American Leak Detection

So, I consider this a work in progress.
I've been getting intermittently high water bills, so I called my go to plumber (Anchor Plumbing in San Antonio) for help. Their plumber tried some tried and true methods, and finally told me to contact ALD, as they would most likely find the leak much faster than he could.
When ALD showed up, they did their various tests, and told me my system isn't leaking. Their pressure tests showed no leaks in my irrigation system or inside my house. So they kept troubleshooting, and eventually discovered that the expansion tank for my water heater was intermittently indicating water was being pulled in then pushed out about .4 gallons per hour, repeating several times every five minutes. But, the SAWS meters only register water coming into the house, so when the expansion tank pushed the water out, the action didn't register--I was charged for water that I didn't use!
I'm having the expansion tank removed tomorrow, and will hopefully remove the Work in progress notice next month.
I was impressed. They spent much more than the hour I was told was included in the base price, and after determining my system wasn't leaking, they stayed until they found what appears to be a very logical solution to my problem. Consider me a fan!

Ok, the leak detection process is either wonderful - find it exactly and right away - or terrible - spend a bunch of money and find nothing.  That is how it works, and from these guys, I had both.

To be clear, this review is for American Leak Detection of Austin, San Antonio and Boerne. And they have 3 phone numbers and serve three distinct regions. Its a franchise business. Robert runs this office and he is knowledgeable, fair and reasonable, but extremely busy. They try hard, and, I think, want to do the right thing. There is a lot of stress on both the customer and service side of this transaction.

After spending a bunch of money on plumbers, who could not find the leak or even my main water line,  for a 1-2 gal/hr leak, I had someone from ALD come out and spend 3 hours, 3 tanks of gas and say I think it's around here. Nice guy, tried hard, but not good enough for me. The three tanks of gas, which can indicate a big leak, really annoyed me. So I called Robert, and he, kindly and fairly, agreed to send someone else out, at no charge, for a quick visit to at least find the main water line, which is PVC. That was where the original tech thought the water was leaking. Robert said: I don't think we can find that line for you.

He didn't count on his tech, Ryan, or my tenacity. I had already dug two holes, close, using old pics of the line, but no luck, and needed some directional guidance. Ryan, not only confirmed I was very close and which way to dig (and he was right) but he found the copper manifold just outside the house (and under 2 1/2 feet of soil) where the main water enters the home.  So if I ever decide to add a cutoff valve, I now know where to dig.

And although American Leak Detection of A/SA/B isn't perfect, I think they have good people,  good intent and good technology. And Ryan, in my opinion, is a rock star.  Thank you Robert and Ryan.

General advice for anyone trying to get help finding a leak: Before you call, try to figure out the location of every water outlet inside or outside the house, the general location of the main water line (or pool lines) and the leak rate, in gallons per hour.

We were forced to use these people by Texas farm bureau. They refused to share a copy of their findings. When we were forced to use them to replace a valve in our home they damaged the plumbing system and caused a reduction in pressure of 25 psi. It has been over a month and they have not even attempted to rectify it. They are also causing the possibility of TOXIC mold in our home by not being honest all because Texas Farm Bureau is pulling their strings. As a Master Plumber myself, this is the most unethical company I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with.

I will make this short. ALD agreed there is a leak in my backyard. I paid $575 as they were positive, they could find it. The person that came out was all talk and kept telling me over, and over, how I need to call him since only one visit is included and he would come back out. My neighbor's yard is affected, and she even said it is obvious where the leak must be.
What did I get for this much money? An inaccurate report (in so many ways) and a 'Well, I don't know' result.
I had another detection company come out and they found the leak within 1 hour.
Lesson learned and waste of money.

I called American Leak Detection when I discovered my pool was losing water. They found the leak and I decided to have them do the repair. They estimated $2500-3000 based on not knowing exactly what would be required because the leak was determined to be underneath the flagstone pool deck. Two technicians came out and performed the repair in just under 2 hours. I have no complaints about the work done (so far so good) but I was charged $2550 ($2500 labor, $50 for materials) for the repair which I believe is unreasonable for the amount of work required to fix it.  Maybe I'm off base and $600+/hour is a fair labor rate for pool repair but I feel a little taken advantage of.

This is my review on Google

This company failed miserably. I hired this company to find a leak in my main water supply line. I didn't want my yard dug up, plain and simple. The technician used a tee post probe first, then forced air into the line and finally used the meter and probe with headphones. From the time he arrived he was adamant the leak was on the side of the home. That was the area the main water line would come in my house, he stated. He put his blue flag on the side of the house, and stated the leak was there. Plumber came the next day, saw the blue flag and started digging. Plumber even stated   that this company was spot on, always right on leaks. They dug a hole close to 3 foot deep and nothing. I was upset at this time, the plumber stated this was the first time in his experience, your company was off. This was a break in a water line, not a drip, or small leak. The technician had his probe with the meter directly over the leak at one time, and still insisted the leak was on the side. I expressed to the company my disappointment and asked for a refund, no response. By the way, leak was in the front, 16 down and gushing water.
Supervisor came by today, gave me half my money back. Still, I won't recommend this company to anyone.

