How to Check if Your Water Pipes Are Leaking

Is your water bill Too High? Follow this easy 7 step procedure to find out if your house is losing costly water.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Flat Head Screw driver
• Flash Light

1. Go to every faucet, hose bib, and shower in and outside of the house, and make sure that the fixtures are off.
2. Tell anyone who is home to not use any water while you do your test. It is important to include your dishwasher, washer machine and refrigerator ice maker when you ask everyone not to use the water. In fact, its best to do this test when there is not anyone else home if possible.
3. While you are shutting off all your fixtures, make sure that there are not any drippy faucets, and that your toilets are not making any noise, for this will not allow you to get an accurate reading. If you have a drippy faucet, or noisy toilet you should repair it immediately and do this test afterwards. A noisy toilet is a toilet that is continually making noise when it is not being used.
4. After your home has gotten through the first three steps of this test, find the water meter. The water meter is usually located outside in your front yard or curve. If you have an ally behind your house, or easement, you may want to look out there for it.
5. Now remove the meter lid and expose the meter so you could see the numbers. (It is very important that you replace the lid to the water meter every time you walk away from it because someone walking bye can step in it and hurt themselves).
6. Picture of meter showing the blue triangle that spins when water is used Check if your meter is moving. You do this by watching the little triangle on the meter. If the triangle is not moving, your house is holding its pressure and no pipes are leaking. If the triangle is spinning, water is still passing through the meter, and it should not be doing so because all your fixtures are shut off.
7. Call a plumber so a leak detection can be performed, and so they can pinpoint the leak for you. The rest of the steps are not to be followed by unqualified individuals, for mistakes could be costly. The following steps are for reading purposes only.
8. If you do not have a garden sprinkler system read this step anyway. Now if you get to his point there is no need to worry just yet. Think back and make sure you shut off all the hose bibs and fixtures. Your next step is to get a better idea of where your leak is at. You do this by locating what is called your building shut off valve. This is almost always located in your front yard right before the water line goes into the house, if the meter is in the front yard or curve. If your meter is in the back yard, or ally way, check the back of your house, and you should find a pipe coming out of the ground and into your house. There, you will find the valve that shuts of the water to your house. If you have a garden sprinkler system, there will be two valves there or there should be. Shut the valve to your garden's sprinkle system off. If the valve to your sprinkler system is not there, find it and turn it off. If you don't have one, you really should install one. Now check the meter. If it stops moving after you shut off the valve to the pipes that feed your sprinkler system, you have a problem in your sprinkler system. This usually means a broken pipe, or that water is getting through your anti-siphon sprinkler valves. If the meter continues moving leave the valve off and jump to the next step.
9. Now shut off the valve that shuts off the water to you whole house, which is the building water shut off, and not the valve in the meter box. What you are doing here is isolating a water system. You are checking for leaks between your meter and your building. So the meter is on and your house faucets have no hot or cold water. Check the meter again, if the meter is still moving you have a leak in the line between the meter and the building shut off. If it does not stop, go to the next step.
10. Turn on the building shut off valve to your house only. This will get water to your house system and pressurize it again, give it about 10 minutes to refill the pipes. In the meantime, go through your house sink faucets, and turn off all the angle stops which are located in your sink cabinets. You are just double checking yourself at this point. By the time you are done shutting off all the angle stops to your sink faucets, the system is full usually. Also, shut off the valves to your washer machine hot and cold water, and the refrigerator water line if you have and ice maker. Check your meter again. If the meter is stopped at this point you have a problem somewhere between your shut offs and your faucets.
11. This is the final step I could share with you. Go to your water heater and turn off the cold valve. The cold water line feeds the right inlet to the water heater and is marked with a "C" for cold. Now you are isolating the hot from the cold. If the meter stops at this point there is obviously a problem with your hot water system. If it does not stop there is a problem with the cold water system. At this point, there is a possibility for a slab leak in your under ground water lines, you should call a plumber.

Tips & Warnings

• Read all tips and warnings before reading the steps. This is a simple leak detection test for homeowners, and is based on a standard home plumbing system. The nice thing about learning this procedure is that you will understand your home water system better if not well.
• I have done this procedure many times. It usually takes me about 20 minutes.
• Steps 8-11 are for reading purposes only and should only be followed by qualified individuals only
• Before doing this test, it is very important to understand that you should not force any valves. If you find a valve that is hard to shut off, don't force it because you could break it and cause water damage to your home. Replace the valves, or have them replaced if they feel or look bad.
• The ordinary home owner should not practice steps eight through eleven. These procedures are for educational purposes only and for qualified individuals only.
• If you find that you are going past step 7 call a plumber, but it is good to know the procedure for homeowners.
• If you have a pool or reverse osmosis system shut the water feeds off, but only if you know for a fact the no damage will be done. If you are not sure, call a plumber.
• These steps apply to single home dwellings only, not condominiums, hotels and so forth.
• If you have a fire sprinkler system do not follow this procedure, and call a plumber.