Slab Leak Repair in Phoenix

Most slab leaks announce themselves in one of a few ways: a water bill that jumps with no change in how you use water, a warm spot on a tile or concrete floor, the sound of running water with every tap closed, damp carpet or swelling baseboards, or a water heater that seems to run all the time. Our pages on signs of a slab leak in Arizona and a warm spot on the floor go through each one, and why slab leaks are common in Arizona explains the local causes.

You can confirm it yourself before you call. Turn off every faucet, appliance, softener and irrigation zone and watch the water meter. The EPA suggests reading it, waiting two hours with no water use, and reading it again. If it moved, water is leaving the system somewhere past the meter. Here is the full water meter leak test.

Every slab leak we work on is leak-detected and the line located before we recommend a repair. Nobody should cut a floor on a guess.

• Line locating. A line locator traces metallic pipe, or plastic pipe that has a tracer wire, so we know where the line actually runs under the floor.
• Ultrasonic sounding. High-sensitivity listening equipment picks up the sound of pressurized water escaping and narrows it to the spot where the leak is.
• Hot or cold. Isolating the water heater tells us whether the leak is on a hot or a cold line, which changes which pipe we are chasing.

The result is a marked spot and a clear picture of where the line runs, which is what lets us choose the repair instead of guessing at it. More on the equipment is on our leak detection page.

Proper detection is what makes the choice possible.

Repair in place. When the leak sits on a run that is otherwise sound and the spot is reachable, we open the floor over the break, replace the failed section, test it, and close it back up. It fits one isolated failure.

Reroute overhead. When the leak sits under tile, cabinets or a kitchen island, or the line has already failed once, we locate the piping manifold and reroute that line overhead through the attic or walls, abandoning the leaking pipe in the slab. The new line never sits in soil or concrete again, and your floor stays as it is. In most homes that means patching drywall instead of jackhammering a slab.

Epoxy lining and a full repipe are the other options you may hear about. Our page on how a Phoenix slab leak repair works compares all four and shows which situation each one fits.

Where we do open the floor, the repair has to meet Phoenix's residential code, not just stop the water:

• No pipe against the concrete. The code bars water pipe from direct contact with concrete, and metal pipe from contact with corrosive soil. Where the pipe passes through the floor it gets sheathing that lets it move.
• A proper bed. The new section rests on firm, continuous support, never on rocks or chunks of concrete, and the backfill around it stays free of rubble until the pipe has a foot of tamped earth over it.
• Tested before it is covered. The repaired line has to hold pressure before the floor is closed, so a second leak does not end up under fresh concrete.
• A permit when pipe is replaced. Stopping a leak is exempt in Phoenix. Removing defective concealed pipe and putting in new material is new work, so it needs a permit and an inspection before it is covered. When a repair crosses that line, we pull the permit and tell you before we start.

A copper line that has leaked in two or three places is telling you something. Patching it again is detect, open, patch and repeat. That is the point where a reroute of the whole line, or a partial or full repipe, starts to cost less than the next round of repairs. Read repair or repipe when copper keeps getting pinhole leaks and what drives the cost of a whole-house repipe.

In Phoenix, the water meter is the dividing line. The city handles problems from the street to the meter; everything after it, including the pipes under your house, is the owner's. Whether your policy helps depends on its wording, usually on whether the leak was sudden and accidental and whether it covers the tear-out needed to reach the pipe. See whether homeowners insurance covers a slab leak and whether a home warranty covers slab leaks. Take photos of any damage before work starts.

Phoenix sets your monthly sewer charge from your average water use in the January, February and March billing cycles. A slab leak running in those months raises that average, and the higher sewer charge stays on your bills for the year that follows. Fix it fast, keep the repair invoice as a PDF, and ask the city for a Sewer Fee Review; our Phoenix leak detection and repair page explains the deadline.

We give the price at the free estimate, before any work starts, because the job sets it:

• Where the leak is. Open floor in a garage or utility room is a different job from tile in a kitchen or a bathroom.
• Repair or reroute. Opening the slab means concrete and flooring work; a reroute means running new line through the attic or walls and patching drywall.
• Hot or cold line, and how long the run is. A reroute is sized to the fixtures that line feeds.
• The pipe's condition. One failure on sound pipe is one repair. A line that keeps failing points to a bigger fix.
• Permit. Only when defective pipe is removed and replaced.
• Timing. A scheduled repair costs less to set up than an after-hours visit with water on the floor.

The method is the same in a fourplex, a retail suite or an office, but a shared line under the slab may feed more than one tenant, and shutting it down means coordinating with them. See commercial slab leak repair and commercial slab leak signs and options.

Call with what you have noticed: a bill, a sound, a warm floor or a wet spot, and whether the meter moves with everything off. If water is coming up through the floor, shut off the main water valve first; here is how to find your main water shutoff. We offer 24/7 emergency service, free estimates and upfront pricing before work starts, and we work across Phoenix.