Having basic plumbing skills is a good trait for a homeowner. It can allow you to fix many common household leaks so that you don’t always have to contact a plumber. This can include fixes like dripping sink faucets, leaky garbage disposals, toilets that won’t stop running, and other plumbing issues that often arise in homes. However, even the handiest homeowner would struggle to fix a pipe hidden in a wall. How are these kinds of hidden leaks fixed? Keep reading to learn how to fix a leaky pipe in your wall from the experts at our leak detection company in Stockton, California.
How to Fix a Leaky Pipe in Your Wall
Detecting the Leak
The first step to repairing a hidden leak is to find its exact location. Now, you might assume that the location of the leak is wherever you’re finding a water spot, but that’s not necessarily true. Water tends to travel quite well, so it can trickle away from the break in the pipe and travel along your plumbing before finally pooling several feet (or even yards) away from the actual source of the leak.
The best way to detect the exact location of a leak is to use advanced leak detection tools. This can include ultrasonic devices that can pick up on the subtle sounds of a hidden leak, as well as infrared cameras that can detect the colder areas where water is seeping out of a pipe—or, if the leak is in a hot water supply line, the hotter areas inside your walls where the water is spraying out. Getting your hands on these devices can be difficult, but it’s extremely important to know the exact location of the leak due to the next step in the process.
Opening Up the Wall
In order to access a leak inside a wall, you’ll need to cut open the drywall. If you don’t know exactly where the leak is, this could mean cutting open a lot more of your walls than necessary, which significantly increases the cost of repairs. Additionally, opening up drywall is not something for the average homeowner to do. Those walls can conceal plumbing and electrical lines, and damaging those wires and pipes can have major consequences.
If you’re experienced in this kind of thing, you may be able to proceed if you have the proper tools. Otherwise, you might want to hire a contractor. Either way, knowing exactly where the leak is will allow you to only cut open the part of the wall directly in front of the leaky pipe, which saves you a lot of time, money, and headaches.
Repairing or Replacing
Once you can access the pipe, you’ll need to assess whether the pipe can be repaired or if it needs to be completely replaced. A very small leak may be fixable with some simple repairs, like a plumbing paste. However, you can never be certain. What we would always recommend, even for a pinhold leak, is to completely replace that section of the pipe to ensure proper long-term durability. Our expert plumbers go the extra mile, with state-of-the-art craftsmanship and rigorus testing to ensure the leak gets completely stopped with a long-term solution.
Testing for More Leaks
Testing is a very complicated process to get right. That’s why our highly-trained plumbers always use pressure testing to make sure any repairs are good, and hold up for years to come.
Naturally, this is not something that every homeowner can attempt to do. So if you have a hidden leak or you need water line repair in Stockton, CA, contact Central Valley Bullseye Leak Detection today.
