About Leaking Pipes
Leaking pipes can cause serious damage to your home. If you have leaking pipes, you know they must be fixed immediately. The most common solution is to call a plumber, but many try to tackle the problem themselves. To be successful, there are a few things you should know. Does this Spark an idea?
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Identification
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Leaking pipes can be spotted by the water stains they leave. These stains are usually a light brown or copper color that appears in the drywall of your home, near or around the leaking pipe. Since water can travel long distances along drywall, before it actually seeps through, the stain may be located several feet away from the pipe. This sometimes causes people to misdiagnose the source of the leak.
Significance
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A leaking pipe can damage your home severely. Water damage can weaken drywall and cause it to sag. It can also affect the integrity of your home's frame. It can rot plywood flooring, drywall ceilings and weaken floor joists over time. The excess water may also cause mold to grow, which can spread through a home. This can not only eat away at your wood but cause an unsafe environment in your home.
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Prevention/Solution
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It is best to inspect your home once a year for potential leaks. You can identify them fairly easily by scanning your ceilings and floors for water stains. Check not only around the pipes themselves, but on the floors near the walls where vertical pipes are located. Any stains here may indicate a drippy vertical pipe, since the droplets will fall and pool below it. Follow every one of your pipes, starting from the water heater, where the cold water or ground water pipe first enters your house. Trace each one of the pipes to all your major appliances, faucets, toilets and showers.
Expert Insight
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To fix a leaking pipe, you must turn on all of your faucets, then shut off the ground water valve, which is usually located near your water heater. This pipe will feel cold and should be labeled. Turning on your pipes will help get excess water out of your pipes. To fix the pipe in question, you need to locate the leak source. If it is a small hole, applying plumbers epoxy will provide you with a temporary solution. A pipe clamp may also suffice. For a permanent fix on a larger split or hole, you will need to cut out the section of pipe that is leaking and install braided metal tubing in its place.
Misconceptions
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Many pipe leaks can be confused with leaking fixtures like a faucet, or more prevalently, kitchen spray hose. Those flexible, spray gun hoses are hooked right up to your incoming water supply pipe for the faucet. The water is constantly running through this small spray hose, putting pressure on the valve, until you squeeze it and open up that high-powered stream of spray. When these valves wear out, water leaks right down the hose and into your lower kitchen cabinet under the sink. Replacing this spray nozzle head will solve the problem. If it doesn't, you may have an issue with the kitchen faucet pipes.
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