Reroute the line above ground through the walls and soffits. A line leaked underground. The rest of that line is in the same condition. Most of the time the copper is pitted throughout because no one used to sleeve the lines to protect from corrosive conditions. Instead of replacing flooring and concrete, you're just doing drywall and painting. Between floors there's a almost always a trestle. If not, you trench across drywall. Insurance is anticipating a large expense and will most likely cover the drywall you remove if you go that route with them filing a claim. They get flooring replaced and drywall repaired and painted through their insurance and aren't left with 60 feet instead of 62 feet of old copper pipe that will leak again. I would reroute the hot and cold while I was at it. I love my customers but I hate seeing them for the same reasons.

That cold line looks pretty worn also. Shouldve just replaced it while it was all exposed

Most of the time if I'm dealing with a slab leak I'm trying to sell a repipe. So the only damages are in the walks, ceilings. It's better that way especially if the house is more the 30 years old.

I think what everyone wants to see is how they backfill and make it tight again. Wet the dirt? Expandable foam? How is that done?

Man I ❤️ your channel. Coming from construction industry and now working at Home Depot in plumbing dept for the meantime you're a breath of fresh air. I'm not a plumber and I tell customers that, bit I still have "plumbers" ask/tell me what they plan on doing and sometimes I cringe. Then I have DIY homeowners that plan on doing their work almost if not to local codes 🤣 oh the irony

Here in Wisconsin we have basements and crawl spaces, they should do that in Texas so you have more space to store stuff and you can access all of the plumbing.

Great video Being in pest control in Dallas/Ft.Worth for 30 years. I've had to deal with a few nicks in plumbing from my techs drilling in the slab for termites especially around kitchen area. Bit stopper doesn't work fast enough. And these situations can be smooth and/or a nightmare and costly. But I agree with others. Re-pipe whole house in pex. There will be another issue soon that copper looks rancid.

Well it’s great if the insurance company is going to pick up the tab on reflooring. I guess if I were in the same position as the customer but didn’t have insurance coverage for a slab leak, I’d just replace only the damaged section of flooring, match it as close as possible, and put a rug on top of the replaced section of flooring.

I used to work at enie's plumbing in Arlington and I was in his dig crew for 7 yrs we would do tunnels

7 k with 2 couplings and 2 ft of pipe dam you good 👍 And I'm here charging for a sewer re pipe 9 k dam

I love how one camera angle has your head within the outline of your logo head outline.

That’s a lot of water they were losing! Loved how you got some footage and were able to make this upload. More of these!!!

#1 tunneling company in DFW/ East Texas ETEX plumbing excavation. Those crews are very technical and great clean up.

I'm a plumbing contractor in Arizona and I've never even seen anyone tunnel under a house to fix anything, as far as something as simple as a slab leak. This is insane. Drywall is super cheap to repair. Wow!

Hvac/plumber here in upstate ny, I know it's different in other parts of our country but I would never buy a house without a basement. I understand the gc wanting to build a house on an Alaskan slab because it's cheaper, but I would never recommend one of my customers to buy a house on a slab or with a completely finished basement with sheetrock ceilings. That leak would take at most an hour to complete in a basement and cost the homeowner roughly 150-300$

Love seeing high quality trades content

your past few videos have literally been the same issues i've been dealing with either at work or at home lol my condo just got repaired for a slap leak from our bathroom.

Was doing a reroute not an option? I’ve done plenty of reroutes so we don’t have to tunnel, or bust through someone’s living room. Of course it all depends on the home owners insurance coverage and what they want to do.

I'm soooo glad I live up north... I have never done slab work. Worst basement was one that was stone, dirt floor and a massive cistern.

If that piece of copper pipe was bad ,what about the rest of the copper pipe?

That was a pro fix in an extremely tough area.

How do houses not even a have a crawl space? That’s a very odd design decision for plumbing. Should be mandatory.

wont another section start leaking as well? I mean all the pipes are the same age.

Why not use AquaPea? Is replacing the pipe safer / lower risk than AquaPea relative to preventing the leak from happening there again?

Why do you not sleeve lines? Unless it’s a main water line I sleeve copper and poly lines. Just curious, instead of all of the destruction, customers only have a couple drywall repairs to make.

Diging is in the pass

What do you do if there a a collapse in the tunnel ?

I've got another leak under my slab. Would it just be cheaper to replumb the house?

So what kind of repair is this? Did they just cut out the pipe were it was leaking and join the two sides with a new pipe? Or did they just put some sort of sleeve over where it was leaking? 😳 I’m new, trying to learn lol

Almost all the houses in Levittown New York had the radiant heating leaking in the concrete. It was a pretty straightforward reroute to baseboard heating.

My concern would be the copper pipe being routed through the concrete as in looked in that situation. Myself ida replumed the entire home in pex.

Osha. Wet trench violation 5 million fine. Lmao

Here in MA hardwood floors in kitchens and baths are absolutely prohibited. All floors must be impervious to water.

Gonna be more leaks later for same reason(s). Simply reroute through the attic and back down the walls.

How did you know the hole was in that location?

Awesome video.Thank you for all of your insight and recommendations. So was the repair job covered under home owners' insurance?

Heyy man great video thanks

Why wouldn’t you put the plumbing in the attic?

