Basement Leak Detection in Des Plaines

Because most basement water is not a plumbing leak. Groundwater pushed through the joint between floor and wall after heavy rain, a sewer backing up through the floor drain, sweat on cold pipes in humid weather and, in parts of this city, the river can all put water on the floor while every pipe is sound. Timing and a test strip usually tell them apart.

Note when it appears and where it starts. Water that follows rain and begins at the base of a wall is groundwater; water at the floor drain is the sewer; water on a dry day near the meter or the water heater is likely supply. Then turn every fixture off, watch the dial, and look at the pipe where the service line comes through the foundation.

For a house in Des Plaines, an estimated $150 to $400, quoted before the visit and separate from any repair. Where it lands depends on how much is still unknown when we arrive: a loss the free tests have already pinned to the hot side is quicker than basement water that might be river, sewer, ground or supply. A buried line under a poured driveway can run toward an estimated $300 to $800, and you hear that on the phone rather than on the day.

Often because a reading caught up, not because a pipe broke. Des Plaines bills every two months from a remote reader outside the house, and the city asks owners with inside meters to call in an inside reading once a year, because a slow or stalled remote can under-record for months. Compare the dial on the meter with the reading on the bill first. If they match and the bill is still high, turn every fixture off and watch the low-flow indicator; movement means something inside is running. In Waycinden Park the bill comes from Illinois American, so ask it how your meter is read.

In Des Plaines the real question is the b-box to the house, and that stretch belongs to the owner. City code has the city maintaining the shutoff valve in the b-box near the sidewalk, and the owner maintaining the service line from there to the building. Because code also puts the meter inside near where the pipe enters, the meter sits at the house end of that run, not the street end. In Waycinden Park, where Illinois American Water is the utility, ask Illinois American where its part stops.