Can Hear Water Running But Can’t Find Leak

Imagine that you are sitting around the house and trying to relax from a long day. As you lie on the couch and attempt to fall off into a nap, you hear some water running. Immediately, you begin to think, this couldn’t possibly be true. There is no way that you have a water leak anywhere in your home. As a homeowner, you made a concerted effort to check all of the plumbing in your home. In addition, you have never experienced this before. At this point, you do what all homeowners would do. You call your home inspection company to come search for a leak. Can hear water running but can’t find a leak? The water running could come from a toilet issue, water heater leak, or even a worn gasket.

Let’s take a look below at the best way to determine what that water running noise is from.

A slow leak from your faucet can be a signal water is running.
A slow leak from your faucet.

How Do I Find A Leak

There are a few reasons why you can’t find a leak. Maybe the leak isn’t there as you were looking for. At the end of the day, you still need to find out why you hear water running and where the leak is happening. Always remember that leaks are not the easiest to find. You are likely going to call on your local master plumber. Most homeowners will test every faucet, and check on their water heater. If they still do not find out why it sounds like running water when every faucet is off, then they will likely call a professional.

Where Should I Look

There are a variety of areas to look at when trying to troubleshoot a possible water leak. Let’s take a look at those possibilities.

  • Water Meter – your water meter has a red dial that moves as the water flows. If your water running is a leak then your city water system will show a red dial moving.
  • Interior of the home – check your plumbing fixtures to make sure that no water is dripping. Check on your faucets and downspouts to make sure that water isn’t backed up and dripping. Also, check your toilets to make sure that water isn’t dripping through your toilet bowl and toilet drains. A bad seal could cause running water.
  • Water heater – make sure to check that your water heater isn’t leaking into your homes foundation.
  • Homes exterior – double-check the exterior of your yard to make sure your sprinkler system isn’t leaking and causing a drip sound.
  • Roof or Chimney – if you have a flat roof, heavy rains could cause water to collect and eventually create a slop drip. The dripping from your flat roof could cause a noise that most homeowners are not used to.

Other Recommended Maintenance

Now that you have read up on hearing water running but can’t find a leak. Consider, using a home inspection team that can locate a water leak inside a wall. Typically, the home inspection company can use thermography to detect leaks in the walls. Keep in mind that hearing running water does not always mean there is a leak, but it is a possibility.

Next, when thinking about water, making sure the water heater is working correctly is important. No one likes to take cold showers and you want to make sure you have warm water for washing dishes and clothes. If you find that the water heater may not be working, it may be the thermostat. To find out, you can test the water heater thermostat.

Lastly, you may start to notice calcium build-up on some of your faucets. This can be fixed by adding a water softener or by non-toxic methods such as white vinegar or a paper towel. Keeping these clean will also help the water to flow efficiently and allow you to get the most amount of water you can in the home.

Plumbing should be checked to make sure there is no leak.
Check all of your plumbing to make sure there is no leak.

When Do I Call A Professional

Trouble-shooting for any plumbing concerns might get tricky. If you hear water running and have checked all of the usual suspects, it might be time to call a professional. Not only can you break your toilet by mistake, but you could also damage pipes and connections on your water heater. Calling a professionally licensed master plumber is your best bet. Also, consider calling your local home inspection team. They can conduct some thermal imaging through your walls to detect any leaks in your pipes. Once they have completed their inspection, they can refer you to a reputable professional master plumber.

Conclusion

Avoiding any additional damage as you investigate why you hear water running when there are no leaks is key. Make sure that you hire a professionally licensed master plumber. Always remember that the master plumber can replace various damaged parts that could be allowing for the running water to be heard. Reach out to your local home inspection team to determine if you have basic plumbing repair needs, or if the problem lies deeper in the walls. As a homeowner, there are always worn parts in your plumbing that need repairs. The toilets are usually your first culprit. Call on your local home inspection team to conduct a full plumbing inspection. Home Inspection Geeks can take a look at your plumbing needs when we come out for a home inspection in the Cook, Lake, and DuPage Counties, IL.

What Are the Pipes on My Roof?

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We see a lot of things on the roof of a house. Gutters, chimneys, sometimes solar panels, and pipes. It is obvious what the gutters, chimneys, and solar panels do, but what about the pipes? This may leave you wondering what are the pipes on my roof? Those pipes are plumbing vents. It makes sure that the plumbing works properly and keeps the methane gas out of the home. This is on all homes as it helps in preventing back ups, clogs, and sewer smells from entering the home.

Let’s take a look at why you need to know about the pipes on your roof, how the plumbing vent works, keeping the vent clog-free, signs of a clogged vent, other pipes seen on a roof, maintenance on the roof, and when to call a professional.

