Jackhammers are great outdoors, but you don't want one in your house.
Anyone who has experienced a broken water or sewer line under his foundation will tell you that it was a nightmare to fix. Before advancements in leak location, the only way to find and repair a broken plumbing pipe was to guess the location of the leak and start jack hammering the concrete floor of the house. This barbaric approach would often destroy a home. Homeowners and insurance companies sing the praises of modern leak detection, location and repair equipment. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
1. Locate the pipe that is leaking under the slab with sonar- or sonic-leak detection equipment. These latest technological advances in leak location allow you to see down through the concrete foundation. These machines are expensive and should be operated by a trained professional.
2. Tunnel under the house, following the sewer or main water service. For safety reasons, make the tunnel twice as big as it is deep. Tunneling under a home's foundation is usually a job performed in regions where the soil is soft and sandy. In clay and rocky soils, the job would be more costly than breaking the foundation itself.
3. Repair the plumbing problem. Generally, the only reason to go though the expense of a tunneling repair job is to replace all the sewer, drain and water lines under a home.
4. Inject a slurry mixture of water and sand back into the tunnel to fill it. This task will require a specialized pumping truck designed specifically for the injection of slurry and concrete.
5. Refinish any concrete removed during the back-fill process. In some cases, the back-fill materials are injected through small openings in the concrete foundation; this process is performed to reach every corner of the slab.
Tags: concrete foundation, leak location, under home
