Slab Leak Repair Services in Central Florida
The concrete slab under your home or business is incredibly important to your property, as it serves as the foundation for the building. Under that slab in Polk and eastern Hillsborough County you have sand sitting on limestone, not the shrink-swell clay that heaves foundations in other states, so a slab here moves when water washes the sand out from beneath it or when the limestone below dissolves into a void. A leaking supply line does the first of those, which is why a slab leak turns structural if you let it run.
Undetected slab leaks can lead to many issues with the structure of your building, so it is vital to fix them as soon as possible. In eastern Hillsborough County, southeastern Pasco County, and Polk County, our top-rated company has the area's leading slab leak repair and detection plumbers. We work at properties in and around Lakeland, Plant City, Winter Haven, and Tampa.
How Can You Tell if You Have a Slab Leak?
Since slabs are under your business or home, it will not be readily visible or necessarily easy to definitively tell if you have a slab leak unless you know the signs of one. The clues are subtle, so it pays to know what to watch and listen for.
- You may feel hot or warm areas on your floor when you walk across it.
- Your water bill gets inexplicably higher.
- Visible cracks in the slab may indicate a leak.
- You may see standing water around the foundation of your property.
- Hearing the sound of running water even if all sinks or faucets are turned off may mean there is a leak.
Why Slab Leaks Are Dangerous
Slab leaks can be incredibly dangerous. If a slab leak is left to sit, it can cause disastrous damage to your building's foundation. The foundation can crack, which completely compromises the structure of your home or business.
Additionally, slab leak repair can cost thousands of dollars if the leak is not caught quickly, and if you have let the leak sit for a long time, it is possible that your insurance policy may refuse to cover the damage. Always be proactive when it comes to slab leak suspicions.
What Is Actually Under Your Slab in Polk County
Most slab leak advice online is written for states with expansive clay, and it does not describe the ground here. The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service maps Polk and eastern Hillsborough County as deep, well drained sand. The ridge soils around Lakeland, Auburndale and Winter Haven carry 80 inches or more of sand before anything else shows up, and the flatwoods soils east and south of them are sandy as well, with an organic hardpan a couple of feet down and a water table that climbs near the surface every rainy season. You can look up your own address in the USDA Web Soil Survey.
Below the sand is limestone. The USGS report Hydrology of Polk County, Florida describes a surficial sand aquifer over an intermediate confining unit that ranges from under 25 feet thick to more than 300 feet, with the Floridan limestone below that. Where the confining layer is thin, rainwater reaches the limestone and slowly dissolves it, and that karst process is what carved this county's lakes and what opens its sinkholes.
Two local exceptions are worth naming. Southwest Polk County around Bartow and Mulberry sits in the old Bone Valley phosphate district, where mining left reclaimed ground and clay settling areas that behave nothing like natural sand. And the smectite clays that genuinely swell and shrink belong to Hawthorn Group formations that reach the surface in north Florida rather than here, which the Florida Geological Survey covers in its notes on problem soils. So when a slab moves in Lakeland or Plant City, the cause is almost always water moving sand, not clay swelling.
Contact Us to Set Up a Slab Leak Assessment
Our expert plumbing contractors can come to your property to assess whether or not you have a slab leak in Lakeland, Plant City, Winter Haven, Tampa, and surrounding areas within Polk County, southeastern Pasco County, and eastern Hillsborough County.
If you are concerned about a potential slab leak, contact us to set up an appointment. We offer upfront quotes, and catching the leak early is the single best way to protect your foundation and your wallet.