My house is 21 yrs old, built on a slab. San Antonio, TX
About 2 weeks ago, I noticed the sound of water running. Like someone was taking a shower,in the middle of the night but all faucets were off and no toilets were running.
The next morning when I was cooking breakfast, my daughter noticed that the floor/ceramic tiles in the area between the island and the range were very warm, about a 2'x2' area. We have been living in our house 3.5 yrs.
There is no visible water leaking outside or inside.
The only way to turn the water off is at the meter, by the sidewalk.
According the water company, the pipes are buried a foot down.
I have a home warranty with Old Republic so I placed a plumbing request online. In the interim, thinking that there was a hot water leak somewhere, I would turn off the hot water valve on the hot water heater and only turn it on when we needed hot water. If we forget to do this and not turn off the valve, there is no hot water when we need it. When we do turn it off, the hot water only lasts a few minutes.
I finally got a plumber out (contracted w/ the warranty company), 2 days after submitting the service request. He came over at 7 pm when it was dark. He took a flashlight and went around the house and say no evidence of the leak, nor saw any evidence inside. He checked the meter and said it seemed to be a pretty good leak. He dug up the customer cutoff adjacent to the one the city uses, ( I didn't even know it was there. When we replaced the outside silcock, we just bought a key and turned the water off where the city would.) He said that it seemed hard to turn and he didn't want to break it , I didn't try. He used a long metal rod to poke around the front yard between the meter and the house and couldn't detect evidence of a leak between the meter and the house.
He then said he needed to install a cutoff valve outside my house and he would dig at the corner of my slab to find where the water line enters my house and it wouldn't be covered under my warranty because it's outside. He said that that would be the 1st step in detecting the leak. I asked if the leak is outside, why is my kitchen floor suddenly warm and the hot water heater seems to be losing water? He said it must be something wrong w/ the hot water heater. I explained that the sound of water running, the hot spot and the hot water heater seeming to lose water all happened at the same time, so I don't understand why he has to put in this valve outside to detect a leak that is obviously inside. When I asked him to explain the hot spot on the floor, he shrugged and said "a ll houses have hot spots".
I spoke w/ another plumber the next day and he said that plumbing companies that are contracted w/ warranty companies will tell you you need to do non warranty repairs/ troubleshooting to make $ because their $ is made from volume , not the repair because the warranty company knows the true price of repairs, so they can't over charge them like they do regular customers w/o warranties.
When I spoke w/ the original plumber, he couldn't explain to me why a leak in my yard would make my kitchen floor hot when it hasn't been before and why there is a shortage of hot water. he did say something about the cold spilling into the hot or vice versa. He insists that he HAS to install this non warranty covered valve because it's the 1st step in detecting where the leak is.
someone please help me understand the correlation between loss of hot water in my house, a hotspot in my kitchen that hasn't been there in 3.5 yrs and how a leak in my front yard could cause this issue because he is starting to seem like he's just looking for a way to make some extra $.
About 2 weeks ago, I noticed the sound of water running. Like someone was taking a shower,in the middle of the night but all faucets were off and no toilets were running.
The next morning when I was cooking breakfast, my daughter noticed that the floor/ceramic tiles in the area between the island and the range were very warm, about a 2'x2' area. We have been living in our house 3.5 yrs.
There is no visible water leaking outside or inside.
The only way to turn the water off is at the meter, by the sidewalk.
According the water company, the pipes are buried a foot down.
I have a home warranty with Old Republic so I placed a plumbing request online. In the interim, thinking that there was a hot water leak somewhere, I would turn off the hot water valve on the hot water heater and only turn it on when we needed hot water. If we forget to do this and not turn off the valve, there is no hot water when we need it. When we do turn it off, the hot water only lasts a few minutes.
I finally got a plumber out (contracted w/ the warranty company), 2 days after submitting the service request. He came over at 7 pm when it was dark. He took a flashlight and went around the house and say no evidence of the leak, nor saw any evidence inside. He checked the meter and said it seemed to be a pretty good leak. He dug up the customer cutoff adjacent to the one the city uses, ( I didn't even know it was there. When we replaced the outside silcock, we just bought a key and turned the water off where the city would.) He said that it seemed hard to turn and he didn't want to break it , I didn't try. He used a long metal rod to poke around the front yard between the meter and the house and couldn't detect evidence of a leak between the meter and the house.
He then said he needed to install a cutoff valve outside my house and he would dig at the corner of my slab to find where the water line enters my house and it wouldn't be covered under my warranty because it's outside. He said that that would be the 1st step in detecting the leak. I asked if the leak is outside, why is my kitchen floor suddenly warm and the hot water heater seems to be losing water? He said it must be something wrong w/ the hot water heater. I explained that the sound of water running, the hot spot and the hot water heater seeming to lose water all happened at the same time, so I don't understand why he has to put in this valve outside to detect a leak that is obviously inside. When I asked him to explain the hot spot on the floor, he shrugged and said "a ll houses have hot spots".
I spoke w/ another plumber the next day and he said that plumbing companies that are contracted w/ warranty companies will tell you you need to do non warranty repairs/ troubleshooting to make $ because their $ is made from volume , not the repair because the warranty company knows the true price of repairs, so they can't over charge them like they do regular customers w/o warranties.
When I spoke w/ the original plumber, he couldn't explain to me why a leak in my yard would make my kitchen floor hot when it hasn't been before and why there is a shortage of hot water. he did say something about the cold spilling into the hot or vice versa. He insists that he HAS to install this non warranty covered valve because it's the 1st step in detecting where the leak is.
someone please help me understand the correlation between loss of hot water in my house, a hotspot in my kitchen that hasn't been there in 3.5 yrs and how a leak in my front yard could cause this issue because he is starting to seem like he's just looking for a way to make some extra $.
