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Under the Floor, or Somewhere Easier
The meter tells you there is a leak. Where it is changes the job completely.
In one paragraph
A moving meter proves a leak but not where it is. What places one under the floor is a warm patch on the slab, running water heard with everything off, unexplained damp at the edge of a room, or a bill that has risen with no change in use.
What points downward
| Sign | What it suggests |
|---|---|
| A warm patch on the floor | A hot-side leak under the slab. This one is close to diagnostic. |
| The sound of running water with everything off | A leak under pressure somewhere. Follow it to the loudest point. |
| Flooring lifting, or a damp patch of carpet with no source above it | Water arriving from below. |
| Pressure falling across the whole house | Something upstream of every fixture. |
| A crack that has appeared or widened | Worth noting, and not on its own evidence of a leak. |
The last row is there because it is the sign people most often reach for and the one that proves least. Concrete cracks for many reasons.
What points elsewhere
Damp on a wall rather than a floor, a stain on a ceiling below an upstairs bathroom, a meter that stops moving when one fixture’s stop valve is closed — all of those place the leak somewhere reachable, which is a very different quote.
Close the stop valves one at a time and re-run the meter test if you can. Every fixture you eliminate narrows the search and shortens the visit.
Hot side or cold
A warm floor says hot. It matters more than it sounds, because a hot-side leak is usually on a shorter run and is the one most likely to be reachable by rerouting rather than by opening the floor.
Read next
If the meter moved with everything off, you have a leak.That is the finding worth leading with, because it saves an hour of diagnosis. We connect you with a contractor who covers your area, and your ZIP code is what decides who that is. You are never charged. It does not have to be a slab leak either — every kind of plumbing request is routed.
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