American Leak Detection

I had American Leak Detection do a helium test in January 2019 through my Rental House Management Company for a gas leak.  When the plumbers came to fix the leak, they said the test was useless and then determined the correct cause of the leak along with fixing it.
After this happened, one of the American Leak employees informed a manager of the non-performance so that this bill could be waived, but the manager not only insisted this bill be paid, but was going to impose late fees if it was not paid shortly after the conversation.
I will never (nor does my management company plan to) use American Leak again - non-performance along with being expensive.

I was a bit nervous using this business with such low reviews, however, I was pleasantly surprised! They cared enough about my carpets to use cover for their shoes (I have a crawling baby), they worked fast but efficient. Price was fair, the manger Jon even followed up with call to make sure everything was still in order.

Horrific service. They came out to spot a leak, in my home several years ago.. And spotted the leak in the wrong area. They were off by 25 feet, not even close. I contacted TLC plumbing, they found the and spotted the leak, exactly at the location of the leak. American Leak Detection, cost me and my insurance company, money. Since then, they have contacted me 4 times. Not sure if they are desperate for money, or just trying to get money from customers, unethically and immorally! The last message was yesterday. I spoke to the branch manager this morning. No apologies, what's so ever. He did indicate he would zero out my account, or file. It is about time. I asked them after the 2nd phone call to cease and desist, Any further calls, and to stop harassing me, for something I am not responsible for. Also, as a distinguished and decorated military veteran, I would not recommend this company to any veterans, or any consumers out there, looking for a company to spot a leak, or complete a plumbing repair.

I suppose we should have taken a closer look at Yelp before hiring ALD and maybe we could've avoided a whole lot of wasted time, stress, and complete destruction of our kitchen thanks to their completely INACCURATE leak detection. That should be enough if you don't want to continue reading but for those that do, keep on reading for why you DON'T want to hire them under ANY circumstances.

I won't go into excruciating detail because we've had to rehash it enough. But the summary of it is that we hired them, they gave a best guess of where the leak was (with a 4 foot guarantee and plenty of squirrely language written into the quote to boot), provided a quote for fixing, etc. We went with someone else and as half our kitchen had a been excavated, guess what NO LEAK. Completely dry foundation. The other company that we had actually perform the work (who were amazing, btw, review to come soon) were able to find the leak with a steel rod. No fancy tools, nothing. The poked the rod into the ground well outside of the ALD's guarantee 4 feet square and it came out dripping wet.

(Very) Long story short, we tried working with ALD because our kitchen had literally been demolished as a result of their negligence. They were completely and totally unresponsive. We started with emailing them (email and from their website) with no response. Next was Better Business Bureau and we got the equivalent of multiple FO letters from them (The equivalent of :Thanks, we stand behind our work but won't actually do anything to address your concerns and are paying lip service because we have to respond to BBB but won't provide any response of any substance). The costs we had to absorb (a few thousand, so not an insignificant amount) were enough that it was worth us pursuing a small claims action. Fortunately we ended up settling in mediation but it was beyond painful to the very end. We wanted to avoid it and we tried multiple times to work with them. Nothing but excuses for their shoddy work and outright lies when confronted with facts- good thing I had all documentation...in writing which is pretty hard to refute.

This is probably one of the worst reviews I have ever left for a company and for good reason. I empathize with small businesses, I try to support them when at all possible but when they don't stand behind their work and I feel like they try to turn the customer into the villain for their mistakes that cost thousands of dollars in damage to someone's home, this is a business that others should be warned about. Full stop.

I only provided the summary of the bad, it was so much worse than what I posted here. Keep that in mind if you're considering hiring them. I'll add photos for the completely unnecessary damage that was done to my home.

Did damage to my electrical in my attic when running new pipes in my house. They Refused to fix damage they caused. Had to file a lawsuit against them. Manager uses foul language and yells at you when you complain. Horrible company. Employees drank on job at my house. I have witnesses. Do not use this company. I had outfits of the damage they did to my dryer 220 wire in the attic. Write was arcing a.c. They almost burned my house down.

These people get recommended by everybody to find leaks. The plumbing companies I've talked to or used have recommended them. They did find one slab leak that got fixed about a year and a half ago and then found another one in the kitchen. Now maybe that part of the business is okay but a plumber who recently came out told me that there's a way to just saw through the tile and the slab and lift it out without having to jackhammer through it. Because now, American Leak Detection is in the business of fixing the leaks. First that would give them a huge incentive to find leaks whether there were there or not if then they're going to send people out to fix them. Because I wanted it done quickly I had them do it. They seem to have fixed a couple of pinhole leaks In the kitchen but this is what my kitchen looked like after they were done. They half-ass put up plastic around my kitchen, got concrete dust everywhere and scratched other tiles. They made a huge mess as can be seen in the photos below. I would not call them to fix a leak. They don't care about your house.