Why You Need to Know About the Pipes on Your Roof

You do need to know that there may be various pipes on the roof, they have an important purpose, and not there for decoration. This article will talk about the plumbing vent. It is important to keep the pipes clear of debris and clogging so there is no backup in the home, along with a smell.

How the Plumbing Vent Works

The plumbing vent is a pipe that runs vertically up through the walls of the home and out the roof. Connecting the drainage pipe of the plumbing system in the home, the pipe leaves the home and leads to the sewage pipe. The sewage pipe then connects to a septic tank or the public sewer system. This will depend if you have septic or sewer.


The purpose of the vent is to allow air to enter the drainage system. This then keeps the pressure even and allows the wastewater to flow out. The roof vent pipe helps regulate the pressure in the drainpipes and this allows wastewater from the home to flow out into the sewer. In the end, it eliminates the risk of methane gas from finding its way back into your home.

Keeping the Vent Clog Free

It is important that the vent does not clog. If it does, it will become smelly and messy in the home. Here are some reasons why the vent clogs and how to fix the problem:

Leaves and debris clog the entrance of the vent– Clean away any leaves or debris that are in, on, or near the pipe vent. If you don’t, they will clog the vent and cause a backup and smell in the home.

Bird nests or rodents can make nests or clog the entrance – Check to make sure these animals are not creating nests or getting trapped inside the vent. If there is, try removing it or contact a professional. Also, a professional can help clear the vent if it is stuck inside.

Humans may be blocking the vent – Having work done on your roof? A gentle reminder to the workers not to block the vent is a great idea.

Corrosion of the pipe – the pipe may become corroded and start to fall apart of break. This will be a good time to call a professional to fix it or add a new one .

Signs of a Clogged Vent

The signs of a clogged vent are much like ones you will find when there are broken pipes or clogged pipes inside the home. This is why it is important to investigate and possibly call a professional if you need assistance.

1. Gurgling Toilet

A gurgling toilet is one sign there may be a clogged pipe on your roof. This happens because the air that is coming through is reduced in the pipes. When you flush the toilet, it is competing against the pressure in the line and causes the toilet to gurgle. Here is a great way to think about this:

If you try to empty a milk jug by flipping it completely upside down you find that it gurgles and takes a while to drain. On the other hand, if you allow air to pass by adding a hole or pouring the milk slowly, the milk drains easily. Ultimately, you can see how water flows when air is able to get behind the milk versus when there is no way for air to reach behind the flowing milk. Vent pipes help do just that.

2. Slow Drains in the Sink or Bathtub

Now, a slow drain in the sink or bathtub could be many things like hair or other things clogging it. However, if you clean the drains out and find this is still happening, it can be a signal there is an issue with the vent pipes.

3. Dry P-traps

Having dry or missing P traps will lead to the methane gas escaping into the home and this can be hazardous to your health. This trap is located under the sink and also in the shower drain in the bathroom. As a result, it does a good job of keeping the sewer gases from getting into the home. Dry P traps can be due to the sink trap leaking so checking the connection under the sink is a good idea. Maybe it is the shower drain that smells? This can also be due to the P traps missing or dry or biofilm in the shower. Whatever it may be, taking care of it may solve your problem. If it does not, then it may be another area in the home that is causing the vent to clog.

You may also see dry P-traps in a home that has been vacant for a while. This is because there has not been water running through the system.

If there is a leak around the pipe, here is a great video about how to fix it:

Other Pipes On the Roof

There are often other pipes on the roof of a home, depending where you live. Some of those are:

  1. HVAC Vent Stack

This is for letting out the fuel that burns from the fireplace, burner, boiler, or water heater.

2. Small Box Vent

The small box vent is for the bathroom fan or the dryer. Cleaning the protective vent screen is important when maintaining this vent and think about adding a flap to make it more accessible. Add in cleaning the vent in the dryer to your maintenance once a year. In addition, there are different ways to clean the dryer vent that goes to the roof here.

3. Attic Fan

This is a fan that will pull the hot air along with condensation out of the attic. Attic fans work better in the southern states than colder and more northern states. However, in the cooler weather states, a whole house fan is the better choice as it can be used all year long.

Maintenance on the Roof

When keeping an eye on the vents on the roof, there are other things that you can make sure you are paying attention to. If you have solar panels, make sure they are in place, especially after bad storms.

If you have a chimney, take a look around it to make sure that the counter flashing was installed correctly. You also want to keep up with chimney maintenance during the warmer months to make sure the fireplace and chimney are ready for the colder temperature seasons that lie ahead.

If you have asphalt shingles on your roof, they combine nicely with the roof sheathing to provide protection against leaks. Lastly with maintenance, it is important to check there are no shingles missing or leaks into the house.

When to Call a Professional

Call a professional if you have questions about the pipes on top of your house or you are finding there is a back up in your home. It may not be easy to diagnose and a professional can help. Lastly, don’t let an issue go too long, get it solved and fixed quickly!

