Day 3 of the Leak

For the last few days (last Friday I started), I've been looking for a leak at the studio apartment we own.

Between the house and the studio is a leak that costing about $10 a day in water. We get charged $5 for the water, and $5 for the sewer. So I started looking for the water mains in the back yard back on Friday.

We could not find them on Friday. Or Tuesday. On Monday I had a wall down in the studio looking for a leak and found where water had wicked up the inside wall from a faulty washer outlet outside. I really hoped I had found the leak, but just found water damage from the wicking.

So today I was armed. Mainly with renewed enthusiasm to find the leak.

First thing was get under the house and dig a 2 foot hole. I know where the water main is running from, can trace it to the edge of the house (under it's foundation), and then I can pick the pipe up outside.

So I did all that, traced which brick it went under, transposed that outside - and the water main was maybe 0.5" from my trench I did on Friday. SON OF A BITCH. We dug 15' of trenches on Friday looking for it.

So. Dug out half the garden today tracing the pipe. Cunningly it spends half it's time under the waste pipes going to the sewer. Which is useful. But, traced it all the way back to the apartment. 15' more of trenches dug out. No leaks found, so I'm betting it's under the slab of the studio building.