Residential, single-family homes are built one of several ways upon initial construction. As far as foundations go, three basic types exist: basement, crawlspace, and concrete slab. Here, will discuss slab homes and their innate problems when it comes to repairing leaks.
Water piping runs throughout your home, snaking its way through walls, ceilings, and in the case of homes built on a slab, under the foundation itself. Slab homes have no crawlspace or basement.
This means that water and drainage piping for the bottom floor has only two ways to reach plumbing fixtures: through walls (when possible) and under the slab itself. So when a waterline leak occurs underneath the slab, accessing the problem can be somewhat problematic.
Also, it is rare that a homeowner is even aware that a leak exists until the water bill arrives, only to show a staggering balance. Once it is suspected that a leak exists, we will provide you with leak detection services to pinpoint the location of the leak. This service must only be performed by a trained professional, as the equipment involved is very precise and requires a skilled hand. Once the leak is located, accessing it is the next step.
This is done by removing all flooring material and cutting or jack hammering the slab. Once enough concrete is removed, the sub-layers are removed and the dirt around the leak is removed. The piping is repaired and the processed is reversed, all the way to us repairing your concrete. We do not repair your flooring. This needs to be performed by a licensed flooring repair company.
The good news to all of this is that most slab leak repairs are partially covered by home insurance. In fact, up to 80% of the repair cost can be covered if presented to the insurance company properly. We will write up an invoice for you, complete with a broken-down list of all expenses involved in the repair. With this invoice, you should be able to recoup much of the cost.