Any tricks to find an underground water leak?

[Dr Dave]

I would disagree...if you replace it purchase a high quality coiled plastic pipe Scd 7 in as long of coils as possible.

I have used the black plastic coiled pipe in the past, but is it still available? there have been many lawsuits involving it. Do you have another product in mind?

Dave

 

[EMB5530]

http://rwco.com/wp-content/uploads/Catalog-F.pdf

Prices on poly pipe by the foot

 

[Gary Fowler]

I would suggest checking with your local NDE contractor in the yellow pages might be under xrays or Non Destructive Testing. Ask them if they have an acoustic leak detector. Their rates might not be more than all the work you will be doing digging, breaking lines with the back hoe (if you are like me, one pass is not enough so go a little deeper and there is the line on the back hoe bucket). I have used NDE company to locate a leak in an underground line that was over 20 feet in the ground and he found it in less than 15 minutes with all kinds of welding machines, cranes etc running in the back ground. We pointed him out the general direction of the line which was a 24" with 100 PSI on it and he found a blown gasket where pipefitters had forgotten to snug up a flange for some future branch. This machine was just a little square box with a connection to put in some stainless steel probes similar to a gun cleaning kit. We told him the concrete coated pipe was in 20 foot joints, The guy walked about 20 feet put the probe in the ground and listened, then walked about 20 more. He claimed he could here a drip from a gasket (it was allowed some leakage on this cooling water line). After about 100 feet he stopped, moved the probe around a few times and finally said" your leak is directly below and its a blown gasket, I can hear it squealing. Pipefitters didnt believe him because the said it wasnt any below ground flanges in the system. I went to my office, pulled the drawings and sure enough there was a flange. Normally lines are tested prior to backfilling but this one had so much hole opened up because of the 4-1 slope required for safety at that depth the client agreed to visual inspection and back fill as the line was installed. Turned out to be a bad decision but we found the leak, fixed it and was back in business in one day. By the way it was pressure tested prior to backfilling the hole this time.
The guy walked the entire line and only found that one major leak, there were a few with a drip about every 30 seconds which was acceptable at test pressure and likley didnt leak at all at 25 PSI operating pressure.

 

[sdkubota]

I have used the black plastic coiled pipe in the past, but is it still available? there have been many lawsuits involving it. Do you have another product in mind?

Dave

No lawsuits with the Scd 7 (heavy) pipe and spec it and have it installed all the time. Copper has become much too expensive.

A leak of 1 pint per minute would equate to around 6,000 gallon per month. It would be luck but possible an acoustic detection device would work.

 

[kw22614]

Maybe, just a little past the meter on your property, dig a good size exploratory hole, cut the exiting pvc pipe and use a smaller diameter solid pipe, like used for wells, cap the end and feed it through the pvc ,connecting more as needed until you reach the house then use the necessary adapters at both ends to hook the water back up. I've helped do this before but it was with 2 1/2" pvc, it was a straight run, and it was only about 40'. Hope you can find it easily. Good luck!

 

[Clint S]

On a friends well water system I once pushed about 175 feet of coiled black 3/4" pipe through 1" worked like a charm. I ran my 1 inch water line inside 2 inch pvc so I replace it if necessary by just digging up one end.

 

[Bikewanderer]

White PVC with glue joints? Yikes!!

Rent a trencher and put in a large roll of the bruiser service line.

 

[sdkubota]

White PVC with glue joints? Yikes!!

Rent a trencher and put in a large roll of the bruiser service line.

South Dakota has probably thousands and thousands of miles of glues joint pvc pipe rural water system without any problems. Once iin awhile you might get a gopher biting into one but that is about it.

 

[PILOON]

If it a continuous run of PVC, I would say that the ovious leak spots would be at the ends, where the connections are made... But I doubt that they put in in one piece.... Sorry

Generally the runs are 300 ft but also be 200 depending on brands so maybe suspect joints at 100 ft intervals.
I have found that with the jubilee style clamps that the clamping screws corrode away after about 10 years in our soil and water.
While the clamps are SS the screws are not (otherwise they' strip when tensioned). For that reason municipal codes generally call for compression fittings for entry lines.

 

[PILOON]

No hints, but my experience with a leak. Several years ago we had rural property with water provided by a rural water association, which is a government welfare program. We owned the property when the system was first installed, so we got one of the initial connections. I ran a line from the meter to our proposed house site. That was about 300'. I used flexible black plastic pipe in 100' coils. I forget the name of the plastic. This stuff was later recalled and there were lots of lawsuits.

We were visiting the property about once a month. Between visits a leak developed. The line split in the middle of a section. The split was about 1' long. The leak soon created a mini-grand canyon. There was no problem finding the leak. The water association discovered the leak after a couple of weeks. They cut off the water at the meter. They had mercy on me and only charged for 40,000 gallons on the next bill.

I repaired the leak and after that I turned off the water at the meter after every visit. We never did build a house there.

That was " POLY B"