Leak detection and repair in Miami-Dade

Signs of a leak you cannot see

• A water bill that jumped with no change in how the house is used
• The meter dial moving with every fixture off (a five-minute test worth doing before you call)
• A warm or damp spot on a tile or terrazzo floor, or a floor that lifts or cracks along a line
• The sound of running water inside a wall at night
• A ceiling stain that dries and returns, usually under an upstairs bathroom or an air handler
• Low pressure at one fixture, or mold on the back of a cabinet under a sink
• Water pressure that drops when nobody is using anything, which points to the line between the meter and the house

Slab leaks: the Miami-Dade special

Houses built from the 1950s through the 1970s in Hialeah, Westchester, Kendall, Miami Springs, and North Miami often have copper supply lines poured into or under the slab. Fifty years of slightly acidic water and shifting fill wear pinholes in that copper, and the leak has nowhere to go but into the ground under the house, or up through the floor. The tells are a warm spot (the hot line usually goes first), a meter that never stops, and a bill in the hundreds.

Finding a slab leak is a job for equipment, not a jackhammer: an acoustic listening device to hear the leak through the slab, pressure tests that isolate the hot and cold lines, and a thermal camera for the hot side. Once it is located, the plumber has two options and should explain both: open the slab at that spot and repair the line, or abandon the run under the slab and re-route a new line through the attic or along a wall. On a house with one pinhole, a spot repair makes sense; on a house that has had two, the re-route is usually the cheaper answer over the next five years.

Other leaks that show up here

• The line from the meter to the house. Often galvanized steel or thin-wall poly on older lots; a wet patch in the lawn that never dries, or a bill that climbs with no leak indoors. The repair is a new line from the meter, usually a day's work with trenching.
• Condo stacks and upstairs neighbors. In a building, the stain on your ceiling is often the unit above or a riser in the wall. A plumber can tell you which; the association decides who pays.
• Water heaters. A tank that has started to weep at the bottom does not get better; it fails. Shut the cold-water valve on top and the breaker, and treat it as a replacement.
• Toilet supply lines and fill valves. The small leaks that run a bill up quietly. A running toilet can waste hundreds of gallons a day without a sound.
• Irrigation. Sprinkler lines on the house meter show up as a bill that spikes on watering days. Check the timer before you call a plumber.

What to have ready

Say what you have noticed, when it started, whether the meter moves with everything off, and the age of the house if you know it. The plumber will usually quote the detection as its own step, with a price, and then the repair once they know where and what it is. Ask whether the detection fee is credited toward the repair. If the leak has been running for a while and there is wet drywall or a musty smell, mention it; drying is part of the job and, in Miami, the part that keeps a leak from becoming a mold claim. Photograph the meter reading and any stains before the visit; your insurer will ask.

Why leaks are a Miami-Dade problem

The conditions conspire: an aggressive water chemistry that pits copper from the inside, a housing stock where most single-family homes were built before 1980 on slabs, and a climate where a small leak turns into mold in days rather than weeks. Add condo living, where a leak is a three-party problem between you, the neighbor, and the association. None of it is exotic to a plumber who works the county, and most of it is found in an hour with the right equipment.