Water
To identify a leaky water supply line in your home, turn all of your taps off and listen carefully. If you hear the sounds of constantly running or trickling water behind your drywall, there’s a good chance that you have a water supply line leak.
The good news is that our plumbers can pinpoint the exact location of plumbing leaks without removing large sections of drywall or using other invasive measures. With expert leak-detecting tools, we can both find and fix these issues with minimal disruption to the surrounding building materials.
Check Your Water Meter
You’ll find your water meter at your front curb or sidewalk, just near the start of your home’s main water supply line. This small, concrete box typically measures 15 to 20 inches and has a heavy concrete lid. You can lift this lid off with a sturdy, flat-head screwdriver to check the meter’s readings.
Water meters measure water use in real time. Thus, if all your taps are off and no plumbing-connected appliances are running, your water meter’s reading should remain unchanged. If your meter is still logging water use, there’s a leak somewhere in your plumbing system. Although this assessment won’t point out a leak’s exact location, it will help you distinguish between a water supply-line leak and a leaky wastewater pipe.
Assess Your Water Pressure
Check your home’s water pressure by turning a single tap on. You should immediately get a steady and adjustable water flow. If your faucet emits a thin, guttering, sputtering stream, call a plumber. When testing water pressure at your tap, pay attention to water quality, too. Leaky water supply pipes let fresh, potable water out, but they can also let outside contaminants in. If your tap water is discolored, foul-smelling, or cloudy, schedule plumbing service before using your home’s fresh water supply again.
Check for Soft, Soggy Terrain in Your Yard
Follow the path that your water line travels from your curb to the interior of your home. If you encounter soft, soggy terrain, you’ve likely found your leak. Although outdoor water line leaks rarely saturate interior building materials, they can still have a devastating impact on homes. Pooling water near your home’s foundation can cause soil shifting, foundation cracks, and settlement cracks that will eventually impact your roof’s flashing and other elements on the topmost portion of the building.
Don’t Ignore Sudden Changes in Your Landscape
When sewer lines leak, they leach their nutrient-dense contents into the surrounding soils. As such, one of the most common signs of a leaky sewer line is a suddenly verdant backyard. If you have overly damp soil at the rear of your property and a new profusion of green grass, flowers, or weeds, have your sewer line inspected.
Look for Wet Drywall and Blistered, Peeling Paint
In addition to checking for running water sounds, look for areas with wet drywall, blistered, bulging, or peeling paint, and soft or soggy building materials. These are all signs of an active leak. However, they may indicate a plumbing leak, a roof leak, or general building damage.
Assess Your Home’s Humidity
Plumbing leaks add moisture to the indoor air and often at a rate much faster than HVAC systems can extract it. Damp, heavy, oppressive air can indicate a leaky pipe or it may mean that you have dirty, blocked, and slow-moving plumbing drains. Beware of condensation-covered windows, damp drywall, and rank, musty odors. Not only do leak-related humidity increases make building interiors uncomfortable, but they also create the perfect conditions for mold formation. Finding and fixing the underlying problem before you have visible patches of mold on your walls could save you a small fortune on mold remediation.
Check Behind All Major, Plumbing-Connected Appliances
Check behind and beneath your washing machine, refrigerator, dishwasher, and water heater. Loose connections and cracked hoses are common causes of appliance leaks. Don’t ignore frequent shut-offs at local ground-fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) outlets. These outlets service plumbing-connected appliances and can be a big help in identifying nearby water problems.
Inspect Your Slab
A portion of the sewer line that services your home travels beneath its slab. If your slab is wet or if it’s coated in a dry, powdery substance that indicates recent drying, you may have sewer line problems.
Schedule Professional Leak Detection Service
The fastest and most effective way to identify a plumbing leak is by contacting a reputable local plumber for leak detection. Our plumbers at Plumbtree Plumbing & Rooter can check your water pressure and the integrity of all water supply and wastewater pipes throughout your home. We use sewer line cameras and other cutting-edge leak detection equipment. To ensure that plumbing leaks don’t fester unchecked for months or years, it’s also a good idea to schedule regular, whole-house plumbing inspections. We will use special tools to quickly find and repair any water leak we find.
As a Diamond-Certified company and a BBB-accredited business, we proudly provide top-notch plumbing services for San Jose and the surrounding areas. We offer expert plumbing, gas, rooter, and sewer services. Our clients can turn to us for gas line repairs, sewer line repairs, leak detection, and hydro-jetting. We also provide plumbing fixture replacement, new sump pumps, and professional drain cleaning. For help locating a leak in your home, get in touch with us at Plumbtree Plumbing & Rooter today.
