Leak Detection & Repair in San Jose, CA
By the time you can see a leak, it has usually been running for weeks. A climbing water bill, a warm spot on the floor or a musty smell in one room can each mean a hidden leak. Caught early, it is a pipe repair. Caught late, it can turn into a remodel.
We locate leaks with pressure testing and acoustic detection before we ever open a wall, so the repair is surgical instead of exploratory. Slab leaks are common in San Jose’s slab-on-grade neighborhoods like Almaden and Blossom Valley, and they can often be rerouted overhead instead of jackhammered. We will lay out both options with costs.
Not sure you have a leak? Try this: turn off every fixture and watch your water meter’s leak dial. If it moves, call us. The phone consultation is free.
When people call us about this
- Water bill climbing with no change in usage
- Warm spots on slab floors (hot-side slab leak)
- Musty smell, mildew, or bubbling paint on one wall
- Sound of running water when everything is off
- Water meter leak-indicator spinning with fixtures off
Questions we get asked
How do you find a leak without tearing up my house?+
Mostly by narrowing it down before touching anything. We start by isolating the system at the meter and at the house to confirm the water is actually going somewhere rather than being used, then split the hot and cold sides so we know which one is losing pressure. From there it is acoustic listening equipment and, where it helps, thermal imaging, since a hot-side slab leak warms the floor above it in a pattern you can see. The point of all of that is to open one place rather than four. By the time we cut into anything we should be able to tell you what we expect to find behind it, and if we cannot, we have not finished looking.
What is a slab leak and why are they common here?+
A slab leak is a failure in one of the water lines buried in the concrete foundation under your house. They are common across Almaden, Blossom Valley, Cambrian and Santa Teresa because that whole generation of housing (roughly the mid-fifties through the mid-eighties) was built slab-on-grade with copper supply run underneath. Fifty years of hard water, soil movement and pressure cycling eventually finds a weak spot. The reason they matter is that they rarely present as visible water. You get a warm patch on the floor, a water bill climbing without explanation, or a heater running more than it used to, and the leak has often been going for months by the time anyone investigates.
Will insurance cover a leak repair?+
It varies enough that we will not tell you what your policy does, but the pattern most homeowners run into is worth knowing. Many policies treat sudden water damage differently from the cost of fixing the pipe that caused it, and differently again from damage that accumulated slowly because nobody noticed. That last category is where claims most often run into trouble, which is another reason not to sit on a symptom for six months. What we can do is help you document it properly: what failed, where, when it was found, and what the repair involved, in writing. Photograph everything before anything is repaired. Then talk to your carrier with facts rather than a description.
Further reading: 5 Signs of a Hidden Water Leak in Your San Jose Home and How to Spot a Slab Leak Before It Wrecks Your Floor.
Describe it to us and we will tell you what it is.
Phone consultations do not cost anything. If it turns out to be something you can sort out yourself, we will say so.
Related work
Leak Detection & Repair across the South Bay
We cover San Jose and the cities around it. Pick your area for what tends to go wrong in houses like yours.