When you have a slab leak, you need help fast. But before you pick up the phone and call your local plumber in Redlands, CA, it’s good to know what your options are.
What Is A Slab Leak?
Over the years, plumbers have developed jargon for describing the many types of leaks that can afflict a person’s property. When they talk about slab leaks, they’re referring to a leak in the piping beneath a property’s foundations. Pipes that pass under the concrete or brickwork can sometimes burst, waterlogging the surrounding material, including foundations themselves.
What Are Your Options When You Have A Slab Leak In Redlands, CA?
The first step in dealing with any slab leak is for a qualified plumber to come to your property and identify the problem. Usually, it’s relatively easy to tell whether you have a slab leak or not. Typically, water won’t run at its normal mains pressure, and you may see signs on damp on your interiors.
Dealing with a slab leak as quickly as possible is essential. Not only are you potentially wasting money on water leaking into the earth around your property, but it could put your building at risk too.
When it comes to dealing with a slab leak, you generally have three options for dealing with the problem.
Repair the Leak
The most obvious solution is to attempt a repair. Repairing involves digging a trench around the damaged section of pipe, removing it, and then installing a new one.
In most cases, this is the cheapest option. The plumber digs a small four-foot by four-foot trench in your flooring, whips out the damaged section of pipe and replaces with a newer, stronger version that will hopefully last longer. Prices tend to hover between $950 and $2,800 in Redlands, CA, for this kind of work.
Repipe
Sometimes the position of your property isn’t fixed. It can move slowly over time and, where you have soft soil, sink into the earth. While these small changes in position aren’t usually a problem, they can wreak havoc on the piping that runs beneath your home or business. Every time the building sinks further into the ground, it crushes the pipes below, causing them to crack and fail in the process.
Repiping is an extreme solution for those who experience repeating slab leaks. The first step of the process is to remove all piping from under the home to prevent additional leaks from occurring. The next is to re-route the pipeline above ground through a different part of the building, usually the attic. Because all of the pipes are out of the way of the shifting foundations and soil, they are at much lower risk of being damaged.
As you might expect, repiping can be expensive. In Redlands, CA, prices tend to vary from $2,800 to $15,000 depending on the size of the job. The upside is that by paying for repiping today, you avoid having to fork out for repeated repairs in the future. Over time long-term, it can save you a substantial sum of money.
Re-Route
Typically, repairs involve digging up part of the floor in your home, “deleting” the old section of pipe, and then inserting a new one. In most situations, the process works well, but sometimes, you can run into problems.
The first is that replacing the piping sometimes involves removing a valuable section of flooring, like marble or hardwood. As a property owner, you would prefer it if your flooring could remain intact.
The second issue is that repairs may not actually solve the problem. Particular sections of piping can become prone to repeated leaks, no matter how durable the replacement pipes are.
Plumbers in Redlands, CA, therefore, use a technique called re-routing. Instead of placing a new line in the same location as the old one, you bypass it entirely, preventing any need to dig up the floor.
Re-routing is usually more expensive than a straightforward repair because of the additional length of pipe requires, but prices remain reasonable. Costs range between $1,500 and $4,500 depending on the size of the detour.
How Much Does a Slab Leak Cost? (Watch this video)
The Three R’s
In plumbing, the three R’s are repair, re-route, and repipe. Knowing which one you should choose depends on your circumstances. All three options are things that you should consider if you have a slab leak.
If you suspect a slab leak, then get in touch with our team of experts today. We’ll help you find the solution that will help you save the most money over the long-term and prevent disruption.
