Leak under the house.

[Zelbubuth]

We noticed some dampness on the foundation of our home. I went under to see the cause and found that the plastic protecting the underside of the home was retaining water and it was slowly leaking out. My assumption is that either the pipe leading to the outside faucet or the pipes of the bathroom (both located at the area of water retention) is leaking.

What is the best way to go about fixing this? If/when I hire a plumber should it be one that specialized in manufactured homes or will any plumber be able to help?

[David Oxhandler]

Start by shutting off the water to the home and dont forget to turn off the breaker for your water heater.

Go under the home and use a knife to cut open the belly wrap to relieve the dammed up water. Once the area drains remove the insulation and expose the leak.

If it is leaking at a fitting, the fitting will need to be replaced. Most homes have fittings where the size of the pipe changes and you may find fittings that one end is a different size then the other... determining exactly what sizes will be the greatest challenge. Cut the fitting out by cutting the pipe as close to the fitting as you can. take the defective part to a plumbing supply or the plumbing dept of Lowe's or Home Depot and get a same size compression fitting. The personnel in the place you get the fitting can show you how (its easy) to put the new fitting in place.

If the leaks is mid pipe just take a small sliver of pipe to find the right size coupling fitting... these also come in compression fittings that require no glue or special tools to pop inline.

Once the leak is repaired let the area dry out for as many days as it take to be totally dry. Put in new insulation... dont try to reuse the old stuff... the water has compressed it which makes it worse than useless. Close the area by replacing the belly wrap ... if you can find a small section of the same material you can use a heavy grade of plastic sheeting.

Plumbing in a manufactured home can be quite different than plumbing in a site-built home. In fact different enough that plumbers in many areas will not work on mobile homes. Why? Some plumbers don’t like to work on the new plastic waterlines. Others don’t like the fact that things such as tub faucets and drains aren’t standard. Another reason is just plain laziness -- too much work to crawl under a home to get at a waterline. There is also, "You just never know what kind of plumbing mess I'll find, so why mess with it at all?"


If you want to purchase the tools to do a more professional type plumbing job read Understanding and Installing Manufactured Housing Waterlines

[trmimo]

Any plumber will be able to fix your leak. However, you really want someone experienced in manufactured home repair. That way you can have the soaked insulation replaced and the black under wrap properly patched.

[bunnylady]

My husband just went under the home and it is soaked under where our 2nd bathroom bath tub is. We have had a problem with the faucet as it has to be turned back a little in order to shut the water off. Perhaps from being over turned when shutting off the faucet? Anyway, if it does not show leaking from the faucet when shut off, could it still be causing a leak running down the pipes and make the leak under the home?

Thank you!

[David Oxhandler]

It could be the faucet or any of the plumbing attached to it. The oinly way to see the shower plumbing is to go into the next room and open the wall to see whats happening. Before you do that follow the instructions above and expose the area where it is leaking under the home and make sure it is not a leak under the home before you start opening wall.

[bunnylady]

My thoughts exactly.

I am not fond of having to open my daughter's bedroom wall (and fix it) as there is no water there and that is the side the tub faucets are on but we now already have to fix the son's room, other end of tub, (as it leaked over there soaked the rug under his bed and over half the room before we found it last night. Looks like it has been leaking awhile as the rug we don't see under and the backside of his bed is moldy.