Yes,
Stud finders are designed to find any obstruction in the wall – including water pipes. So if you are just handling a project around the house, you can rely on your stud finder to locate pipes. But if you are a plumber, you will still want to invest in a specific pipe detector.
How Do You Find Hidden Pipes in the Wall? To find hidden plumbing in your wall, use a wall scanner, high-quality stud finder, or drill a small hole in your wall and insert a borescope camera to get a closer look. These high-tech options are the most accurate.
Hand-held pipe finding tools can be effective for locating PVC pipes, but only if the PVC system was fitted with a tracing wire during installation. Further, handheld pipe finders typically vary widely in price and quality; the most inexpensive start at $300, ranging all the way to $3,500.
In our last video, 'mapping a wall' we discovered a wall can hide objects like pipes and conduit; which a stud finder will detect along with the studs.
Use an Infrared Camera
If you cannot see the more obvious signs like paint bubbling on the wall water damage can be difficult to confirm. An infrared camera offers a quick and non-intrusive solution to detect a water leak in your wall.
Leak Detector. Designed for both iOS and Android devices, Leak Detector is another great app that makes the work of detecting water leaks easy and effortless. This specific app can be used to detect hidden water leaks in your home's floors, walls and ceiling.
Pipe and Cable Locators are the second type of utility location equipment we sell that's used for location of underground buried utilities. Pipe and Cable Locators in their basic form are two parts, one is a transmitter, and the other being a receiver.
Your home plumbing system includes pipes that run throughout your home, from under your floors, to in the crawl spaces – and yes, that does include ceilings. Multi-level homes are especially prone to this, with pipes to upstairs fixtures needing to run through ceilings by design.
The majority of plumbing in the kitchen is located in the cabinets underneath the kitchen sink. This includes the kitchen sink supply and waste pipes, a second set of supply and waste pipes that connect from the sink to the dishwasher, and a cold water supply line that leads to the ice maker in the refrigerator.
While homeowners may fret over running plumbing lines through the ceiling, it is a common practice used to minimize damage during the re-plumb and to keep labor costs lower.
Non-Tool Method to Locate a Clog in a Pipe
The best non-tool method to use if you want to know the location of a clog in the pipe is perhaps your forearm. You can drain the pipe, fill the partially blocked pipe with hot water and use your forearm to feel the pipe.
To begin with, you'll need to identify the location of the loose pipe with as much accuracy as possible. Use your ears and hands to pinpoint the sound and vibration. Once you've picked your spot, drill a half-inch hole to one side of the wall stud with an attachment called a paddle bit.
Price: Free
Aqualert is a drinking water tracker and reminder app that helps you create healthy water-drinking habits. With this app it's easy for you to implement set patterns into your daily life, with a tiny nudge set up by you.
Water monitors are useful for catching small leaks before they become more insidious problems. However, these systems are not ideal for vacation homes or properties you do not have convenient access to. They are also unable to mitigate the more serious water leak problems, like a burst pipe or water heater.
If you find a water leak inside the wall, you have more than a simple plumbing repair. It may be time to call in the pros. The wall needs to be cut open to determine the exact location of the leak, and the damaged sections need replacement. Then, the wall will be patched, sanded, primed, and painted.
The only other way to know whether or not your going through a copper pipe with a screw or a nail, is the costly way, where you have water coming through your ceiling or a damp patch appearing where the nail enters the floor board. Other than this, it can take a few months for a water stain to appear.
Cable detectors are made up of two parts; the transmitter and receiver. An electric signal is transferred through a cable pipe by the transmitter and the receiver picks up the signal. This allows the operator to trace the signals path and detect the cable or pipe.
The pipe that connects a toilet pan to the wall or plumbing is called a flush pipe, and the rubber part on the end is called a flush cone. You can replace these parts with FIX-A-LOO Flush Pipe Replacement Parts if they are broken or start leaking.