just bought a rental building (three units) that sat empty for a winter before it was winterized. Does anyone know the best way to find plumbing leaks without tearing up the walls/ceilings/floors? What kind of things can I expect a qualified plumber to do to determine if there are leaks and where they are? Thanks for the advice….kb
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I would use
air pressure as a starting point. Shut off the water from the street, drain all of the lines as much as possible, attach a pressure gauge with air inlet, put a little bit of pressure on the system, and see what happens. You may be able to find the general area of any leaks this way. A stethoscope might be handy for this.
I have seen at least one troubleshooting job where the plumber rigged up a spare bath fan to the DWV piping and used smoke bombs to find the location of an uncapped drain in the wall.
Any sensible plumber given this job is not going to accept too many parameters. Sheetrock damage is almost a guarantee. You can't expect surgical precision. I would certainly continuing repairing the pipes until they absolutely hold air pressure, do not put any water in them before that point.
air pressure to start
The plumber is going to start with air pressure. The walls/ ceiling are plasterboard and swirled ceilings. It would take awhile for a small leak to show as the walls, ceilings are very well sealed. It would cost a fortune to remove the pasterboard, or swirled ceilings just looking for possible leaks so I was wondering if anyone has experience with the digital thermal imaging devices I have seen elsewhere on line that are supposed to find water, heat, air leaks behind the walls/ceilings? If anyone has had experience with thermal imaging, was it effective? Thanks for the reply! Appreciate it....
Yeah, air pressure -- pressurize the pipes and look for a pressure drop. And probably you might as well just get the plumber to install as many shutoff valves as make reasonable sense, in order to divide the whole building into segments (to narrow down the leaks). Allow him to install access panels in a few places to reach valves that can't be installed in the utility areas.
The valves will come in handy down the road if/when plumbing needs service for other reasons.