Bypassing a plumbing leak under a concrete slab
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- Опубліковано 14 вер 2020
- In this video, I diagnose and bypass a plumbing leak on the hot water side under my concrete slab. We cap off the leaking pipe and run PEX through the attic.
Sta-Brite #8 Solder + Flux - amzn.to/2NRfnOd (this is excessive for a simple plumbing repair, but it is really good stuff and all I use)
Shark-Bite 1/2" Red PEX Pipe (300'): amzn.to/2P9DqZg (the length you need may vary)
Mapp gas torch kit: amzn.to/3d9GY5M
PEX crimping tool + rings: amzn.to/3sqd0Bc - Навчання та стиль
Thank you for taking the time to post this.
You are one hell of a good plumber. Very impressed.
Thanks for the compliment!
Great job. I'm in North Georgia and moved here from Southern Calif. in 1993. Our home is built on a crawlspace and I have had to fix a few plumbing problems. The repairs were not labor-intensive. In our neighborhood, homes were built in the 60s, 80s, and now in 2020-2023. Lots of mini-mansions going up and it appears nearly all are built on slab foundations. Having had to fix so many things since 1993, I have a pretty good idea of how I would build another home in the future. Burying plumbing under a concrete slab is not part of my plan. Anything I would design into a new build would be based on a projected future of low maintenance.
Thanks for posting this
Thank you very much for doing this video. I just started watching it. It is pretty educational and entertaining.
Glad you liked it! I won't lie - this repair had me sweating a bit... the prospect of potentially having to demo my floors and dig was scary. Once I calmed down and started to reason through it, it wasn't so bad.
That’s some scary looking plumbing in that house
Skilled young man. Nice home too
Thank you!!
Excellent Job calmed me down I some skill and will be able to replicate what you did Thanks much appreciated
Good luck with your repair this one had me a little flustered :-) I've had zero problems since the repair so it did work
Hi, thank you- every bit of info helped. I got to deal w / one also and thankfully I am decent with soldering. Btw - for the heater pressure relief valve, I had an inspector some time ago had me run a drain line down 5 ft to the floor with pvc, just an fyi
Yeah I think that's one of those things that varies based upon local building codes and also who the inspector of the day happens to be and what his mood is lol
Very useful video, I finally worked out I have a hot water pipe slab leak, next step to try and find the right pipe, not looking forward to this!
The natural first reaction is to panic. Once you isolate where the leak is and stop it, it has a calming effect :) Good luck with your repair!
Thanks best 1 yet i still haven't found my leak i know it the hot water side & what kind temp finder you use again
Wow great video, wish I would have seen before paying a plumber 2k , to bust two holes in concrete floor in kitchen and remove a cabinet , only to end up at wall with water heater on other side. He then ran pex into attac like yours. Still have unleveled spots in kitchen floor from his work. Hope he sees this video.
Lol sorry the timing didn't work out for you. I'll be honest this job had me sweating a bit. Just the idea of water leaking under your house and there's very little you can do to find or control it had me a bit uneasy. Once I can post myself and thought about it logically it was not that bad of a procedure and didn't have to bust open flooring thankfully.
GOOD JOBs.................................
Just thinking to leave the splashback on and cut the drywall above it. Easier to repair then the splashback.
Great video im having this problem and cant seem to get anyone out
Dito... no one wants to tackle a slab issue where I live either :( Our whole house was also piped using PVC... its gonna be a nightmare.
We have a slab leak that has been going on for over a year. I had no idea a hot spot on the floor meant leak! We figured out we had a leak when we put in a Condensed Water Heater that was on 24/7, so we did the water leak test and we for sure have a hot water leak and since we have turned off the hot water, the floor is now cold. Time to tear out the wall I guess... and to make things worse, no plumber wants to tackle the job because our house is half in the ground and the entire house is concrete directly under our feet, no crawl space....
Do u see water under slub?
I have the same problem going on. So I wonder how to reroute it in the attic
You will most likely have another slab leak. Might want to think about a whole house re-pipe with pex.
