Ask a Plumber Blog: Guidance from a Master Plumber

Can pipe under concrete be repaired? Can hydro jetting help?

We were recently called to a commercial property in Dallas, GA. This is a company that fills big tanker trucks with different products.

Here’s the Situation – a major water leak UNDER thick concrete

They had a main water line leaking under their thick concrete parking structure. They had a few other plumbing companies come out and take a look at their plumbing problem and told them it was impossible to repair. We knew right away what we need to do…

Major Problem – power lines & fiber optic cables

Leak location came and marked where the leak supposedly was.

The plan WAS to cut open a 6 to 8 foot square, locate the leak, and do the difficult repair.

HOWEVER, in this particular case, when we did the utility locating, we found that there were DOZENS of power lines, fiberoptic cables, and all kinds of other obstacles between the concrete and that pipe we needed to access.

The Solution – hydro jetting

So we were able to call in our hydro excavating truck – which basically uses water and vacuum to dig up the earth.

It’s a high pressure water that turns the dirt into mud and the vacuum system sucks up all the mud. This allows us to excavate earth without using a backhoe or something that would actually break those pipes or wires.

(The video at the top shows the hydro jetting in action on this exact commercial plumbing repair. watch time: 1 min 47 seconds)

We were able to expose the problem, get down to it and repair the water main. We then had gravel brought in, filled up the hole without having to compact (beat & bang) against any of the pipes. And they fixed their concrete as good as new.

Hydro Jetting to the Rescue

We’re pretty proud of that one because they called 2 or 3 other plumbers and they really didn’t have a solution for them. We knew right away what we needed to do to get that fixed. My favorite calls to get are the ones where they tell me right out of the gate that they’ve called other plumbing companies and they haven’t been able to come up with a solution OR somebody told them that they couldn’t do THIS or THAT.

If you’ve got a problem like that, we’ve got a solution. Don’t let a commercial plumber tell you it’s impossible or that there isn’t a solution. THERE IS always a solution. Contact Trinity Plumbing.