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How to find a slab leak?

This leak detection video shows in detail the basic steps to finding a pressurized water leak under a concrete slab.

Step 1
Using a FLIR camera looking for thermal anomalies under the concrete slab. FLIR stands for forward looking infrared, this is actually a very descriptive title for what the company produces. When pointed at the slab and the camera produces a video image based on temperature instead of light used in a normal camera.

In this video we are looking at a hot-water week with presents itself as orange colors and cooler temperatures present themselves as blue-colors.

Step 2 - Pipe Locating
When you're looking for a slab leak you want to find the pipes first, this gives you a better idea of where to look. In this video we're using a Radio Detection RDL7000 pipe locator and a TX-3 signal generator. We are using a frequency of 512 Hz.

Step 3 - Listen for the Leak
Our preferred microphone set up is the LD18, LD-18 by Sub Surface. This microphone has some very sophisticated filters and noise canceling abilities for working in noisy environments. These come in very handy because you can easily hear the neighbors dog barking or stereos being played when you're trying to find a leak with a sensitive microphone.

Step 4 - Inject air into the system...
..for a precise PenPoint of the location.
For this we usually use a dive tank and inject air into the system at very low pressures. As the air exits the pipe through the hole it produces a a loud bubbling noise which makes it easier to dial in on the exact location of the leak.

Other Methods
For outdoor leaks we have the ability to inject hydrogen gas and use special sniffers to find the gas when the pipe is too deep to hear the actual leak.

Locating Plastic, PVC Pipe
One method when you have a large pipe is to inject a special conductive prod called a duct hunter. We then attach the single generator to one and of the rod and we can walk out the path of the pipe with our regular metal pipe locator.

Another method is to have someone tap on one end of the pipe and attempt to locate the echoing of the sound as it goes down the pipe with our sophisticated microphones.

I hope you find this video informative.
Thank you for watching.

Gary Fuller
ACME Detection
Santa Barbara, California
(805) 565 LEAK
(805) 565 5325

Leak detection tools we use:
- LD 18 Sub Surface microphone
- Metrotech Vivax HL 5000-4 microphone
- Radio Detection RD 7000 locator.

Competitors:
- American Leak Detection
- AAA Pinpoint leak detection