Slab Leak...

The tiles "affected" are the 6 right
next to the washing machine (in
front and to the left of the machine)

Yup. Title says in all for this post.

I had just come home from the HOA board meeting where I was following up on the fact that the deck above my unit STILL hadn't been replaced... and I also suggested the HOA quote out and think about installing dog poop bags because renters are NOT cleaning up after their pets.

So I get back, kick off my boots and start walking down the hall to switch out of my work clothes for my beloved mickey mouse pj's when I noticed the tile underneath my bare feet was warm... I paused and did my version of the bare foot boogie as I slid my feet around to see how much of the tile was warm. Our condo is on a boiler system so warm tiles don't always mean slab leak because sometime older pipes aren't well insulated but it seemed to only be affecting about 6 tiles in the middle of the hall and the rest were their normal chilled temperature.

Super glad hubs and I bought
casters for all our storage racks.
Made it easy for me to roll
everything out of the way for
the plumbers to get in and work.

I got on my hands and knees trying to get more info on the heat and found one tile that was really too warm to stand on for very long. After some inventive skills on Hubs' part (he swapped the dead battery out on our forehead scanner thermometer and then ran it along the various tiles since we don't have one of those fancy point and shoot temperature gauges)... we determined the warm tiles were 104 degrees and the super warm ones were over 110 because all the thermometer would do would flash HIGH Temp warnings at us.

I typed out a quick email to our HOA company, letting them know I was suspecting a slab leak in my unit. Thankfully I was adjusting hours the following day and had a planned day off, so early in the morning the plumber came by to check everything out.

The hottest tile was running 118 degrees... and he was also concerned not only about the tile temp, but the fact that the temperature dropped off so quickly with the other tiles... Since our HOA doesn't fix floor leaks by ripping out the floor... and since we had no visual water damage because i'm a vigilant homeowner...

It meant they were going to cut into my new and freshly painted and textured hallway and laundry room walls....

They started with just 2 cuts.... and then needed to turn off the water in the three buildings that are attached to the boiler.... and then that turned into 7 holes as they found the leaky pipe.

Then the fun began... they couldn't get a hold of the HOA to authorize them to actually re-route the pipe the same day.... so to stop the leak, they capped off my hot water pipe... which, since we are on a boiler system, means that everyone down the line from me also can't get hot water.... and it was a Friday, which meant if they didn't re-route the pipe that day, no hot water for me, and some of my neighbors until MONDAY....

But i'm magic. All morning long the plumbers couldn't get a hold of the HOA... but I could... and it shocked them. I called at 9 am when they went to cut into my walls to make sure the HOA would pay to repair them leak or not, and the HOA took my call to the surprise of the plumber...

and when I called again that morning for authorization for emergency water shut off, they also picked up...

so after the plumber made 5 attempts and sent 2 emails and was about to leave for the day without giving me hot water till Monday, I called the HOA and they took my call and within 2 minutes I had a verbal authorization to his supervisor and he and his extra guy started to re-route the pipe through the walls...

Instead of using another copper pipe, they installed pex piping... and I stayed out of their hair while they worked... But apparently when they were swapping out the pipe, they spilled a bunch of water in little dudes room and didn't say anything to me. Instead, we found damp floor rugs and clothes later in the day after they left...  they did a "rush" wipe up and didn't move things to get the furniture out of the way so we had to clean up after them....      :(

• We had just purchased a new memory foam mattress for little dude (a thin twin version of ours for $90 off Amazon)... and the bottom of the box was so soaked that we didn't really have a choice but to take it out of the box to make sure it was still sealed and okay... and at that point keeping it hidden from little man was no longer an option, so he's sleeping on his big boy twin sized bed now... a whole 1.5 months BEFORE his birthday... (But he's not getting his buzz light year and woody bed set until his birthday)... He's stuck with the spare blue sheets we bought him.
• AND I have to re-wash all the clothes in his "I out grew" this bag, since the bottom of the bag got all wet.... 

We may still have some warm tiles in the future without a slab leak since 4 more pipes run in that area, but it looks like we caught the leak before any water damage occurred to our property.

Apparently on Tuesday or Wednesday the Drywall guy will come by to patch the holes and texture the walls... and Thursday they will paint and touch everything up the plumbers had to cut through.

But, this is seriously having us re-consider carpet.

Knowing that all future water leaks mean pipes will go through the walls, and having the plumber talk about the moisture seepage our association has with the concrete foundation, our only flooring options since we are on the ground floor are carpet or tile.

We planned to do carpet in the bedrooms and tile everywhere else, but now we are strongly thinking tile everywhere is the best way to go... so we are going to re-quote out what it would cost to tile everything.... but that also means we would have to figure out how to move our closets if we don't carpet our master. (Our original plan was to do new carpet around the closets and leave them in place....)