Have your water bills drastically increased despite having no significant change to your household’s consumption? Or maybe your taps and shower heads have had a noticeable decrease in water pressure. Perhaps your home feels stuffy, and a moldy smell permeates your indoor air.

Those are all signs indicating your home has bad pipes.

Aside from those symptoms, there are other ways to confirm you have failed plumbing components. We’ve discussed them in this guide, so read on, as you can perform two of them yourself.

Water Meter Test

Leaks in water supply lines are some of the biggest water wasters in U.S. homes. Each year, household leaks alone waste about one trillion gallons.

You can perform a water meter test to check if those plumbing woes plague your home.

For accurate test results, ensure no one is at home. If this isn’t possible, ask everyone in your household not to use water for at least two hours.

Next, bring your smartphone (or a pen and a piece of paper) to your water meter. The latter could be outside, near the street, or on the sidewalk in front of your house. Once you find it, take a photo or write down the numbers on the display.

After two hours, check the water meter to see if the numbers changed. If they did, and you’re sure no one used water at home, you have leaking water lines.

Your best bet is to hire a plumber ASAP to resolve your plumbing issues. Otherwise, your faulty pipes will continue to waste water and drive up your bills.

Measure Your Home’s Indoor Humidity

Another way to tell if you have leaky plumbing issues is with a hygrometer. It’s an instrument that measures humidity, the amount of water vapor in the air. You can buy it online or from a hardware or home improvement center and use it to test the humidity inside your home.

If the device registers a humidity level of over 70%, you may have plumbing leaks. Note, though, that this can also be a symptom of roof leaks.

Professional Leak Detection

Hiring a slab leak detection service is one of the best ways to determine if you have leaking pipes in your slab foundation. You can also hire a plumber to identify leaks in lines that are outdoors, underground, or behind the wall.

To detect and locate leaks, plumbing professionals use high-tech machines. These include video inspection equipment, thermal imaging cameras, listening discs, and ground probes. Since they give plumbers the precise location of the leaks, they help reduce the need for extensive, intrusive digging.

Find and Fix Those Bad Pipes ASAP

If you suspect you have bad pipes at home, you can conduct a water meter test and measure your indoor humidity. These two can help you determine if you have leaking plumbing lines.

But to know where the leaks are, you need to hire a plumber offering leak detection services. Once identified, you can then have the expert fix the problems ASAP.

For more home improvement and repair tips, have a look at our latest news and blog posts!