Leak Detection in Louisville, Kentucky

I was called to Louisville, Kentucky at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for a leak detection after two other leak detection companies were unsuccessful in finding a large leak. The leak was gushing underground at 35 gallons/minute from a 6″ductile iron main, with no water apparent at the surface. I arrived Sunday night and performed the leak detection right away. When we double checked my mark Monday morning, I drilled 1 ft into the ground and hammered a 1/2″steel rebar down to 30″. We didn’t see any water until the rebar was below 30″, despite the fact that the leak was gushing 35 gpm!!! I would have expected to have seen water at LEAST bubbling up out of the asphalt when I first drilled!! The plumbing contractor looked at me after he had dug 18″ deep and shook his head as if to say, “this leak detection is not correct! As you can see from the pics, the leak finally started to show just below 2 ft and grew from there. The funny thing was that even after the leak was wide open the trench was still draining the water as fast as the leak was flowing!