SOMETIMES THE EASY ANSWER, IS THE RIGHT ANSWER!!!

PROBLEM SOLVED!!! WITH NO WORK!!!

A client was told by his roofer that that water on the bathroom floor was not coming through the roof, thus must be due to a plumbing leak.

A plumber then came out and said that to evaluate the problem the wall tile above the puddle of water had to be removed to allow him to find and repair the leak.

Then, after the leak was repaired, the wall would need re-built. So, CPEX was asked to price the new wall.

Instead of quoting $7-8,000 blindly, we suggested a $500 diagnostic visit first so that we could work with uncertainty.

We spent a couple hours with an inspection camera that only required a few ¾” holes be drilled in the sheetrock on the other side of the tile wall.

This approach allowed us to logically eliminate some possibilities, and assess the likelihood of others; things like plumbing, HVAC and cooler condensation were all possibilities.

The camera investigation revealed something telling; there was corrosion on the outside of wall’s metal bottom track, but the inside was pristine.

This suggested that the water was not dripping inside the wall; thus, a plumbing leak was not the likely culprit.

Next, we considered condensation from the walk-in cooler on the other side of the wall as well as from the HVAC system. Those options were quickly eliminated as the cooler and HVAC system ran constantly and the water would appear suddenly, then stop for a while.

With plumbing, condensation, and a roof issue eliminated, we concluded that the water on the floor was most likely not from a problem with the building, but from the client’s kitchen operations.

They were skeptical at first, but called a couple weeks later to say that they figured it out.

Dishwater was getting sloshed onto the fiberglass panel behind the three compartment sink, running down the panel where caulk was missing, and behind the tile wall base, then dropping onto the slab.

It was then following a slight downward slope under the wall until appearing on the polished concrete of the bathroom floor.

The restaurant manager spent $10 on a tube of silicone caulk and solved the problem himself.

Avoided cost: $9,000+ in unnecessary demo, plumbing, rebuild, and downtime.

Before you hire a dozen specialists, call us. We’ll figure it out. Sometimes the easy answer is the right one,