Under the concrete
Slab and sewer leak repair
Electronic line locating and high-definition video first, then a targeted tunnel under the slab instead of a jackhammer through your floor. Backfilled properly when we are done.
Chapter 01
What a slab leak looks like before anyone opens the floor
Nobody sees the pipe fail. What they notice is a warm patch on the tile that was not there last month, or a water bill that climbed for no reason they can point to. Some people hear it before they see anything at all, a faint sound of running water somewhere in the house with every fixture off.
A sewer leak announces itself differently. It is an odour that comes and goes instead of one that just sits there, because the ground under the slab is what is carrying it, not the pipe alone. And sometimes the tell is in the concrete itself, a hairline crack that was not there in spring and has opened wider by fall as Jefferson County's clay swells and dries around it.
Illustration of the method: a shored access tunnel opened at a slab edge
How we find it, and how we get to it
We locate the leak electronically first, so we are working from a point on a map instead of a guess about which corner of the house it is under. From there a camera goes down the line for a high-definition look at the actual condition of the pipe, a crushed section, a joint that has pulled apart, roots that have found their way in. That is what tells us what we are actually fixing, not an inference from a pressure reading.
Where it can be reached from outside, we tunnel in under the slab and leave the floor you are standing on alone, rather than jackhammering through it to get at a pipe we could reach another way. When the work is done we backfill it properly, which is the step people usually only hear about later, from someone else's job, when it was skipped.
Chapter 03
Why a small leak under the slab does not stay small
The reason this is a Nederland problem specifically, and not just a plumbing problem, is the ground. Jefferson County sits on heavy coastal clay over a high water table, and clay that keeps taking on water from a leak underneath it can swell enough to move the slab above it. That is not an exaggeration for effect, it is the same mechanism that can lift a building over time, and it is why a slow leak under a house here is a structural question, not just a utility bill question.
The EPA's own number for an average household is roughly 180 gallons a week lost to leaks that nobody has found yet. We have been doing slab and sewer work specifically for more than 25 years out of the shop on Nederland Ave, under Texas Master Plumber licences M-256 and M-4740, and the pattern does not change much from house to house. Catch it early and it is a controlled job. Wait, and the ground does the rest of the damage for you.
Jim Snell Master Plumber, Texas Master Plumber licences M-256 and M-4740, working Nederland since 1965. Call (409) 226-2451.