Fort Worth, TX · TX Master Plumber M-40216 · RMP
We find the leak to within a foot, show you the three ways in and what each one costs, and then you choose. Not us.
One leak, quoted three ways
Same pipe. Same break. The quote you are holding is one of these three, and it almost certainly does not say which. Price yours.
4.9from 1,020 reviews
Start here
The same questions we would ask on the phone, weighted the same way. Some of these are nearly conclusive on their own; some mean very little. It will tell you if it sounds like something else.
Nothing ticked
Tick what you have noticed
Some of these are close to conclusive on their own. Others mean very little by themselves, and this will tell you which is which rather than treating them all the same.
The free test, before you ring anybody
It costs nothing and it settles it either way. We would rather you did this first.
Why two quotes differ by ten thousand dollars
North Texas sits on expansive clay. It swells when it rains and shrinks when it does not, the slab moves with it, and copper lines cast into that slab eventually fail at a joint or a bend. That is why this town has a slab-leak trade at all — and why the access, not the pipe, is what you are paying for.
Digging…
14 feet in
Detection tells us this to within a foot. It is the number that decides whether tunnelling makes sense, and it is the number most quotes never mention.
A leak 14 feet in, under ceramic tile
Break the floor is the cheapest way in — $1,100 – $3,500
Cheapest is not always right. You lose that section of flooring. On a polished concrete or a wood floor the patch never quite disappears, and the restoration can cost more than the plumbing.
Tunnelling to a leak 14 feet in would be $5,200 – $5,600. It almost never wins on price. You pay for it when the floor above the leak is one you cannot face losing, or when moving out for a week costs more than the difference.
Detection is $150–$400 and comes off whichever one you choose.
No surprises
The diagnostic fee is $50 to $95 and comes off the repair if you have us do the work. Fort Worth plumbing permits run $45 to $180 and are inside our number, not added afterwards.
| Service | Time on site | Typical |
|---|---|---|
| Slab leak detectionAcoustic, thermal and pressure testing until we can mark the spot. | 1-3 hours | $150 – $400per visit |
| Slab leak repairThree ways in, priced separately. You choose which one. | 1-3 days | $600 – $15,000per repair |
| Whole-home repipeEvery under-slab supply line abandoned, new PEX through the attic. | 2-4 days | $4,500 – $8,000per home |
| Sewer line replacementTrenchless where the ground allows it, so the garden survives. | 1-3 days | $6,000 – $15,000per line |
| Sewer camera inspectionA recording of the inside of your line, and a copy you keep. | 45-90 minutes | $150 – $400per line |
| Drain clearing and hydro jettingCabled or jetted, and cameraed afterwards so you know why it blocked. | 1-3 hours | $100 – $800per drain |
Service call
$50–$95
Comes off the job if you go ahead
Nights & weekends
$0 extra
No surcharge, ever
Workmanship
2 years
If our repair fails, we come back free
What we do
Every one of these can be booked on this page in under a minute. Press a card and it goes straight into the form with the price attached.
A working range from what you have told us. The written number comes after we have found the leak and measured the access, and it is normally inside this range.
Detection first
Acoustic, thermal and an isolated pressure test until we can mark the spot on your floor. The fee comes off the repair if you have us do the work — and you get the thermal image either way.
How it works
Most of it happens before anybody picks up a phone, which is why we can be on your roof tomorrow.
Or run the checker on this page. It is the same set of questions we would ask on the phone, and it will tell you if it sounds like something else.
Acoustic, thermal and an isolated pressure test. $150 to $400, and it comes off the repair. You get the thermal image either way.
Every route to that pipe, what each costs, how long it takes and what it wrecks. Including restoration, because a cheap repair under an expensive floor is not cheap.
Not us. If you want the cheapest one we will do the cheapest one, and we will say plainly what you are trading away.
Concrete patched, tunnel backfilled and compacted, drywall made good. Permit pulled, inspector met, photographs of the repair before it was covered.
What you can hold us to
Break the floor, tunnel from outside, or abandon the line and reroute. They cost different amounts and they wreck different things. You get all three in writing, and you pick — including the cheapest one, if that is the one you want.
Finding it costs $150 to $400. If you have us do the work, that comes straight off the invoice. We are not selling you a diagnosis.
Tunnelling is priced by the foot from the outside wall, so we measure the distance before we quote it. This is where quotes for the same leak come back thousands apart, and it is always because somebody guessed the length.
Why homeowners call us
Six things we do differently, and every one of them came from a complaint about somebody else.
Break the floor, tunnel, reroute. Written down, side by side, before anything is opened. It is the only way to know whether the number you are looking at is fair.
By the foot from the outside wall. A leak two feet in and a leak thirty feet in are not the same job, and quoting them the same is how this trade got its reputation.
A reroute through the attic is often six hundred dollars where a tunnel is eight thousand, and almost nobody leads with it because of what it does to the invoice.
We charge to find it because finding it properly takes an hour and real equipment. If you then have us fix it, that charge disappears.
Under the slab, sewer lines and repipes. We do not fit taps or water heaters, and we will tell you so in one sentence rather than sending somebody who has never done it.
Free, and we will tell you if it is a fair price. Half the time it is.
Straight about scope
We do
We don’t
What people say
Two other companies quoted a tunnel at around eleven thousand. Cross Timbers found the leak in the same spot and said a reroute through the attic would do it for under two. It has been dry for a year.
They marked the floor, showed me the thermal image, and gave me three written prices before touching anything. I have never had a plumber hand me the cheap option in writing.
Sixty feet of cast iron under a garden full of oaks. They burst it rather than trench it and I lost two small patches of lawn instead of the whole thing.
Fourth slab leak in six years. They said plainly that fixing this one was throwing good money after bad. Four days, a lot of drywall dust, and no more leaks.
Paying for it
Through our finance partner, subject to approval. Terms of 24, 60 and 120 months.
Get my free estimateStraight answers
Expansive clay. The ground here swells when it rains and shrinks hard in a dry summer, the slab moves with it, and copper cast into that slab eventually fails at a joint or a bend. It is not that the plumbing was bad; it is that the ground will not hold still.
Because they are usually quoting different ROUTES to the same pipe, and nobody says so. Breaking the floor, tunnelling from outside and rerouting overhead are three different jobs at three different prices. Ask every company which one they have quoted, and ask what the other two would cost.
It is priced by the foot, from the outside wall to the leak: about $4,200 for the first ten feet and roughly $250 for every foot after that. A leak just inside the wall is cheap to reach; the same leak in the middle of the house is not. Anyone quoting a tunnel without measuring the distance is guessing.
For the plumbing, yes — $500 to $1,500 against a tunnel. But you then pay to put the floor back, which is $500 to $3,000 and more on stone or engineered wood. On an inexpensive floor it is usually the right answer. On a floor you love it usually is not.
A supply leak, yes — it runs day and night, it is on your bill, and it saturates the ground your foundation sits on. What you do not have to do is fix it the most expensive way, or this week if you would rather plan it.
The diagnostic is $50 to $95, and detection is $150 to $400. Both come off the invoice if you have us do the repair. We would rather charge for the hour honestly than pretend it is free and put it back on the job.
Often it covers the ACCESS — breaking and repairing the slab — and not the pipe itself, and it varies by policy. We document the leak, the location and the method so you can put a proper claim in, but we cannot tell you what your insurer will decide.
A camera inspection of the sewer line and a static pressure test. Between them they cost less than a home inspection and they are the two things a standard inspection does not cover. A cracked cast-iron line under a 1970s house is a five-figure surprise after closing.