Any plumbers here?
 

One of my rentals has a leak in the 3/4" poly line coming from the meter to the house, under the slab. I've talked to one plumber (RotoRooter) and he says they need to locate the leak, tear up the floor, and jackhammer the slab to make the repair.

Anyone know of any other alternatives?

Post a picture of where they say the leak is.

Motion,

Depending on the length of the slab, they can drill through rught under it. Connect on the house or yard side and run new pipe through new hole and reconnect at the meter. No need to break slab, usually.

Most of the domestic water service lines I have seen first go to the house where there's an isolation valve (cutoff valve to shut the water off to the house, instead of at the meter).

Usually this is at one side of the house, sticking up above the ground maybe 12" or so, and visible.

From there there could be additional water lines running under your slab but I think they usually run through the framing.

Are you absolutely sure the leak is beneath your slab?

Might be worth getting someone else to look at it to verify.

Ok, so this is not the curb, its the slab floor the house sits on?

Yes, the slab that the house sits on. Might be under the living room.

What about bypassing the line through walls above the slab?

Yes, definitely under the slab.

Any more I'd think with these water jet boring machines that it would be piece of mind to have the whole thing replaced.

How old is the house? Is it in socal? Normally its copper or gav. pipe around here. I can't speak for other parts of the country. Here's how I deal with that problem. copper or steel, that just means the pipes are getting near the end of its service life, so its time to re-pipe. I always try and run pipes up in the attics and never reconnect to old pipes in the slab again. This way, problem goes away for a long time until new pipes wears again many years later. Yes, run them through the wall or if you are not concern about looks, run copper outside and enter the attic from the outside. Easy to service in the future and don't have to tear up as many walls (ya still have to rip some areas of wall out to make connection to the faucets). Not the prettiest IMO, but its a rental.

I would bypass it. If it's failing, it will likely fail again in another spot.

Obviously I don't know the layout of the houses plumbing or where it connects to supply the house, but I would think a new supply could be run outside the structure and brought in near the existing connection.

Thanks fellas. I'm thinking bypass is the way to go. I'll talk to a few plumbers tomorrow.