Pipe Leak Inside a Wall or Ceiling: Water Damage Repair in San Diego

• Stains or damp patches on a wall or ceiling
• Bubbling or peeling paint, or a warped or swollen baseboard
• A musty smell that keeps coming back
• The sound of running water when nothing is on
• A water bill that's higher than usual
• On a slab floor: a warm spot, or damp carpet with no visible source

1. Close the main water valve. In a house it's usually where the water line enters the building. In a condo, use your unit's shutoff or call the building manager.
2. Cut power to outlets and fixtures near the wet area at the breaker panel, if you can reach it without stepping in water.
3. Check the water meter. With every fixture off, look at the leak indicator. If it's still moving, water is still escaping somewhere on your side of the meter.
4. Don't open the wall yet. Photograph the stains, paint and baseboards first.
5. Move belongings away from the wet wall, and stay out from under any ceiling that's sagging.
6. Call a plumber and call us. The plumber repairs the pipe, and we handle the water damage.

Water inside a wall runs down to the bottom plate, soaks the drywall from behind and gets held in place by the insulation. The stain you see is usually the last place the water reached, not the first. A pinhole leak can drip for weeks before the paint shows it, and by then the framing may be wet too.

Slab leaks. In homes built on a concrete slab, a pipe under the floor can leak into the slab and wick up under the flooring and into the walls. A plumber or leak-detection service pinpoints the pipe. We dry the slab and walls, and if the flooring has to come up, we coordinate it with an installer.

1. Inspection. We use moisture meters and a thermal camera to map how far the water spread in the wall, the ceiling and the floor.
2. Extraction and removal. We remove any standing water, then cut out wet drywall and insulation in measured sections, working inside containment.
3. Drying to IICRC S500. We take readings at every visit until the framing matches the dry standard.
4. Mold check. Any growth in the cavity comes out under containment following IICRC S520.
5. Repairs. As a licensed contractor, we handle the insulation, drywall, texture, paint, trim and cabinets. If flooring needs replacing, we coordinate it with an installer.

A pipe that bursts suddenly is often covered. A slow leak that went on for months may not be, and slab leaks vary from policy to policy. Your policy decides. We document the loss and bill the claim directly. Read more: Does homeowners insurance cover water damage in California?

• Mission Hills bathtub drain leak: high mold counts on an air test, with no water in sight. The cause was a disconnected tub drain emptying under the house. After the repair, we removed the saturated drywall under containment and dried the framing.