Conclusion

Roof pipes are essential for the home and need to be kept clean and clear in order to function properly. Those pipes control many things in the home and keeping them working is essential. Many things can stop working in the home so it is important to figure out why and fix them. The last thing you want is a high repair bill. Home Inspection Geeks can check your roof pipes when conducting a home inspection in the Chicago area.

How to Identify Polybutylene Pipes

Polybutylene is a plastic material that used in homes for piping from 1978-1995. They were used in about 10 million homes in the U.S. because they were flexible, cheaper, easy to install and freeze resistant. However, production stopped in 1996 because of many reports of pipes bursting and causing extensive damage in homes. Do you wonder how to identify polybutylene pipes? Well, there are several ways, including a stamp on the pipe, they are flexible and may be curved, gray in color, white, black, blue, or silver. It will depend on the part of the U.S. as to what color the pipes are. Lastly, they are about 1/2 inch to 1 inch in diameter. They were mostly installed in the mid-Atlantic, Sun Belt, and Pacific Northwest states.

Let’s take a look at why you need to know how to identify polybutylene pipes, where they are found in the home, how to identify them. how they fail, lawsuits, why replace the pipes, and when to call a professional.

Why You Need to Know How to Identify Polybutylene Pipes

It is important for you to be able to identify these pipes as you will need to have them replaced in the home. You will want to replace them before they cause a disaster and thousands of dollars of damage.

Where The Pipes Are Found in the Home

While they are routed throughout your home, inside walls, attics, and crawlspaces, you can look in common areas to see if you have polybutylene.

Interior

From walls that connect to sinks and toilets

Across the ceiling in unfinished basements

Near the water heater

Exterior

Through the basement wall entering the home

At the water meter

At the water main shut-off valve

How to Identify the Polybutylene Pipes

There are a few ways to identify these pipes:

  1. Stamped with the code “PB2110”.
  2. Flexible and sometimes curved.
  3. Not used for waste, drain or vent piping – only supply lines.
  4. Usually grey in color, but they can also be white, silver, black or blue.

How the Polybutylene Pipes Fail

The plastic that is used for the polybutylene pipes is cheap and not sturdy. It starts to degrade over time and develop small holes in it. As with anything that develops holes, the holes grow bigger, and then the pipe breaks and water escapes. Thus, causing extensive damage and repair bills. It is also said that the polybutylene reacts with chlorine and other things added to the water, thus causing it to leak at the connections. This can lead to leaking inside walls. Do you know where the leak is in the walls? Maybe, but this is when you need to call a professional who uses an infrared camera to help locate it.

Lawsuit in the Sunbelt States

The manufacturer of the polybutylene pipes states that the leaks are where the joints and union connect and is an installation issue, however this does not seem to be the truth. In 1978, builders in the Sun Belt states were using this pipe in homes until 1996. The failure of the pipes wreaked havoc on homes and thus a Class A lawsuit was filed against the manufacturers. In the end, $1 billion was awarded to the plaintiffs.

Why Replace the Polybutylene Pipes

Leaking can happen without warning and then this causes flooding. We know then it is a domino effect: the water gets into the walls and the flooring and then mold develops. Replacing the pipes with copper or another material is a good idea and will last a long time. Copper can last up to 70 years! There are professionals that can help you with the decision.

Insurance

Homeowner’s insurance will either charge you higher premiums or not cover a home that has this type of piping. This is because everyone in the insurance world knows they leak and cause damage. It is also not a secret about the lawsuit against the manufacturers. Thus, if you are wanting to buy a home with this type of piping, you should negotiate the price due to needing to replace all of the plumbing.

When to Call a Professional

Call a professional to positively identify the pipes. You don’t want to assume that you have polybutylene until a professional checks it out. Also, if it turns out you do have them, the professional can recommend what your next step is.

Conclusion

Polybutylene is not something to mess around with and finding out if your home or the one you are wanting to buy is essential. This will save you from a mess and damage down the road. We look at the types of pipes in the homes during home inspections in the Chicago area. Do you have concerns about the piping in your home? Or do you have a home with Polybutylene pipes? Comment below! We would love to hear from you!

Why Dielectric Unions Are Common Failure Points in Water Heaters

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One of the most common places to find rust and corrosion in any home is right above a water tank where the dielectric unions should be installed. A dielectric union is a plumbing fitting that is meant to join two dissimilar metal pipes so they don’t experience a galvanic reaction and begin to rust. This is especially true for copper and galvanized steel piping which is usually the case when a copper supply water piping line meets the galvanized steel pipe hookups of a hot water tank. If your supply lines are galvanized to match with your water heater tank then there is no need for a special union, however, you may wish to check out our article on galvanized supply piping in your home.

