Leak Detectives

Terrible. Barry, the “leak detective” was brought in by the plumbing company to find location of hot water slab leak(s) and find where the pipes in my house were laid out (where in slab, where in walls, etc.). He showed up an hour and a half late, no call or explanation. No eye contact. Minimal response to questions and did not give any confirmation to my request to know where all the pipes ran in addition to finding the leak. The plumber took me aside and said Barry was having a bad day and doesn’t like to talk to clients anyway, so I should just let him do his job and he would go over everything with me at the end. I went to another part of the house and let them work. About an hour later the plumber told me I had multiple leaks in the hot water line under the slab, at least one would be very hard to get to because “its too deep” and it looked like most of the pipes were failing in the house. He told me (with Barry standing there and not saying anything) that I needed a full house repipe and they couldn’t tell where the water lines ran because of house electrical in the walls and gas pipes in the slab (???), but it didn’t matter because the whole house needed to be redone for $16,240. I asked “are you sure” and Barry piped up (pun intended) and said “you can look at the pipes in the section we cut out of the wall and any plumber will tell you the same”. Actually the 2 plumbers I had come after them to look at the pipes (and cut out a test piece) said the pipes were fine and I only needed a short reroute around the leak for $14,000 LESS than they wanted. I still don't know where the pipes run (where in slab, where in walls, etc.). My advice, (1) go on youtube and watch the videos on detecting slab leaks first, then hire your own independent leak detection service, not the one the plumbing service uses. I was also charged $360 which is about $100 over the going rate for the independent detection groups in my area.