Many of us who work at Sweetwater have been in the plumbing industry for decades, so we can tell you a bit about the “bad old days” of plumbing technology. When handling repairs for leaks or trying to diagnose drain and sewer clogging issues, a lot of guesswork was required. It was informed guesswork (at least if you had a trained and licensed plumber), but there was still no way a plumber could get a look inside the plumbing to make an actual visual inspection that could remove the need for guessing.
That time is behind us now—because we have video pipe inspection equipment. These tools consist of miniaturized digital cameras and LED lights mounted on long fiber optic cables. Our plumbers send these cameras down drains and clean-outs to investigate pipes from the inside and see the images transmitted back to a monitor.
There are few plumbing problems a home might encounter that present more difficulties than a slab leak. What’s a slab leak? It’s the name for a leak in the pipes laid in the concrete foundation of a building. These leaks can occur in either hot water or cold water lines (around 80% are in the hot water lines) and lead to extensive water waste and eventually damage to the foundations.