How To Tell If Pipes Are Behind A Bathroom Wall

In cases where a leak behind a wall isn t visible you may be able to detect the leak using your sense of smell.

How to tell if pipes are behind a bathroom wall.

Water dripping or spraying on the framing can cause considerable damage in a short time. Try to look for corrosion and leakage since these two are the best signs of a broken pipe. However you won t know the exact location of the water lines in your walls until you use a pipe detector. Musty smelling walls will often be accompanied by other signs of a leak e g discoloration.

Therefore you will easily see if there s a leakage or anything wrong with them. Most times shower valve leaks behind the wall are very slow. Drilling into a wall doesn t have to be a guessing game. If you need to run a new stack assess your framing.

One rule of thumb is to be especially careful when drilling into any walls that connect to your bathroom or kitchen basically any wall that s likely to have pipes. If you do hit a pipe. How to fix a leaking pipe behind a wall. It is possible to follow the water lines from the basement or crawl space to help determine the most likely path to sinks tubs toilets radiators and washing machines.

An installation with a toilet must have a 3 inch drain which can be installed only if the stud wall is made of 2x6s or larger 2 inch pipe can be run through a 2x4 wall. A leak in a copper pipe behind the wall is not a matter to take lightly. The basement is the place where the pipes are usually exposed and not behind a wall. Since water that leaks into walls never has a chance to dry out the walls will begin to give off a humid musty odor.

The diy experts at stack exchange provide tips. When someone is showering you might see water dripping from the ceiling. One of the tell tale signs of a water leak coming from a shower valve behind the wall are water stains.