Knowing you have a leak and knowing where it is are two very different problems, and the gap between them is where a lot of money gets wasted on drywall that didn't need to come down. The Swell Plumber provides water leak detection and repair throughout Price, UT, and the surrounding areas, tracking a leak back to its actual source instead of opening walls and hoping. Once we know where it sits, the repair stays small and you get a price before anything gets cut.
Chasing down leaks nobody can see is a regular part of the week at The Swell Plumber, a plumbing company operating from Price, UT, and covering residential and small commercial customers across Carbon and Emery counties. Running the company is Kurt Madsen, a plumber of more than 30 years who carries certification in plumbing and gas line installation procedures. Detection work here covers hidden supply leaks behind walls and under floors, slab leaks, unexplained meter movement, damp crawl spaces, exterior and buried line leaks, and the repairs that follow once the source is confirmed. Having us come out to look costs you nothing, and a year of labor coverage follows any repair we make.
Hidden leaks announce themselves sideways, which is what makes them so aggravating. The water bill jumps by a third with nothing about the household having changed. Somebody hears water moving through the walls at night when every tap in the house is shut off. A patch of floor feels warm underfoot, or a musty smell settles into one room and won't leave. Occasionally the only clue is a meter dial that keeps creeping along after everything has been turned off.
The reason these stay hidden so long is that water almost never surfaces where it escapes. It runs along the outside of a pipe, follows a joist across the house, soaks into insulation, and finally shows up in a spot that has nothing to do with the failure. Slab leaks are the worst version of that, since the pipe sits under concrete with no way to see it at all. Pinholes in copper weep slowly enough to go unnoticed for months, failing shutoff valves drip into cabinets nobody opens, and buried exterior lines can lose a remarkable amount of water into the ground without leaving a single mark on the surface.
The search starts at the meter, since watching the dial with the house isolated tells us in a few minutes whether water is moving and roughly how much. From there we shut down sections of the system one at a time to narrow the leak to a zone, then bring in moisture readings and acoustic listening equipment to pin the spot down within a small area. Pressure testing separates a supply leak from a fixture problem, and checking the exterior lines rules out everything outside the building. Once we've confirmed the location, the repair opens one contained area rather than three exploratory ones, and everything gets pressure tested before it closes back up.
The bill drops back to normal the following cycle, and the slow damage that had been working into flooring, framing, and insulation stops progressing. Repairs stay small because the opening stays small, which usually means the patch job afterward is minor rather than a project of its own. Should your insurance company want documentation, you'll have a clear account of what was found and where, which tends to make that conversation go a good deal easier.
Spending an hour finding the leak is almost always cheaper than an afternoon spent guessing at it.
Every wall we don't open is drywall, paint, and tile you don't have to pay somebody to put back. Narrowing the search down first is the whole reason detection equipment exists. Guesswork gets expensive in a hurry once a saw comes out.
Not every high bill turns out to be a leak, and knowing that before spending money matters. Isolating the house and watching the meter answers the question quickly and costs nothing but a few minutes. Occasionally the news is good, and we're happy to be the ones delivering it.
Pipe running beneath concrete needs a different approach than pipe in a wall cavity, since nothing about it is visible or reachable. Acoustic equipment and pressure isolation are how those get located without breaking up a floor to look. Knowing exactly where to open the slab makes an unpleasant job considerably smaller.
Leaks outside the building account for more high bills than people expect, particularly on buried supply lines and hose bib connections. Ruling out the exterior early keeps us from spending an afternoon inside on a problem that lives in the yard. Both halves of the system get considered.
Finding a leak and then waiting a week for somebody else to fix it helps nobody. Most repairs happen while we're already there, with parts on the truck for the common failures. Bigger jobs get scheduled promptly with a price agreed on first.
Finding a leak is one piece of a larger repair practice, and these pages cover the rest of it.
Once a failure has been located, pipe leak repair covers the fix itself, from pinholes in copper to split fittings, cracked joints, and lines that gave out over a cold snap. Material choice and addressing the reason the pipe failed both factor into that work.
Fixtures cause their share of quiet water loss, and toilet repair takes care of running tanks, worn flappers and fill valves, failed wax rings, and leaks showing up around the base. A single running toilet can move a surprising amount of water in a month.
The broader picture of our repair work sits on the plumbing repairs and leak detection page, covering fixtures, faucets, sinks, garbage disposals, troubleshooting, and service calls for homes and small commercial buildings.
Leak work rewards patience and a methodical approach, so here's what you're getting.
Anybody can replace a section of pipe once somebody points at it. Working backward from a symptom to a source is the harder part, and it's what three decades of service plumbing builds. Kurt spent his career on repair work rather than production installs, which is exactly the background this job asks for.
Restraint matters on a leak hunt, and opening less is always the goal. Cutting three holes to find one leak is a sign the search skipped a step. We'd rather take the extra twenty minutes with the equipment than hand you a repair bill with a drywall contractor attached to it.
You'll hear what we're testing and why as we go, in language that makes sense without a trade background. Watching somebody work in silence and then handing over an invoice is a lousy experience. Questions are welcome at any point.
Coming out costs nothing, and that holds true whether the finding is a loose fitting or something more involved. Nobody here earns more by making the situation sound worse than it is. Comparing us against another company afterward is entirely fair.
Work we perform carries a one-year labor warranty, with manufacturer coverage on the parts and materials. That matters on repairs going back behind a wall where you won't be watching them. Standing behind the work is simply part of doing it.
Shut off every faucet and appliance in the house, then go watch the water meter for ten or fifteen minutes. Movement with everything closed means water is going somewhere it shouldn't. That test costs nothing and gives us a useful starting point when you call.
It contributes. Mineral content works on fixture internals, valve seats, and the inside of older piping, and it speeds up the kind of slow deterioration that ends in a pinhole or a weeping connection. Homes on well water in the smaller communities around Carbon and Emery counties tend to see it happen sooner.
Yes. Slab leaks get located with acoustic equipment and pressure isolation rather than by opening concrete to look around. Pinning the spot down first is what keeps the eventual repair to one small area instead of a torn-up floor.
Shutting off the main valve stops the water loss if the leak is active and doing damage, though it does leave the house without water. For a slow leak, leaving things alone is usually fine until we arrive. We work Monday through Friday and don't offer after-hours service, so calling early in the day is the fastest route onto the schedule.
Regularly. Most towns across Carbon and Emery counties fall inside our range, from Helper and Spring Glen down through Huntington, Castle Dale, Orangeville, and Ferron. Smaller communities including Kenilworth, Sunnyside, Westwood, Cleveland, Elmo, Clawson, Lawrence, and Emery get the same coverage, as do Green River, Scofield, and Mount Pleasant. A quick call settles it if your town didn't come up there.
FAQs reviewed by Kurt Madsen, owner of The Swell Plumber and a certified plumber with better than 30 years of residential and commercial repair experience serving Price, UT.
Call us with whatever you've noticed, even if it's only a bill that looks wrong, and we'll come test the system and tell you what's happening. The estimate is free and you'll get a real answer rather than a guess.
Business Name: The Swell Plumber
Address: Price, UT, 84501
Phone: 801-636-9052
Business Hours:
Monday–Friday: 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Closed Saturday and Sunday.
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