How do you find a leak without tearing up the house?

Pressure testing tells us whether a system is losing water and roughly where. Electronic acoustic equipment picks up the sound of escaping water through slab and wall. Thermal imaging shows temperature differences from a hot-water leak. Between them we can usually locate a leak to a small area before anything gets opened up.

My water bill jumped but I can't see anything. Is that a leak?

Often, yes. A slab or underground leak can run for months without visible water. A quick way to check - turn off every fixture and watch the meter. If it's still moving, water is going somewhere.

What's a warm spot on the floor?

Usually a hot-water line leaking under a slab. It's worth acting on quickly, because a slab leak undermines the material around it the longer it runs.

Repair the section or repipe the house?

Depends on what the pipe looks like elsewhere. A single failure in otherwise sound copper is a spot repair. Repeated pinhole leaks, or galvanized supply lines that are corroding throughout, mean you'll be paying for the same call again — that's when a repipe is genuinely cheaper.

Natan Plumbing

Leak Detection & Pipe Repair

Hidden leaks located without opening walls at random — electronic detection, thermal imaging and pressure testing, then a repair scoped to what we actually found.

Call +1 (925) 470-6006 Get a same-day estimate

CSLB licensed

Lic. 1148295 · C-36 Plumbing

Warranty

1-year warranty on all work

Response

24/7 emergency dispatch

Experience

16 years in the trade

Water rarely surfaces where it’s leaking. On a slab foundation it travels along the underside and appears somewhere else entirely, which is why guessing at the location — and opening the wall to check — is an expensive way to start.

We locate first. Pressure testing establishes that there’s a loss and narrows the system. Acoustic equipment and thermal imaging take it from there. Only once we know where it is do we talk about the repair, and by then the scope is a known quantity rather than an estimate with a wide range on it.

A note on older Peninsula housing: a lot of pre-war and early post-war stock still runs galvanized supply lines. Those fail by corroding from the inside, which means the first pinhole is usually not the last. If we find that’s what you have, we’ll say so — and we’ll tell you honestly whether you’re better off repairing this one and planning a repipe, rather than doing the same job four more times.

Detection quoted separately from repair, so you're never committed to a repair before you know what's wrong.

Common questions

How do you find a leak without tearing up the house?: Pressure testing tells us whether a system is losing water and roughly where. Electronic acoustic equipment picks up the sound of escaping water through slab and wall. Thermal imaging shows temperature differences from a hot-water leak. Between them we can usually locate a leak to a small area before anything gets opened up.
My water bill jumped but I can't see anything. Is that a leak?: Often, yes. A slab or underground leak can run for months without visible water. A quick way to check - turn off every fixture and watch the meter. If it's still moving, water is going somewhere.
What's a warm spot on the floor?: Usually a hot-water line leaking under a slab. It's worth acting on quickly, because a slab leak undermines the material around it the longer it runs.
Repair the section or repipe the house?: Depends on what the pipe looks like elsewhere. A single failure in otherwise sound copper is a spot repair. Repeated pinhole leaks, or galvanized supply lines that are corroding throughout, mean you'll be paying for the same call again — that's when a repipe is genuinely cheaper.

Recent plumbing work

Heat pump water heater with recirculation

Installed a Rheem heat pump water heater with an expansion tank and a recirculation pump, running dedicated hot, cold and recirculation lines to manufacturer spec. Hot water now reaches the far fixtures without the long wait a heat pump tank can otherwise introduce — and the household is ahead of the Bay Area zero-NOx replacement deadline rather than scrambling when the old tank failed.

Smart toilet installation

Removed the old fixture, adjusted the rough-in and supply, and set and sealed the new unit — clean finish, no leaks.

Water heater replacement & repipe

Installed a new Bradford White tank, pressure-tested the system, and upgraded the supply piping. Stable pressure, reliable hot water, no leaks.

Where we do this work

Belmont Burlingame Campbell Cupertino Foster City Gilroy Los Altos Los Gatos Millbrae Milpitas Morgan Hill Mountain View Palo Alto Redwood City San Carlos San Jose San Mateo Santa Clara Saratoga Sunnyvale

Need this done today?

Call +1 (925) 470-6006