Leak Detection and Pipe Repair

Water gets everywhere except where you can see it. By the time there's a stain on the ceiling, the leak has been running a while. The goal is to find it accurately the first time instead of opening three walls looking.

Call (410) 923-0510

Your water bill jumped and you don't know why

Start with the toilets. A silently running toilet is the most common invisible leak in a house and it can waste hundreds of gallons a day.

Put a few drops of food coloring in the tank, don't flush, and come back in fifteen minutes. If color shows up in the bowl, the flapper is leaking and water is running around the clock. That's usually a cheap fix.

If the toilets are clean, shut off every fixture in the house and look at the water meter. If it's still moving, something is leaking between the meter and the house or inside a wall.

What we find

• Supply line leaks — inside walls, under slabs, in crawlspaces
• Drain leaks — often only when a specific fixture runs
• Fixture leaks — faucets, valves, supply lines to toilets and sinks
• Water heater connections
• Failed shutoff valves — the ones that only fail when you finally need them
• Frozen and burst pipes — garages, crawlspaces, and pipes in exterior walls

Kitchen faucets and disposals we've replaced

Our own installs, photographed by the crew on the job. Locations shown by town only.

Washing machine hoses

While we're on the subject of leaks that ruin houses: look behind your washing machine. If those hoses are rubber and more than about five years old, replace them with braided stainless. A burst washer hose puts out water at full supply pressure, continuously, until someone finds it. It's one of the most common large-loss claims in residential insurance and one of the cheapest to prevent.

Winter

Maryland gets just enough hard freezes to break pipes in the places nobody insulated: garages, crawlspaces, exterior walls and unheated additions. Before the first freeze, disconnect and drain your outside hoses — leaving a hose attached is what turns a hose bib into a burst pipe inside your wall.