Another water question!

[EastTexasResident]

I can't believe this one.

I'm in a house I just bought in January....built in 1997. So it's not an OLD house.

Tonight, there is water coming up in the midle of the family room/kitchen area and soaking the carpet!

I have no basement. And the only water source nearby is the kitchen sink. I checked under the sink though...and it's absoutely dry. It's also near the dishwasher, but I see no leaks there either.

Any clues what in heck might be going on!

Thanks in advance.....

Ed

[Burke]

Any chance your pipes are in your foundation and one has sprung a leak? Also, have you had lots of rain lately and your water table has risen? Or maybe there is some other cause for your water table to rise. One way you could check and see if it is a water leak is to turn off all other water on your lot and then go out to where your water meter is and see if it is indicating flow. Not sure how fast it would take to notice movement but if it is a leak and is leaking at a good rate, I would think it would be enough to move the meter over a 10 or 15 minute period of time.

I am sure some smarter folks than I will be along shortly to provide their ideas.

Hope that helps....a little.

Burke

[Terry CA]

Sure sounds like a slab leak. Do as suggested above. Don't use ANY water and go check the meter...if it is spinning you have a leak under the foundation. That is unless it has rained or some other potential cause you didn't post.

[Jeffery (LCLA)]

Ed, if it's not a water supply or discharge leak, another possibility is your electric. Non metalic electric conduit is pourous to allow water that has accumulated in the pipe to exit the pipe. If you have undergroud utilities, and that conduit runs under the slab, it may be discharging the water under the slab. If this is the case, you'll notice wet floor after a hard rain. I don't know how long your floor has been wet, but I know you've had some rain the past few days. This may, or may not be the case in your situation, but one remedy is to put a weather head on the conduit where it goes up the utitlity pole to prevent rain from falling inside the pipe.

One thing I suggest is to pull the carpet up to see if the wet floor is in one spot or follows a trail.

[Debbie]

All suggestions are good.

If none of the suggestions are the culprits, the only other possibility I can think of is the vent. Is there a vent in your ceiling that may be where the water come from?

[Jeffery (LCLA)]

All suggestions are good.

If none of the suggestions are the culprits, the only other possibility I can think of is the vent. Is there a vent in your ceiling that may be where the water come from?

All that testosterone floating around ready to bust up the concrete and in walks Debbie with the simplest culprit. DOH! :SM031:

[EastTexasResident]

If it's a lead in a pipe in the foundation.....uggh....are we talking about tearing up the floor to get at it? Sounds MIGHTY expensive!

Also, on the water table...we've had very little rain. But I've been doing LOTS of sprinkling to compensate. Could that be enough to raise my water table?

Thanks again!
Ed

[dealmaker]

If you've checked you meter and it's a pipe in the slab DO NOT LET ANYONE TEAR UP YOUR SLAB. These are correctly repaired from underneath, and even in TX, land of the insurance companies that don't pay claims, this is a covered item.

Good luck.

dealmaker

[EastTexasResident]

Thanks so much Dealmaker and all others.

This is a GREAT site and I'm shocked how quickly I got well informed answers. It's truly appreciated....I'll have to check out the water meter thing tomorrow.

Unfortunately, as I'm not the greatest handyman, I probably can't contribute much. But I've got you bookmarked and will advise those I know to check this site out.

Best,
Ed

[Burke]

Ed,

If you stick around here, you will know more than you ever wanted to know about most things RE :-).

Please come back and let us know how this turns out.

We wish you the best!

Burke

[EastTexasResident]

Well...the answer is in...in case anyone is interested.

The culprit was a clogged drain from my air conditioning condensate. Rather than going downt the drain, water was going underneath and evenually out to my carpet.

The good news is the fix was just a $95 plumbing bill. The bad news is now I'll have to have someone come in and pull up the impacted carpeting and clean/ air-out the padding. I guess the carpeting itself will be ok though.

All in all...coulda been worse.

Thanks again to all!

Ed

[Burke]

Ed,

Thanks for coming back and posting your findings! Glad it was fairly simple. Not sure how your ventilation in the room is but could you possibly just rent some of those really big fans that you seen some stores put out on their floors to dry them when the customers are tracking in lots of rain water?

Just a thought...

Burke

[Debbie]

Thanx for letting us know. I know that I wasn't the only one wondering what's the cause of it. As much as I love mystery, I get pretty impatient if I can't get to the end of the story....:SM083: