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You can get most of the way there yourself, for nothing, in about two days. The steps below narrow a buried leak from “somewhere on the property” to a specific system, and that is the part that saves money, because the expensive mistake with buried lines is digging to go looking.
Those five minutes split the problem in half and point at two completely different services. Inside means indoor leak detection; outside means the main water line.
The most common answer to a buried leak, and free to rule out.
A leaking irrigation valve wastes water continuously and produces no symptom except the bill, because it drains straight into soil. See irrigation and sprinkler leak detection.
| What to look for | What it suggests |
|---|---|
| A strip of grass greener than the rest | The line runs under it and is watering it |
| Ground that stays soft with no rain | Water arriving from below |
| Water seeping at a driveway or path seam | A line under the hardscape |
| Pooling near the meter box | The main, or the City’s side of it |
| A sinkhole or settling ground | Soil washing away, act on this |
| Moss or algae where there was none | Persistent moisture |
| A sound at the shut-off valve with nothing running | Water moving through the line |
The listening trick is worth trying. With everything off, put an ear or a long screwdriver handle against the main shut-off valve. Water escaping downstream of the meter under pressure often produces a faint continuous rush you can hear through the metal.
Useful for narrowing where to look, and worth knowing it is a guess until it is traced.
Worth doing, because it tells you whether this is a call today or a call this month. The meter measures it for you.
Two readings and a bit of arithmetic beat any figure a website could give you, because they measure your leak rather than an average one. A loss you can measure in an hour is a significant leak; one that only shows overnight is small but still worth finding, damage from a hidden leak scales with duration rather than rate.
| Step | Why it needs equipment |
|---|---|
| Pinpointing the leak along the run | Acoustic listening through soil takes experience and a ground microphone |
| Reading the depth | Needs a locator, and depth changes the whole repair |
| Tracing a plastic line | Cannot be found magnetically. It needs a sonde |
| Deciding whether it is one leak or two | A second failure on an old line is common |
| Confirming a drain leak | Not pressurised, needs a camera or a hydrostatic test |
This is the point where doing it yourself stops paying. The steps above narrow the problem to a system and a rough area; converting that into one marked point at a known depth is what turns a trench into a hole.
If you are planning any excavation, locating the private lines first is one of the cheapest decisions available. See pipe and line locating.
We are licensed and insured plumbers, and this site is about leaks — finding the ones you cannot see and repairing them properly. Roughly half of what looks like a plumbing leak turns out not to be one, so the boundary is worth stating plainly.
Roof leaks are a roofer. Water under an air handler is an HVAC technician clearing a condensate drain. Water under an appliance is appliance repair. Drying, restoration and mold are separate trades again, and gas line repair is SoCalGas or a licensed gas fitter. We detect gas leaks, we do not repair gas lines.
The full list, with the trade to call for each, is on what we don’t do.
Detection is flat rather than hourly, credited toward the repair, and there is no detection fee if we cannot locate the leak during your paid visit. Arriving with your meter test result and your irrigation already eliminated genuinely shortens the visit. You have done the first three steps.
Most people who work through this arrive at the conversation already knowing which system is involved. That is the difference between a visit that starts from zero and one that starts from a known answer.
Done the free steps? We trace the line and mark the leak before anyone digs.
(714) 386-7923Call or text, day or nightSchedule a VisitRun the meter test with everything off. If the meter moves, close the main valve on the house and watch again — still turning means the leak is on the buried line. Then turn the irrigation off for a day and retest. Those three steps narrow it a long way for nothing.
A water line runs under it and has been watering it. A green or soft strip in the shape of a trench is one of the more reliable outdoor signs of a main line leak, and it usually shows before any pooling does.
Sometimes. With everything off, put an ear or a long screwdriver handle against the main shut-off valve — water escaping under pressure downstream often produces a faint continuous rush through the metal. Pinpointing it along the run needs a ground microphone.
No pressurised line is losing water, so it is a drain, the sewer lateral, groundwater, drainage or a downspout. Follow your downspouts first, a roof discharging into one spot puts a remarkable amount of water there.
Please do not dig to go looking. Call 811 first regardless. It is free and required, but 811 marks utility-owned lines only, up to the meter. Everything on your side is unmarked, and that is where most residential strikes happen.
The line is traced from the surface, then acoustic listening narrows where water is escaping, and tracer gas confirms it on deep lines or under concrete. The result is one marked point with a depth, so any excavation is a hole rather than a trench.
A flat $150 to $500, credited toward the repair, with no detection fee if we cannot locate it during your paid visit. Set that against excavating along a suspected route and putting the landscaping back.
Turn the system off at the controller for a full day, then run the meter test again. If the meter goes still, it is the irrigation. It is the most common answer to a buried leak and it costs nothing to eliminate.
Generally the shortest sensible route from the meter to where it enters the house, shallower at the house and deeper toward the street. That is a starting assumption rather than a fact — original landscaping frequently changed routes.
It is billed continuously and it washes soil out as it runs, so it is worth acting on rather than watching. Ground that is settling or sinking above a line is the urgent version. That is soil already moving.