"Sanity" wrote in message
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wrote in message
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My in-laws are hearing running water when inside their shower. I
turned off the main and bled the lines and it stops. When the main is
back on, the sound is back. So I'm sure it is a water leak either in
the wall or under the slab. Unfortunately, both sides of the wall
where the sound is coming from are tiled. If I remove the shower
faucet, that will give me a small access to the inside of the wall,
but it is too small to see very well. Is there any way I can probe
down to determine if the leak is in the copper ging from the slab up?

What I want to do is make certain it is an under slab leak before I
have someone come out and re plumb the entire house.

Thanks in advance.

Most large plumbing firms have the electronic equipment to sniff out the
leak. I had a slab leak when I lived in Florida. One plumber wanted to
rip up a big section of tile and concrete to look for the leak. I called
this other firm and althought the test is expensive, it costs a lot less
that rip up and guess. They pinpoint the leak at the edge of the laundry
room and we just had to rip up two tiles and found the leak at the bend of
copper pipe coming out of the slab. A lot cheaper than replumbing the
house.

I had a leak under slab in Arizona. Plumber used the test you refer to.
Leak was under shower stall and they wanted to bust up a man size hole next
to shower and go down and over to fix leak. Was able to seal off that line
in adjacent bathroom through wall and then come up over through attic to
bypass leak. Unfortunately because the water leak was below the slab, the
insurance company took the stance that since no water came into house, there
was no damage covered by insurance. So the whole $3000 bill was my
liability. And then over the next couple of years, the "expansive soil"
that was soaked swelled up and cracks developed all over the house...still
not covered by the insurance as they "don't cover settling, even if caused
by something covered by insurance". Oh well, a lot of patching covered the
cracks and I sold the house and moved back to Illinois. By the way, a
person with a little larceny in his soul would have poured some water on the
floor under a cabinet or in the closet and then the insurance company would
have covered some of the repairs. A couple of years after the first leak,
another developed near the kitchen outer wall and water came up along the
edge of the slab and under the cabinets and most of that was covered by the
insurance company.

Tom G.