OT: broken hot H2O line under house, I R a plumber now I guess Options

[Sammy]

I noticed a couple of strange things yesterday, my hot water heater wasn't keeping up as well as it used to, and the flower bed in front of the house is flooded.
Duh, I finally put them together today, I have a broken hot water line under the slab.

It looked comical, my whole family walking around on the tile floor barefooted trying to find the warmest spot.
i have it nailed down to a 6 square foot area, I'm going to shoot it with an infra-red heat gun tomorrow to nail it down better before I start ripping up 5 year old (expensive) ceramic tile that i may or may not be able to match. I have a few squares left over from when I installed it, hopefully that will be enough.

Luckily it looks like it's in the middle of an open area and not under a cabinet or something. I figure with a little luck and an electric jack hammer I can find and fix the leak. I'm waaaay too much of a CSOB to hire a real plumber, prolly cost me more in the long run but that's who I am.

Any BTDT stories or advice before I rip into it?
Tanks.

[URY914]

Hate to throw water on your plan, but chipping out the slab and finding the leak at that spot is like finding a needle in a haystack. Water flows to the least resistance. That leak could be 5 feet from the hole in the slab. What are you going to do when you don't find the pipe/leak? Chip out another hole, and another, and another, ....??? (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/sad.gif)

Is this copper pipe? How are you going to fix that, solder in a new piece? (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/wacko.gif)

Like every job, it sounds SOOOO easy when you're planning it. You need to think about the "what if's". If it can go wrong it will.

Believe me, my current project is a $18.6 million hospital addition and renovation. I live this shit everyday. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/rolleyes.gif)


Paul