Thank you for sharing this project with us. Do you happen to know how to bypass the main by using a water hose? I'm not able to find any videos on it, but I've heard that if you have a leak on the main pipe coming from meter into house, that you can still have water coming into the house by running a water hose to outside spigot or something like that. I need to replace the whole run from meter to manifold, but this will take several days to complete.
If you had a neighbor that was willing to allow you to do this yeah, you should be able to do this temporarily. You would need a garden hose that is long enough and a male to female converter for one side.
If your main is leaking hooking up a hose will not do anything turn it on to showering and then turn it off overnight sorry
If I have another slab leak this is what I'm doing. The last slab leak I had was luckily near the surface & a SharkBite fixed it.
Yeah it actually wasn't that bad of a repair once I calmed my nerves lol
Was your water bill reflecting a leak as well ?
Soldering skill looks wonderful. Wouldn't the air in these hammer arrestors eventually all dissolve in water?
Thank you! I've soldered/sweated hundreds (if not thousands) of copper joints over the years... it takes a little bit of practice for sure. I've found the biggest contributor to good solder joints, aside from proper prep work, is high quality flux and solder.
You are 100% correct - the air will eventually dissolve in the water pipes. It should take quite a long time for that to happen, though - I would guess measured in months or years. Believe it or not, when houses are plumbed when they are built, that is how the plumbers often build arrestors - typically, much smaller arrestors, though.
Yes they do bladder type is what you need
I wish i knew how to do this
Recently found my kitchen floor was lightly wet thought was slab leak turned out to be a pin hole leak in the wall on hot water pipe coupler that connected to the vanity, all my pipes are galvanized so going to cut out all hot pipes under kitchen sink which is cheapest way for me to go for 200$ for all materials, had many plumbers give me estimates over 10K$ up to 13K$ for small house with one bathroom for complete repipe though I found one company would charge me only bout 2,500$ to do full repipe I know its not bad deal but I dont want my walls all torn up so rather replace the galvanized pipes instead.
Ouch, that sucks. I'm sorry to hear that. Galvanized pipes can be a real headache... In my opinion best to replace!
at 15:30 I see the cold line was already replaced with copper coming down from attic
Correct, but not by me. When I purchased this house, I remodeled the kitchen and had to pull that bar apart to do so. I noticed the capped off line behind the bar and the copper line running in the attic at about the same time. In speaking with other neighbors, this is a VERY common failure point in homes like mine... perhaps due to how the copper is run under the slab.
Great job. How old is this house?
Thanks! The house was built in 1987
You got it to hot
Are most failures due to HOT WATER SUPPLY LINES due to heat and freezing environments?
From what I have heard talking to plumbers, most of the failures are on the hot supply side due to settling and improperly protected piping
I wonder if you could have just cut through the bar cabinet to access instead of ripping out the entire bar
Perhaps, yes... I'd imagine access through the cabinet would have been challenging, though.
I love roughing slabs, but it has to be the most stupid idea to put water distribution pipes underneath a concrete slab and build living rooms, kitchens, water heaters, and laundry rooms on top of them. Putting main manifolds in concrete footers and such.
Yeah I'm with you. Nothing lasts forever including under slab plumbing systems. A couple houses in the neighborhood have already been entirely replumbed due to slab leaks
Since you just took off with the slab leak to attic reroute project right away, I guess no permit is required to reroute plumbing to above?
I would suggest asking your local city or county building department.
Was it type L copper that sprung a leak under the slab or type m?
Pretty sure it was type M. That's what I see used most often in home construction.
I also have a slab leak where water heater is. It is a vertical pipe with a lot of joints. When I cut it open found a huge piece of solder almost blocking the water flow. Bad job by a builder. They should solder things on the ground first horizontally then final assembly two vertical joints to avoid all that solder leaking down the pipe. What do you think?
Great video, but the title is somewhat misleading because the leak was not under the slab.
