Things to Consider When Building Your Home to Prevent Future Slab Leaks

It can really troublesome to have slab leak in your home as they can be very costly to deal with, especially if left undetected for a long period of time. This problem can happen to everyone and despite your best efforts to prevent them, it may happen eventually. Of course preventing is a much better method than repairing. But pipes can leak even it is already made from the best material.
On of the most dangerous location of leak is on the foundation, as it can endanger the integrity of the building. A building with weak foundation can be threatened by sudden collapse. Especially if we consider the fact that slab leak can happen without knowledge due to the lack of signs and if there are signs, they can be quite subtle which make them left unnoticed.
Obviously, the best way to do is to ask your contractor to check your piping, especially on spring, as pipes integrity can be stressed during a cold winter. You should know the normal water volume of your pipes, when there is a sudden drop in water output, you may have a leak somewhere.
If your pipes are leaking, your only solution is to have them fixed, the best thing to do is to get an expert that have a good experience in repairing the leak without destroying too many slabs. During house construction, make sure that all pipes are assembled correctly and tightly. The cuts should be straight and clean to prevent unnecessary leaks. If you are living in an area with many earthquakes, then you may need an extra strong piping network to withstand sudden vibrations. If the soil in your location is unstable, even there is no earthquake, the foundation may shift and move which put some pressure on the pipes. So it may be necessary to fully strengthen the foundation to compensate for the unstable soil condition. These are things to consider when building your home, to prevent future slab leak problems.

The Importance of Accurate Slab Leak Detection

Slab leaks usually occur when there is a problem with plumbing pipes beneath your concrete slabs. It is considered as a serious problem because concrete, unlike normal ground can be difficult and expensive to deal with. If left untreated, water accumulation under concrete foundation can weaken the structure and degrades building quality, which in turn may endanger you and your family members. Worse, due to its location, leak under concrete slab can be hard to detect, as you won’t see any visible water accumulation. As the result, you may need to ask for experts help to do regular check on the situation of your foundation, before disaster strikes.
Luckily, we do have some ways to know whether leak may happen under the concrete slab. If you hear some water noises under the concrete slab, have higher-than-usual water bills, increasing humidity under your carpeting and warm spots, you may have leakage under the concrete slabs. If more than one symptom appears, immediately contact an expert. Slab leak usually happen when you have bad pipes, badly assembled fittings and pipes, unexpected electrolysis, rusts or small earthquakes.
Directly taking your concrete slabs apart to check the leak can be wasteful and costly. Make sure your contractors have tools designed to detect leakage under concrete without excavating the entire foundation. It would better if your contractor can guarantee that once the slab is excavated, they’ll find the leak. That way you can be protected financially, from incompetent contractors. If you are in the process of building your home, before assembling pipes under the slabs, make sure you understand the effect of electrolysis, Make sure your metal pipes won’t create electrical charges which make tiny holes. There are few methods to prevent it, ask your contractor for the best method for you.

How to Detect Slab Leak Easily

Among the riskiest things that might take place to any homeowners is slab leak escalation. Even worse than that, when the escalating slab leak has a crimp within the water line it can make things worsen. If a piping falls apart eventually, because the water pipings are ancient, then you need to prepare a good deal of money for replacing the pipes.
If you believe that there is a water leak below the concrete building foundation or slab, you should do an easy water measurement. The essential thing that you should do is find the meter and then be sure that the water is switched off for the entire building.
Put differently, be sure that you have no faucets dripping, toilets running, sprinklers watering the yards, wash machines working, and nobody is taking a bath or shower. If there is no leakage on your building, the water meter should not move in the least.
You should take a snapshot of your water meter with your digital camera for a proof or you should take note on the meter reading and write down the numbers, and also its exact time. Return and read the number again in half-hour. If the water meter reading hasn't moved, then do it again in two hours if the number hardly even move then that’s great. It means that there is no water leak.
If the numbers change then you could have a leak or two somewhere in the building. If the numbers move only slightly, you could call the water leak detection service, to have a better second opinion. All water leaks must be serviced immediately, because they may cause damages on structural foundation, wooden foundations and may even bring in mildew and mold.

Causes of Slab Leak

There are four commonly found causes of slab leaks in a residential area, such as inadequate piping and fitting workmanship, chemistry of water and piping materials, unstable substructure, and large water pressure.
Inadequate Craftsmanship: novice pipe fitters, inadequate craftsmanship, bad plumbing materials, broken piping setup - are all parametric quantities that work to heighten possibilities that your water supply system is very ineffective and buckle under very easily to wear and tear, water flow, water chemistry and water pressure.
Chemistry: Copper pipings can react with the water chemical characteristics which will cause pinhole leaks.
Unstable Foundation: an unsatisfactory plumbing system can shift over time and break pipes.
Large Water Pressure: Copper pipings with smaller diameters can raise the water pressure and corrode the pipings until they entirely burst open.
Bad workmanship can also cause slab leaks at the outgoing DWV pipeline, however the other three causes are prevailing in the sanitary sewage system including rusty and burst pipes and also when using commercial drain cleaners.
Aged Pipes: sand, soil or gravel are permeable to water and can rust cast iron or galvanized pipings nearby. Rusty pipings are more vulnerable to damage and bursts.
Ruptured pipeworks: unstable foundation may take apart galvanized, cast iron or polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipings, particularly where they change or turn directions.
Commercial Waste Pipe Cleaners: They may eat on metal pipelines