American Leak Detection - Orange Cnty & Long Beach

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I have a pool/spa combination that was losing water at a rate of about three inches a week.  I used American Leak Detection twice since November of 2014 and paid $650 for two leak detection visits.  The November leak detection found nothing.  However, the pool kept leaking at the same rate and I kept watching for something to change.  Finally, something seemed different, and I scheduled another appointment in July.  This time, they found a tiny leak near a spa jet.  The leak detection specialist told me that he doesn't like this part of the job because he has to tell people that their entire spa must be demolished in order to fix the leak.  (As it turned out, he couldn't have been more incorrect.  The leak he found wasn't the largest leak; and all leaks could be repaired without demolishing the spa.)
American Leak Detection would not recommend anyone to make the repair.  (In hind sight, this was probably a blessing.)  So, I searched around, asked for recommendations, and finally found a company competent in making such a repair.  The repair company repaired the tiny leak near the jet, repaired a small flaw in the pebble tech finish near the jet, identified a very large leak around the spa light, and fixed that leak too.  This repair company traveled from San Jacinto to Laguna Niguel for the repair; and they completed all repairs for $400.  
Because American Leak Detection missed the very large leak around the spa light, I spoke with them about a refund.  What they said was that there is a six month warranty on the pool leak service.  So, the leak detection in November was out of warranty.  They also said that their company policy is to stop checking for leaks as soon as one leak is found.  So, when the company employee found that small leak near the spa jet, then he had completed his job.  I pointed out that the small leak detected would only explain about 10% of the water loss.  To that, the company responded that the warranty would have covered me if the spa or pool continued to leak.  In other words, they would come out again and again until they found all the leaks.  So, no - the company did not refund anything. (Oh by the way, I showed the company an earlier version of the content of this paragraph for their reaction.  They agreed with what I wrote.)
So there you have it!  American Leak Detection does not consider it their job to find all your leaks.  If they can find the tiniest of leaks, they'll stop and bill you without regard to explaining the full water loss in your situation.  What do you think?  Is this who you want checking your pool for leaks?

8am the first of the 3 workers [ Brian, Abel, Ed] arrived to dig the trench which went from the connection of the water co. feed to mine.[at st. level] Angled water line was contoured not to interfere with the sprinkler system line. they went under the brickwork with the water line and cut the concrete on either side. then, up into the side of my garage, over the garage door and down to the connection on the other side using 1in. copper tubing. Inside the garage all lines were contoured and flush and done very neatly. The concrete was then neatly filled in [no eyesore here]. All workers were friendly and always courteous. I would like to say i would use them again but they did such a good job i probably wont have to unless its another unrelated problem. I would recommend these people they know what they are doing. p.s. the work performed was $2,500.00 and the leak detection was an additional $225.00.

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A neighbor's recommendation to use America Leak Detection was a good one. They gave a 2 hour arrival window when I asked for an appointment, with an expect duration of 45 to 90 minutes for the work, at a price of $275 for their technology based service. Their tech Scott arrive arrived late in that window due to a heavy workload but yet still ending up working hard for over 2.5 hours, far beyond the normal time allotted. Scott found only a small leak in the landscaping electrical valves (which he adjusted to fix) but no serious leak was found and advised he would not charge for the visit. However, we persisted and found moisture under the parquet in a very unusual random pattern. A very diligent house inspection followed. Suddenly, 90 minutes after starting, a leak of about a gallon per hour became present and Scott traced the piping locations to determine the leak was in the hot water line from the garage to the rear bathroom. Apparently a pinhole was being blocked by minerals, sand, particles intermittently to stop the leak or allow as much as 1 gal/hr.

If you suspect a leak and cannot see it, call these guys. Good technology and experience to look where problems occur. Scott also found a trivial leak in the 4 oz. per day range in a toilet valve. Examples of thoroughness: Scott pulled out the refrigerator, checked the icemaker line and the frig's condensing pans for sign of leaks, behind the dishwasher's kick panel, and much more. Scott and I discussed repair tactics, but he did not even mention that they could do the repair but the emailed final report includes an estimate to repair, subtly, without a hard sell. I hope to never need them again, but would readily do so.