There were actually two leaks. One at the manifold behind the hot water heater and one much bigger leak under the slab that was bypassed using PEX through the attic
What did you do? Feed the pex from the bottom on up to the attic or top down?
Yep exactly
@@JoesGarageProductionsLLC which was it?
@@JoesGarageProductionsLLC He ran it through the Attic so ran the house up through the attic then fed it down to the sink
@@elizabethpodest2759 Yes, that is correct
Add just enough to let the solder flow and not let it get to hot your letting the flux burn out
Not sure which solder joint you're referring to specifically but I've done many hundreds of solder joints and never had a problem.
If you are a professional plumber, what solder do you find works best on domestic water applications? Do you have a favorite brand? I've tried a lot of The Big box store brands but have not had much luck with those... I generally keep going back to stay brite number 8, which works a lot better but it's very expensive as I'm sure you know
I like Harris products. Bridgit is great if you have a less than perfect fit which can be more common of soft copper used under a slab. Little more than regular 95/5 but worth it.
@@tccoggs thanks for the tip I will check it out!
Hey, you're not supposed to put the solder directly into the flame.
You only need a shut off on the cold side no cold in no hot out plumbing 101
If you don't put a shut off valve on the hot and cold side of the hot water heater you can't isolate the water heater. You have to shut off water to the whole house. Been there done that many years ago.
That's not true, all you need is a valve on the cold side, as stated before...
@@malbo4273 I’m with Joe here, it might be code but that’s why there’s relief valve for. Plus, just please tell me how all these millions of houses with perfect plumbing that have zero leaks and zero pressure losses like literally having every single faucets and valves in and outside the house completely shut or even lets say not being used for a period of time… how does that not have the same dangerous effect as having directly a shut off valve on the hot side of the water heater turned off? Can you please explain me that, because I might be that dumb but how is that not just as dangerous per “code”?
Because per code I feel like I need to turn on a hot water faucet just a little and let water drip so I can avoid my heater heater explode like a bomb.
True. All you NEED is a valve on the cold water. There's nothing wrong with installing another valve on the hot water outlet, as well. Where that extra valve comes into play is when you shut off the cold water valve to the heater because it's a leaker and still have cold water on to the fixtures in the house. When both hot and cold water are turned on at the faucets (especially with single handle faucets) water can backfeed from the passageways in the faucets into the piping. Now that leaking heater you just drained fills back up again and creates more water damage until you've replaced your heater because you didn't have that valve to block the water from reaching the tank. Convenience isn't always wrong. I suppose in some areas of the country that extra valve can be illegal, but it isn't in all areas.
What about your water bill????
It wasn't so hot that month but the next month was normal
Haven't seen one correct video to fix a slab leak. You should never have to bust up concrete or take a line overhead. 😆 In this video you see the copper lines sleeved in a black pipe. When you find which lines leaking. You sleeve a small 3/8 PEX pipe through the copper pipe. So you know where it goes to. Once you find the other end. Then you get a high-lift jack and a pair of vice grips. Hook the copper line to the jack. And Jack the line out of the sleeve. Once you get the copper out of the sleeve you then can push your PEX pipe the same size through this sleeve. Tie in both ends and you're done. #Master Plumber Ryno.
I have never heard that repair procedure for a slab leak. I'm also quite doubtful that the black sleeve is continuous below the slab... Maybe sometimes it is but I doubt it was in my house. If it was, and the copper line was leaking inside the sleeve, wouldn't you see water gushing out of the sleeve above ground?
I'd imagine that procedure wouldn't work unless the copper line was almost straight below the slab too.
It’s a shame to do this extensive repair and use a handmade hammer arrestor which has been shown to be ineffective and actually dangerous as they promote contamination of your potable water!
I have not done any scientific studies on them, but I see them in new construction in my area. YMMV.
I don't know about anyone else, but I cannot hear this guy. The sound started off great, but when he showed his bathroom, his voice is imperceptable.
Cut the pipe And replace the old stops WTF
The old stops are not that old I installed them a few years ago. They are quarter turn ball valves and still work just fine