AAA PIN POINT LEAK DETECTION

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I used AAA PIN POINT LEAK DETECTION

I needed to do a gas pressure test, to get a sign off on my central air / heat system. This is required by the City of L.A. to final a permit when you install new central air / heat equipment. You disconnect all gas appliances. You turn off and disconnect gas from main. You cap everything except one open end, to which you screw in a pressure gauge, and with a bicycle pump or compressor, pump air into the closed gas line network. It must hold at 10 p.s.i. for 10 minutes. If the gauge goes down, it means you have a leak somewhere. So... when we did a dry-run test prior to calling out inspector (the inspector certainly does not want to waste time if you can't show system works, and when inspector comes, gauge must already be up and holding... he'll then traipse around for 10 minutes waiting... then check gauge again), our pressure fell from 10 p.s.i. to 9 p.s.i. afer 10 minutes, indicating a slow leak. We spent many many hours over the course of 2 days soaping the exposed gas connections and joints that we could see, with blue plumbers bubble stuff. Found nothing! We called the gas company, to make sure there wasn't a leak at it, the main pipe. Nothing. While the gas company was here, they also were nice and let me use their sniffer / detector (about a $300 instrument... not something you can just pick up in Home Depot...), and I quickly went around to all joints again, seeing if there was gas. But... nothing. I then called in a highly experienced plumber. Thank heavens they were decent enough to say, if you did the bubble test carefully, there's nothing and quot;differentand quot; or better they would do. And they suggested a leak locator, recommending AAA Pin Point. It is very hard to find general info on AAA Pin Point in a general web search -- because they really are more of an insider's service. You know, someone pros and plumbers would call on, but not usually the general consumer! But thank God the plumber gave me the info and I called Pin Point. (AAA Pin Point... actually!). They were pretty backed up, said if they could take the job there would be several day wait, if they took the job. (Again... just too busy.) I said let's keep in touch then see if something opens up. By chance, a few hours later they had a cancellation and thus an opening for me! The technician's name was Scott. Friendly, punctual, got rolling on the ball right away. I explained the situation, showed all the capped off gas lines, he is soon pulling out lots of equipment for testing, and also running around the property a lot to check this valve, that valve, etc. What they essentially do is inject another gas into the system, at high pressure. And they use special equipment to hopefully find where the leak is then occurring. This involves more racing around the house to all the known gas points, seeing if there's a leak. They are using handheld readers, and a larger instrument that looks like a metal detector, sweeping over the ground There's almost 2 hours of loud beeping as the equipment is trying to sniff out their special gas! Besides just that, Scott and John (highly experience boss, who came onto scene!) also start mentally dissecting the layout of gas pipes in the house, to see what can they isolate and therefore hone in on to see if the leak is occurring there. All of this takes time, energy, highly trained senses and a highly methodical approach to getting the layout of your gas line network. I'm sure the average homeowner (me!) has no idea how it's laid out, yet these pros have the experience and intuition to guesstimate it and dissect the problem. All in all, the call took 3 hours but finally the leak was detected. Whew! Cost including supplies was $470 total. Not cheap but... a small price to pay for top top level service AND most importantly, finding a leak that no untrained person ever could! AND... we just had our inspection Gas pressure line held up! And we PASSED! Enough said! So use these guys if you have a leak! They'll find it... Expert professional service.

We called Pinpoint and they came out immediately. They are very professional and knowledgeable. With their testing equipment and other methods they found the source within an hour and ten minutes. I would highly recommend them if you need someone to find the source of an underground leak in your main line. We used Brett, and he was great.

On time, efficient and reasonably priced.

JON IS VERY PROFESSIONAL AND FAIR. HE IS ALSO A VERY CONSCIENTIOUS WORKER.