underground leak was not the problem

[jbannan]

I originally posted that I had an underground leak. I found out that I don’t My house is a southern california 50’s post war tract house. One story, 3bdr 2bath L shaped. Protruding from the exterior backyard, east facing wall is a capped, threaded water pipe. I asked my neighbor, who remodeled some years back if he remembers encountering a pipe like this in his wall. He said he didn’t and guessed that it was added some time after the houe was built as it is separate from the hose bib/pool water supply line. Tracing the pipe it appears to go to the right, in the wall 3-5 feet, then (I’m guessing) runs up, parallel to the fireplace, to the attic. The pipe appears to be leaking about 3 feet to the right of the capped end and is seeping out at the base of the wall. I don’t know if it would be easier/cheaper for me to knock a hole in the wall and repair it there or go up into the attic (unfinished, no flooring, 3-5 feet of headroom) and try to trace it back to a source and cut, cap and abandon it that way. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[SylvanLMPParticipant]

Well, sir considering your in the Left coast of the country where they reward guys in stolen cars and put the cops in Jail I wouldn’t even guess how lax your plumbing codes are with folks like Boxer and Diane ugly face Feinstein around.

Now speaking from a civilized point of view it is not very healthy to have any potable water supply dead ended 24″ or more

Reason being the stagnant water in this pipe can be drawn back into the domestic supply by cavitation and thus sicken everyone in the building.

Right job IMHO would be to bottle this stagnant water and give it to Dianne and Ted Drive em one way Kennedy and let him drive her over a bridge

BUT in your case just cap the dead line as close as possible to where it starts not ends.

[manhillParticipant]

Thank you for your reply. I’ve been into the “attic” and I could not find a pipe coming from that area. I can only assume that the pipe goes down into the slab and back to wherever it’s source is. Any thoughts on the most likely starting place might be? Is there a way for me to trace it back or some tool I might be able to rent to help me trace it back? At this time my only obvious option appears to be to cut a hole into the exterior wall (plaster, chicken wire, etc) and hopefully find the leak and cap it. If I could afford it I would call a plumber because I know he or she would, most likely, take one look and say something like “oh yeah, I’ve seen this before. I can fix it in less than 2 hours. It’ll be about $350 dollars.” I’m sure the price would be fair but I don’t have it right now. I have some basic plumbing tools: torch, solder, threading tool, pipe cutter, spare caps, pipe and elbows I just need to know where to use them.

Thanks again for your advice, I appreciate it.

Dean

[SylvanLMPParticipant]

Trying to guess sight unseen where the pipe maybe is impossible.

You could look into buying/renting or borrowing a metal detector like sold at radio shack etc.

Then you maybe able to trace the piping in question. Good luck

[Author]

Posts