Plumbing under a concrete slab brings to mind the Bugatti Veyron. An oil change on your Veyron cost around $21,000. That's because a mechanic has to take a ridiculous number of things apart to get to the multiple oil plugs. I believe it's over a 24-hour job just to get to the oil plugs. Was it really necessary to design the car that way? Similarly, it should be illegal, IMO to route plumbing under a section of slab over a certain size area. Now with Pex plumbing, I read that the plastic for whatever reason attracts rats. Rats have been known to chew through the pipe. My home in GA is a split level and I can get to most of the copper and PVC plumbing. One length of sewer pipe runs under the garage slab and the copper water inlet pipe runs under the front porch slab for about 5'. The sewer run could be rerouted if necessary into the sewer line for the downstairs in the crawl space. Builders should strive to build homes that are more maintenance-free. One would think that would be a major selling point for homes. The general public commonly just doesn't know very much about anything other than details related to their job and normal life-related stuff. There are unfortunately a lot of people who don't even know much about that.

Our cast iron sewer line is "troughing" i dont want to just replace the bad spot Its under a slab how do i replace the whole line?

I run across this quite often will abandon the lines underneath the slab and reroute them overhead and protect them from freezing I am in New York after all. Running them overhead has to be a lot less expensive than tunneling under somebody's house and breaking holes through the damn floor

Literally.

you talking about pricing for this.... or in the north with full basements it cost about 100 bucks to fix or 300 for a plumber to pro press a new pipe in.

The best thing I ever did was sell my slab foundation home. Over time they ALL will leak.

Hey are you hiring I'm a plumber apprentice in Dallas Texas I stay in oakcliff are you hiring

Rerouting is always possible and you get a hole new pipe vs 3' of pipe!

Why'd you go in through the kitchen floor? Because we took the shortest road in and the quickest path to victory!

I dont even know what youtube hole i fell in to end up here but i cant leave... my craving for info i might never use is to great XD least I will know some info incase anything ever comes up in my house ;-;

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Why do your tunnel under the slab why not just jacking hammer the floor

Love all your videos man keep being awesome 😎

See. I like this channel for homeowners to come too and learn the extreme side of plumbing. Makes me seem like a genius at saving a grand or 6. Here in Tn you physically can’t tunnel. Footers are the first barrier. Then you got bedrock about $5k into the tunnel. What then? So my company will find where Hvac duct is and follow it. Radiant heat will keep pipes protected. If ya loose power. Your screwed either way. Cold travels down too. At least this way it’s just drywall. 20k will go a long way for drywall repair. Drains just have to drip out the crack on top when drain clogs. It’s literally the same as leach field at that point. You can’t possible use enough water to let a drain leak on top of pipe to wash out your pad. Or better idea. Dig a 2’ footer around perimeter. This has to be the biggest rip off process of all time. One day a moron asked “are you gonna have to tunnel in”? Then the money wheels started turning. “Yes, yes will have to find a crew. Tunnel in. Then we make a 6” repair. The tunnel guys repack the tunnel. Cha Ching. No. No I’ll find the tunnel guys and pay them. Lol

What if it was a post-tensioned slab?

Nice video. I think it was better to Repipe with new Uponor and even the leak was under slab. Just start from entry of house. Cut sheet rock and run pipes. The chipping concrete could of been saved. To replace the floor if they new was Ok but chipping the concrete and remove dirt to replace a section of a leak???. Because the money they pay for the chipping concrete and digging plus plumbing plus cover back and stamp dirt and patch concrete it would save the homeowners more money and I also understand we all need to get pay. My point of view. I see it right but there are better ways. Unless it really have no choice but to break concrete. Totally understand the floor damage but you mentioned that over 3 times ! Job clean yes very nice cover. Repair leak nice just forgot to mention or you may did but was better to replace both lines the other lines was already built up in green and specially if all that chipping and digging was for the section line of copper replacement. Makes me think???.

i can repipe all in pex 12k

why not jump a new water pex line thru the attic and wall ? instead making all that nightmare 🤔

So I'm guessing you yall don't have e crowl spaces in Texas? Here in Ohio in crowl spaces or basements where all your piping is lol

No wrap for the copper pipe?🤔

Hi Roger a sincere question for you why not run all the water lines under concrete in bigger od pipe such as ABs or pvc or even thin wall pvc. So if it leaks it can be replaced without breaking concrete. When I build my house knock on wood. I will definitely do this if its slab

Tunneling can be very dangerous. Unless it’s very small I’m not risking my life or anyone else’s. Something this minor isn’t bad but I’m not going to tunnel for a sewer line, there’s been to many deaths to risk that.

$6000 to dig a hole? No wonder plumbers have boats, big houses, expensive equipment and vehicles!!!😮😮😮goooood lord😢

20 grand?? You can repipe for less than half 🤦🏻‍♂️

$20, 000.00, I'm sure a Re-Route could have been figured out for much less. 2 yrs. and you will be back for another hole in another section under the slab making another $20, 000.00.

Alot of "we" reference used during the digging process. All I saw was "them" doing all the work...

Code to braze coupling but not sweat?

Ok did he say 20,000k for this job?

Insurance paid this??

hi roger

CALL ME!!! ILL DO IT FOR HALF THE PRICE

tunneling under a house....means under mining the house. just run the pipes overhead.

REROUTE, MAYBE????? I could show you a way to do this without tunneling or breaking the concrete. All you will need a some sheetrock repair.....

why do builders have to scam homeowners, next time don't bury pipes or the homeowner will be buried by bills

Dude, too much talk at the beginning.

You re route 😂 Anybody that thinks different. Should not be in the business.