One of the most common calls we get for our water damage restoration services come from slab leaks. When there’s water coming out the concrete or foundation in your home, you need to know what to do. First thing is shut the water off. Usually the shutoff valves to your home would be at the front door left or right, on the side of the house, in the garage or at the street. The street is the best place to shut the water off.
Once you’ve done that, then you need to call us. I can send one of my certified very well technicians to your home within an hour or less to assess where the broken pipe is in the concrete or slab or foundation. With our listening devices and instruments, we can determine where it is. Also, very important to know whether your home has a post tension slab.
A lot of modern homes, most modern homes, have a post tension slab. That’s the concrete foundation slab that you cannot disturb. You need to know that. So it’s not a good idea to go jackhammering up your own concrete or foundation because you’ll be in a lot of trouble. You need to get experts with concrete (like those who handle many a concrete driveway Lynchburg has on offer) to come and see if they can help you out, because they will know how to work with the concrete properly and not destruct it even more.
When you do have a post tension slab, you cannot disturb that concrete at the risk of it breaking and you having to call out someone like CenTex Foundation Repair Waco to get it that, as well as the leak, fixed. It has to be capped off and that line has to be brought out of the ground. Meaning a re-pipe or a reroute of that manifold has to be performed. It cannot be fixed on direct access. Direct access can be performed on regular concrete slabs or foundation where there’s no post tension slab. You can do a direct access.
I don’t recommend direct access repairs of foundation pipes in the concrete or slab because the corrosion is already occurring. What’s the sense… what’s the point of fixing a line that has a pinhole leak or a break that corroded six inches down the line? It’s going to break again as soon as we leave in a week or two or six months. It’s not a good idea. My technicians can explain to you the pros and cons of doing a direct access if we can but we don’t recommend it.
The causes of slab leaks in your foundation or concrete are fluctuations of the water pressure or the chemicals that city supply in the water to improve water quality. Also, shifting, cracking, movement of your concrete slab foundation that will cause the pipe to break. Damaged concrete in your foundations could be repaired by using something like concrete cure and seal.
We have specialized equipment. We will know where exactly to pinpoint where the break in the floor of the foundation is so you don’t go wasting your time breaking tile or [inaudible 2.57] or breaking of wood that doesn’t need to be messed with. You don’t want to be destroying your house for nothing. So that’s why it’s a good idea to call a professional like ourselves to do a leak detection. It’s very important.
We specialize in also helping people do dry downs. If you have a wet area in your home caused by this slab leak water coming out of your foundation, we have a restoration division specializes in insurance claims so we can help you process all the damage to the floor, the wood, the walls all through your insurance. I have estimators on staff that can help you process your insurance claims with your insurance company.
Call us out first because we specialize in plumbing and insurance claim, and full service restoration. So whenever you have water on the ground, please remember Erich at A#1 Emergency Service. I would love to send out one of my technicians or live consult. We go out in person. We would love to help you.
Have your house checked If you suspect that your slab has a leak, Contact us now.