Picture of Two Corroded Dielectric Unions

As you can see from the picture above, while these unions have a great intent to keep the water heater connection lines from rusting, that is not always the case. We find many dielectric unions that have started to rust which will eventually lead to a water leak if not remedied. So why does this happen and what do you need to know to keep your line from springing a leak?

Breakdown of Dielectric Union Components

Installation

Obviously, the most important part in preventing a union from corroding is installation. If the union is not installed correctly, then it won’t protect against galvanic corrosion. Looking at the picture above, the copper supply line is soldered to the brass insert. The Union Nut and Pipe Adaptor encase the insert and form a tight seal with the gasket. Notice that both the gasket and sleeve have isolation listed in their name. This is because their other job is to keep the copper/brass coming in contact with the steel components. Often the issue is that these fittings are not perfectly installed and some small contact is made. Additionally, if you use a union with a short sleeve, then that can be an issue as well. It is good to be able to visibly see the sleeve above the union nut at the end of the installation.

How to Repair

The great thing about unions is they are designed to be taken out and replaced fairly easily. One problem you will have is the connection between the copper piping and the brass insert is usually soldered, you will have to cut that portion out to extract the old union nut. It’s for this reason that you should probably hire a licensed plumber to make the repair, as they will have to cut the line and solder a new connection as well as extend the pipe below so that they properly mate. For that reason, you may wish to hold out and wait until you buy a new hot water tank to replace them if there are only early signs of rust and your tank is at or after the 10 year expected life cycle.

How Does My Water Heater Tank Work?

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Like an offensive lineman who you don’t notice until they committing that big offsides penalty in the 4th quarter, you usually will only notice your hot water tank on the rare occasion something goes wrong. Sometimes it's because you ran out of hot water for your shower or worst-case scenario it floods your basement cause it rusted out and started to leak. Water Heaters are one of the hardest working appliances in our home and also maybe the most under-appreciated as well. It is not easy to be on call to provide luxurious hot water 247. Do you know the back a century or so ago, you would have to heat water on top of a wood stove to take a hot bath and that that bathwater was usually shared by the entire household?

So let's start showing a little more appreciation for the appliance that provides us hot water at our beck and call and dig into how your Hot Water Tank actually works. NOTE: This article solely focuses on tank water heaters, Tankless Water Heaters will be discussed in another article soon.

How your Water Heater Tank Provides 24/7 Hot Water

Image a pot of water on your stovetop with a thermometer inserted into the water. You turn on the burner underneath the pot of water and naturally the pot of water starts to heat. Now image that thermometer has a signal wire connected to the burner control, and when it hits 120 degF it shuts off the burner. With the burner off the pot of water starts to cool until it reaches 110 degF and then the thermometer sends a new signal to the burner control to turn the burners back on to heat the water back up to 120 degF. This cycle continues endlessly, 24 hours a day so the pot always has water between 110-120 degF in it.

Figure 1 – Preset Dial Controls

The example above is how your water heater tank works to supply you with hot water on demand. Whenever the tank cools from not being used or from you using the hot water inside the tank, the burner turns on (or electric coils from and electric heater) to heat the water back up to the preset amount. The dial control attached to the gas valve at the bottom of the tank (see Figure 1) is how to change what hot water temperature your unit is maintaining. It is recommended that you set your tank to be no greater than 12o degF cause above that temperature, human skin can burn rather quickly.

You are probably thinking right now that this seems terribly inefficient to keep heating water when it's not being used, but this is the price we pay for convenience. There are other water heating appliances that have solved this problem called tankless heaters, but we will get to those in another article.

The Basic Anatomy of a Hot Water Tank

As you can see from Figure 2, Hot Water to service your plumbing fixtures exits the unit at the top. When the hot water is used, cold water from the city water supply (or a private well) comes into the tank to always keep the tank full. This will naturally drop the water temperature in the tank and usually cause the water heater burners at the bottom of the tank to kick back on. When the burners kick on, you can see that it is not only them that heat the water but the flue in the middle of the tank that vents the hot exhaust gas for natural gas burning water heaters. Note for an electric-powered water heater, the burners/flue are replaced by heating coils, just like an electric stove or in some new circumstances an electric heat pump.

Figure 2 – Components of a Hot Water Tank

One other question you may have is when the tank is running and cold water is introduced to the tank, what prevents the cold water from not getting sucked into the hot water line. First, the dip tube pushes the cold water to the bottom of the tank for this very reason, so it does not mix with the exiting hot water. It also does this as the burners and flue are the hottest at the bottom and it will provide the best heat transfer rate. The other thing that keeps the cold and hot water mixing is physics. Everyone has heard, hot air rises, well the same is true for water. As the water is heated below, hotter water will naturally rise to the top.

As you can see from Figure 2, there are many other safety devices and components in your hot water tank that we will discuss in another article, but next up we will talk about important performance parameters that you need to know about hot water tanks, especially when you go to buy a new unit.