Start with what’s actually going on
Fixture behavior, pipe material, water pressure, drainage, venting, shutoff location, access, and prior repairs all factor into getting the diagnosis right.
Build a complete scope
- Whether the supply is galvanized and showing pressure loss before leaking
- Whether the waste line is cast iron and where it exits the building
- How walls and finishes are opened for access and then made good
- How hose bibs and unheated lines are protected through a hard freeze
- Permits, post-work testing, cleanup, and exactly what is warranted
Fort Wayne context
Fort Wayne's neighborhoods carry a century and a half of plumbing history layered on top of each other. The city's canal-era core, built up around the Wabash and Erie Canal in the 1830s and 40s, gave way to the Greek Revival and Gothic Revival homes of the West Central Historic District, built out through 1950, and later to the Tudor and Colonial Revival houses of the Forest Park Boulevard district, built mainly in 1910. Each wave of construction arrived with the supply-line and drain materials common to its own decade, and Fort Wayne's freeze-thaw winters -- the city averages roughly 30 inches of snow a year, with the ground typically frozen from mid-October to late April -- put real stress on whatever pipe happens to be in the ground.