Business Springs From Leaks : High-Tech Equipment Helps Detect Water-Wasting Pipes

You may not notice it for months.

Then, in the middle of the night, you hear the sound of water running.

Correction: leaking .

You have nightmares of men in hard hats tearing up your house with electric drills, probing for the underground pipe that has sprung a leak.

Still, you call for help the next day because you don’t want to waste water in this time of shortage, nor do you want to continue paying those hefty water bills.

You soon learn that you didn’t imagine that sound you heard in the dark. While government officials have been considering water conservation measures to prevent a serious shortage, you’ve been losing hundreds of gallons of water a day without even knowing it.

The good news is that finding a leak is no nightmare in this high-tech age. Special electronic equipment now makes it possible to find and fix leaks under houses, swimming pools and patios without turning a home into a disaster area.

And as conservation-minded homeowners begin to take notice of the ways in which they are wasting water, the experts who provide this service are becoming increasingly busy.

“In the past two months, our volume has almost doubled,” says Tim Downs, co-owner of American Leak Detection in Santa Ana. “I think people are becoming much more aware of the water shortage.”

Downs and his partner, Phil Meckley--better known as Leak Busters--spend most of their time responding to calls from people whose swimming pools are leaking, usually as a result of deteriorating pipes, earth movement or faulty construction.

Often, those calls come long after the leak begins because people think the water is simply evaporating--or their pool is automatically refilled so the water level hasn’t dropped dramatically, Downs says, noting that an eighth of an inch is the most a pool should lose to evaporation in a 24-hour period.

Some back-yard pools are losing thousands of gallons of water a day by the time homeowners call for help, Downs says. And one Olympic-size recreational pool that he recently repaired was losing 18,000 gallons a day.

“The waste we see in leaks is astronomical. They start out as a pinhole and get worse and worse and worse,” Downs says, estimating that the leaks detected by his business alone amount to more than a million gallons of water lost a year at Orange County homes--including multimillion-dollar mansions.

Lloyd Dunn, owner of Corona-based Evans Leak Detection, says most of his Orange County jobs involve pipes under houses that have been leaking water for more than two months.

Leaks go undetected because people ignore such symptoms as unusually high water bills, a warm or wet spot on the floor, signs of mildew--and that sound of running water that is most noticeable at night when the house is quiet.

“A relatively small hole in the pipe can amount to a gallon of water lost a minute--and I’ve fixed many leaks bigger than that,” says Dunn.

Leaks that go undetected for a long period of time not only waste water but can also weaken the structure of a house, cause cracks in pools and decks, wash away hillsides and, eventually, flood homes, Downs says.

On the other hand, the equipment used for detecting a leak has become so sophisticated that repairing it may require a hole no bigger than four to 12 inches.

Downs uses a device developed by Dick Rennick, a former plumber who wanted to eliminate the destruction that often occurred in the hit-and-miss days of leak detection. Rennick, president of the Palm Springs-based American Leak Detection, came up with a system that combines sonar and radio technology.

His equipment--and similar technology used by other firms--enables leak detection experts to hear the sound of water escaping from pipes. Where the sound is loudest, they usually find the leak.

Downs says this system is so accurate that he waives his fee--usually $250 for detection--in the rare cases when a leak can’t be found. Without any drilling, he is able to pinpoint the source of the leak within four to 12 inches, he says. Then repairs are made at prices ranging from $50 to $2,000, depending on the extent of damage. The average repair costs $200, Downs says.

Dunn says he is able to locate most leaks within four inches using similar technology. He charges $450 to fix a pipe leak, and that includes a $150 detection fee.

Downs notes that the accuracy now possible in leak detection has considerably reduced the cost of repairs--and encouraged more people to seek help without the fear that their homes will be torn up in search of a leak.

To Downs, that means not only more business, but also less waste.

Working in this field has increased his awareness of the need to conserve water, he says.

He’s among those who’ve “always assumed there was plenty of water.” Seeing so much waste from leaks has been sobering.

“If we ever have to start rationing,” he notes, “fixing leaks will make a big difference.”