Why Is My Floor Wet?
You’re walking through your house when suddenly the floor beneath your feet feels damp, chilly, and annoyingly leaves your socks all wet. But wait a minute… there’s no faucet or fixture anywhere around. Why is the floor in the middle of your living room soggy like your lawn after a fresh rain?
Unless you have children who have spilled something and hesitated to tell you, the answer is unfortunately not usually a good thing: this usually indicates the presence of a slab leak. When your home is constructed, plumbing lines are usually run through the foundation, and are then cemented into place when concrete is poured to form the slab the house is built on. If you have an older home constructed with galvanized steel plumbing, a slab leak can form purely over time as your pipes corrode, but there are other causes as well, like foundation shifting or earthquake damage.
Are Slab Leaks Serious?
Yes, very much so. A slab leak can cause potentially catastrophic damage to your home. In mild cases, a slab leak can leave a pesky wet spot in your home, but even this is bad news. The constant moisture and organic matter in your flooring can cause mold colonies to take root and spread quickly.
In more serious cases, these leaks can wreak havoc on your foundation itself. A large leak can saturate the soil beneath your slab, causing it to wash away and leave a void that could cause the foundation to crack and collapse. It could also cause clay-based soil to expand and create a bulge, also causing your foundation to crack and break apart. None of these things are good.
How Do I Repair a Slab Leak?
Repairing a slab leak starts with determining where the leak is. This may seem like searching for a needle in a haystack, considering the hundreds of feet of plumbing running through your home and several inches of concrete cover your pipes. However, the expert Simi Valley plumbers at Dutton Plumbing have the tools and training to locate your leak quickly and figure out the best plan of attack to resolve it.
Running a New Line
In some cases, our plumbers can run what’s known as a “delete,” which essentially deletes the damaged line from the rest of your plumbing system. This is done by locating where the line both enters and exits your slab, cutting the pipe, and attaching a new one that instead runs through a different route, like up through your ceiling. This is generally the preferred way of handling things if we can because it doesn’t involve destroying your flooring or cutting into your slab in order to stop the leak.
Fixing the Damaged Line
If the line can’t be deleted, then we may have to go in and fix the damaged pipe itself. This may involve digging into your slab where the leak is located and sealing it or otherwise replacing that section of pipe with a new segment. This is generally a much costlier and more time-consuming method, but there are some instances where it’s the only viable option.
If you suspect you have a slab leak, Dutton Plumbing can help you resolve your issue! Call us at (805) 849-0965 for a plumbing inspection today.