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They arrived when they said they would, and went right to work. They correctly located the leak under the kitchen floor, and recommended how to proceed. Great guys, thanks.

The repair person Toby had been to our home the a few months before and was courteous but this time he was very rude and
abrupt. I had asked if the same pipe was leaking could he replace the pipe instead of splicing it and he said no, that he doesn't have time to do that, he is only allotted 2 hours, and he can't do it. He then made numerous holes in the wall, found the leak, but seemed to not want to fix it at all. He claimed he could not reach the pipe with his ladder, so I went up to the garage and brought down a taller ladder. Then he said he can't access the pipe from where he put the holes in, and since there was a 10and quot; board next to the pipe he couldn't come at it from the ceiling either. Since it was a free standing wall I suggested since he already put numerous holes in the wall that he approach the pipe from the other side. He agreed and was able to fix the leak easily. After he fixed the leak and turned the water back on, I had water coming out of the hood to my range and down along the cabinets, more than was originally leaking so I asked him to make sure he fixed the leak and check for another one. He was not very happy and when I told him more water was leaking from the wall, he said and quot;well its not my faultand quot;. I asked him if he would be happy if someone repaired something in his home, but it seemed to be worst after the repair and how can more water be coming out of the walls and he admitted the bucket he used to catch the water had a hole in it so rather than contain the excess water in the pipe when it was cut, he let it run into my walls.
Once he left, I put a call in to the office to advise of my experience and spoke with Brian and asked him to leave a message for Steve Lee the manager. I did not get a return call from Steve. On May 1, 2014 I called and spoke with the answering service for Steve Lee. Once again I have gotten no response.

They did an excellent job finding and fixing one underground leak and another one buried in the walls of the garage. I've used them before and they've always done a great job.
For the slab leak in the back they had to take out a two square foot area of concrete to get at the irrigation pipes buried underneath. They fixed the leak and poured new concrete.
For a garage wall leak they by-passed the leak by installing new copper pipes after discussions with me on how best to deal with it.

They were good.

They are a good company. They are the best. They are very efficient and do nice work. Did not have a lot of mess. They showed me what was done and that it was working properly.

Were honest about our leak. Said it could not be located by my description and that we did not have a pipe leak. Water was from a different source.

They began work about two days after initial visit. Finshed promptly. My plumbing works better than it did prior to their service.

Glen came out on 1-16-2013 and inspected the leak and the next day James came out and repaired the leak. He also cleaned leaf basket and recommended a better way to distribute the chlorine. They were very professional and courteous. We would refer them to others.

Scott and his crew were incredibly professional, arriving on time and working diligently to complete the job in a timely manner. We are very satisfied with their work. We would definitely recommend them to anyone.

We had water damage in various locations throughout the house, but other vendors failed to locate the source of the problem. Matt and his team thoroughly inspected all possible sources, and finally found (with the help of a camera) a broken pipe where the kitchen and laundry room drains met. The break was just inside the front door, but they minimized destruction to part of the tile floor by making the hole just big enough to get at the pipe and effect repairs. Before proceeding they hung plastic curtains to minimize dust, which worked very well.
The team was very professional during the whole process.
No negatives to report. Would hire them again in a heartbeat.

I received a $25 off coupon through angies list. make sure you use that!

i WOULD RECOMMEND THEM TO ALL.

Excellent from start to finish. Very professional.

I was extremely concerned about the new cement not matching with the old, which surrounds the entire pool. When they gave me the estimate, they showed me how big of an area would have to be replaced.I reluctantly gave them the ok to continue. When they arrived, they told me of this great idea they had to minimize the problem and they did a great job. The cement didn't exactly match, but the way they did it made it look as if it was the way the pool was originally designed. I was really impressed.They weren't cheap, but the work came with a 5 year warrantee.

Excellent work overall, detected leaks in two places, suggested the best way to fix the leaks to my contractors.

My husband was happy with them. The man that came out was super. He was knowledgeable, polite and prompt. He seemed very honest.

They were able to detect the leak fairly quickly. They used blue tape to mark general layout of the pipes in question. We did not use them to do the actual repair because the price they quoted was much higher than the first quote we got.