Charlie: Jack in Spring Branch is our next email to us here. He says, “I have a leak in my main copper waterline ….”, Tom, in the slab of his home, “… and it seems like I have to bust out concrete in the utility room to find and repair the leak. In your professional opinion, would you recommend repairing it or re-plumbing the home to have the lines run in the attic instead? It’s a one story home, so it wouldn’t be too difficult.”
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Tom: Well, you don’t re-plumb the whole house. All you do is isolate where the leak is, and just pull water from another part in the house. It’s going to be isolated and cut off because you can’t start putting joints and stuff in the concrete. That’s against code, and it’s just not a good idea to begin with. The bottom line is this: Isolate that line. They’ll put water into that line. Remember, the whole system is pressurized so they’ll just …
Charlie: Redistribute?
Tom: I don’t know if you’d call it redistribute, but they’ll-
Charlie: Redirect?
Tom: Redirect. I like that.
Charlie: Yay! I got it.
Tom: There you go. Redirect the water from another point-
… into those lines, so wherever you need it, it goes.