Our Process
How a job runs in Lake in the Hills, step by step: free quote, written scope, written quote, sign-off - and the cheaper option named when there is one.
Sequence
Four steps, start to finish
Hidden leaks located and marked, with an estimated range given before anyone comes out.
Read the red flow indicator
Everything off, softener included, then look at the meter head. If the red indicator turns, water is leaving past the meter. Check the toilet flappers too; the village names them as the usual cause.
Tell us where the meter is
An indoor meter cannot see the buried line from the b-box, so where yours sits decides which tests come first. A stain or an odd bill is enough to start.
We isolate, then listen and scan
Valves close one section at a time until one branch is left. Then acoustic listening, thermal imaging and moisture readings, or a pressure test and tracer gas outside.
The spot is marked and written up
The location is marked on the wall, floor or lawn, with the readings that found it. Any repair is quoted separately, and the finding is yours to use.
What it costs
All of it, priced
Estimated ranges for McHenry County homes. Your own written quote comes after we have seen it.
Leak Detection - estimated $150 - $400
Set by how much has to be isolated.
Water Line Leak Detection - estimated $200 - $500
Set by the length and depth of the run.
Basement Leak Detection - estimated $150 - $450
Set by how finished the space is.
Wall Leak Detection - estimated $200 - $400
Set by how many fixtures feed the wall.
Emergency Leak Detection - estimated $150 - $400 plus after-hours
The hour adds a charge, not the work.
Before any equipment
Four checks that come before anything is opened
Three of them cost nothing, and the first is the village's own advice.
Watch the red flow indicator
With nothing running inside or out, look at the meter head. If the red triangle turns, water is leaving somewhere past the meter.
Lift the toilet lids
The village names the flapper as the leading cause. Food coloring in each tank and twenty minutes without flushing: color in the bowl means a flapper, not a hidden pipe.
Make sure the softener is not mid-cycle
A softener regenerating, or stuck in a cycle, sends water to the drain and turns the indicator just as a leak would.
Then the hidden pipe
Only then does equipment come out: isolating valves, acoustic listening, thermal imaging, moisture readings, and a pressure test or tracer gas for the buried line.
Timing
Why a quarterly bill makes timing matter
The part of the calendar that hides a leak.
Lake in the Hills bills residential water quarterly. A leak that starts the week after a reading can run for most of three months before a number on paper shows it, and by then it has had a season to stain a ceiling or soften a strip of lawn. The meter's red flow indicator shows the same leak the day it starts.
That is why the first call is usually short. Read the indicator with everything off, check the toilets and the softener, and tell us what you saw; most of the time that narrows the visit to one system, and sometimes it ends the need for one.
- Same or next workday for most visits
- The indicator check talked through first
- Locating and repair kept as two prices
- Told plainly when there is nothing to find
Want a number on it?
Call (847) 994-0824, say what you are seeing, and leave the call with a written quote and a time for Lake in the Hills.
Talk to us
Talk to us about leak detection in Lake in the Hills
Call now
(847) 994-0824Hidden leaks located and marked, with an estimated range given before anyone comes out.
Before you call
- Which side of Randall Road, asked first
- Red flow indicator read with you
Where we work
Every area we cover