After reading reviews from all over the country I have come to the conclusion that the company is only as good as its regional office. My experience in Houston was vastly different in a good way from my experience in New Mexico. I found the NM office staff and plumbers to be totally dishonest and incompetent. Jonathan the boss is a total crook, dishonest and a flat out liar. They are not familiar with building codes in the various parts of the state and do not know how to weather proof radiant heating lines. Their methods here are to blast through your floor and slab, destroy the radiant heating lines and use heavy equipment that vibrates your entire foundation, causing more repairs to be done later on. In this latest case, the leak detector marked the spot (which subsequently turned out to be NOT THERE, but elsewhere) and the repair crew came out two weeks later. The repair crew was here an hour, helping me prep the area for demolition inside my home. I found several discrepancies in the plan and became concerned that they would not adequately put the foundation patch on correctly. Not only were they overcharging me for the repair (over $5000), they tried to nickel and dime me to death by requesting $500 for 6 buckets of free dirt, claiming the hole was wet., DUH! Leaks make the ground wet. You dig the hole and find water. What part of that should have been a surprise! So I provided them with said dirt on my own. I then found out they had no plan to insulate my pipes that control the temperature of the house, called radiant heat, which is used in NM instead of central heat and air. I asked for them to insulate properly to avoid cracked pipes in the winter. This apparently became too much for them because the next thing I know is the plumber is on his phone in my garage speaking in private, comes in and says, we're leaving. I was floored! I asked why, and he responded I don't know, but my boss told us to leave. I begged them to stay as we had been without water for 3 weeks, just waiting on them to show up. They literally spun out rocks from their tires running away. No explanation. The NM office will not return my calls. Dan, the office staffer never returned a promised call with an explanation. Jonathan who put the stop on the job has never reached out after several requests. I still do not know what went wrong, except to say they obviously wasted my time and money, and did not want to do the job. Literally left two old people and one disabled person with no water and no explanation. They never even began any work before they decided to up and leave without an explanation. People who advocate for this type of customer non-service have no business being in business. IMO the NM office should fire most their people. They are absolutely soul less. Who does this to people? Cannot recommend for either leak detection or leak repairs. Totally unqualified and unscrupulous. Wish I had seen the Yelp reviews over other sites sooner, because these reviews are spot on and in keeping with my exact experience.

There were out twice and never found the leak, even after we showed them n cereal photo of where the water line was located.  They told us the next time they came out they would have to use an even more expensive technology and charge us even more to try to find the lek.  I contacted them a week ago to come back out and look, but they never contacted me after that.  It is just as well, I found the leak on my own - it was on a spot where I showed them the water line was located.

We had a major leak (1 gallon per minute) under our kitchen slab, but we didn't know exactly where it was. American Leak Detectors came and said the leak was under the island, so that had to be removed before the plumber could start jackhammering the concrete. 3 days later and 9 feet from where they said the leak was (guaranteed within 3 feet, my foot!), the plumber finally found it. Before it was found they had to come back out to recheck and got some closer to the actual leak but offered no return of their fee (The your-money-back-or-we'll-come-back-again trade-off. Sweet deal they have!). Buyer beware! They might be okay for wall leaks, but I would use someone else for under-slab leaks. Their misidentification caused major damage to my kitchen that will cost thousands to restore.

Bottom line: They didn't find the leak and it would have been even worse than that if I hadn't looked for a second opinion. I recommend the Albuquerque Leak Detection service instead.

Details: Why did things go poorly? Because the American Leak Detection team never located the leak, despite it being so obvious that a competitor I hired for a second opinion, from Albuquerque Leak Detection found the leak in a few tens of minutes.

Poorly also describes the nature of this interaction because the American Leak Detection team didn't have confidence that they found the leak the first time and charged almost $400 to give me a best guess about where they might look next, requiring an additional fee. The additional fee was estimated at almost $2000 and would have required demolition of concrete flooring in my water heater / furnace closet of the garage so that a closer look could have been taken. Fortunately, I didn't accept this recommendation and I got a second opinion. The leak wasn't anywhere near the approximate region indicated by American Leak Detection. Instead, the leak was discovered by the Albuquerque Leak Detector 40 feet away, in the backyard. The leak was the result of a leaky valve off of a hose faucet.

After locating the leak, I requested that American Leak Detection evaluate their work and consider giving me a refund. They consented, their manager was professional and came to inspect the situation in two additional visits. But that required two additional visits that accomplished nothing when it came to locating the leak, required many phone calls, and after almost a full month of time after the final visit, I received a partial refund, less than half of the charge for the ill-fated visit. Considering all the cost and time, it just wasn't worth it to deal with this company, despite some of the kind and nice people working there. I couldn't trust them to do the thing they advertise to do and it was up to me to stay on top of the situation, even though I was paying and this wasn't my area of expertise. When it comes to finding leaks, good work means almost everything and good intentions mean relatively little if the leak isn't found.

Now, it is likely that this instance was one of the unfortunate cases where things just went wrong. However, because this is a pricey service - no matter who you select - and because of how quickly their competitor was able to demonstrate that they found the leak after American Leak Detection tried for hours, I recommend that you avoid this company and select an alternative. Try the Albuquerque Leak Detector, whose team is led by a chemical engineer who has a well-thought through method for detecting leaks. I found the pricing comparable and respect the Albuquerque Leak Detector team for their professionalism and competence.

Horrible experience. Supposedly found the leak. Who really knows until I get real plumbers out to look at it. Broke a handle on the shut off valve and stated the plumber who sent him out would fix and pay for it. That plumber refused. The folks at this place refused. Not only am I out $800, the broken handle will cost another $200-300 and I still need to get my busted pipe fixed. Do not recommend.

This company is a bunch of crooks and very dishonest , I would find a company  that has honesty and integrity, the guy claims to be a Christian but I find that hard to believe. Seriously find a company with integrity

After reading others experiences, I decided to retract previous comments as they were unfit for this environment.  
As a previous employee of a franchise I know first hand how difficult it is to be at the top of your game and have it all taken away.....literally to the point of homelessness.
The rules and conditions of franchising have changed so drastically in the last 10 years we decided to start using our local tradesmen once again.  They seem to be more gracious and thankful for our choice and in return we get more integrity which is good moral/s for our community, city and state.
Perhaps the system will learn from privately owned territories (of yesteryear) how to prevent market share loss.  Shhhh.....it's integrity....don't tell.

Unfortunately for me, I've had several opportunities to use American Leak Detection for various leaks in my home.  Each time, they located the leak within their parameters, making it easy for my own people to come in and do the actual repair.  
They were prompt, professional and courteous.  While I wish I would no longer have a need for their services, I will continue to call them as needed.