Frantic with a $9K city water bill I called these folks.  They were late.  Finally, I saw their truck and went outside to investigate.  They were working on our neighbor's water system!  That should have been my first clue!

They did find a break in the irrigation.  After 2 tries (jackhammer needed), Domingo did fix it ($1,560.00).   Still leaking, I asked them to come back.  Over the course of trying to resolve this problem I learned it takes TWO people to operate the sonar etc.  They sent ONE person and after poking around for an hour or so....he said, the leaking pipes are too deep for me to determine where the leak is.....  So, THE ORIGINAL LEAK SPECIALiSTS left me with a continuing leak of 3-4 gallons per HOUR and charged $575 for the service,  Nice guys..... Just not sure they have the equipment or know how to solve leak problems.  Irrigation and pool are off.  Still leaking.  Roto Rooter uses cameras.....I'm hoping they are on top of it!

Fabulous service.
On time and very professional.
Worked very hard to uncover my underlying issue.
Will definitely use again

American Leak Detection will be my go to plumbing company as long as I call Texas home. Had my first interaction with them today and could not have been more pleased. They were prompt, professional and very informative. My technician, Kaleb, took the time to walk me through everything ensuring I understood what he was talking about as we went along. Highly recommend this company!!

I hired ALD for $575 to find a leak in my yard that was leaking 2 gallons an hour. They detected it under my driveway and so I had a company come in and give me a $ignificant driveway tear up quote. Thankfully I couldn't get the driveway work scheduled until next month and this past weekend the ACTUAL location broke 30 feet away from the blue mark they made in my driveway. It was NOT UNDER MY DRIVEWAY. I now have no leak and the problem is solved after a $700 emergency Saturday night repair. I have called ALD and informed them that I was unhappy with what has transpired.  On the call I asked to speak to the owner and I told them I was going to report my experience here. The receptionist was not concerned but did tell me someone would call me. I will report back if I am contacted.

They charged me $475 to come and fix my leaks, just to tell me that it was my toilet and left it at that.
(You're telling me my water bill is over $700 and it's just a little toilet leak?)

Once i fixed the toilet issue, they told me that if there was any issues, to contact them within 30 days and they would fix it no cost.

But there was no way to know if my water bill was fixed or not because I receive the water bill every 30 days!!

SO. Guess who has fo pay another $475? To recheck? Wow how convenient right?

This is bs. You KNOW what you're doing, and to guarantee for 30 days KNOWING that we can't get our water bill within that time is sketchy.

I was wondering why they only have 1 star on google and called them beforehand. They assured me it was because of fake reviews.
I decided to use them anyways, well, here's a real review.

This company is garbage. I will make sure i leave this review everywhere i can unless i get my money back.

Best customer service around. When I was down and out and couldn't get anyone to come over to help find a leak that was destroying my first floor this company made the drive to Austin and found and repaired the pipe. So thankful for ALD.

They came to check on a couple leaks in my house. Initially the guy was not finding any leaks, then he said it was the downspouts in my shower/tub.  I'm not sure how the shower upstairs leaks into the downstairs without leaving any water damage on the wall or ceiling.  When I asked for the report, they refused to give me the leak inspection becuase my insurance company was handling a claim for the damage.  What?! This is my property and they won't even give me the report. I'm not confident this company is any good for anything other than serving the insurance cronies.

We hired them to find a pool leak.  They did not find it though we paid them $2000.  It got worse and worse.  The auto fill is turned off and the pool is now down 2 ft.  I just called to have them come back out and they said it will be ANOTHER $2000.  This is criminal!

I recently bought a home with a pool...turns out I bought hidden pool problems as well.
Serious pool problems.
Let's start with spa drainage pipes filled with concrete, which was most likely the result of a water leak....somewhere....
I have a vast amount of slate and brick work surrounding my pool, including brick walls and lots of trees...which means lots of roots!
I inquired with trusted pool and home contractors for discovery and repair work and the referrals were all the same - Call American Leak Detection.
So that is exactly what I did.
Mary Ann Douglass answered my call and she raised the bar on personal service.  In a timely and professional manner, Robert Douglass, kind of a no nonsense cowboy and his crew, used state of the art technology to identify what, where and how to make all this mess right.
And that they did!
All on a very reasonable timeline and price these experts resolved my pool and leak problems, while protecting the expensive and extensive slate, brick work and landscaping.
Then, to top it off, they slapped a serious guarantee on their work!
The caliber of performance by American Leak Detection was exemplary!
A truly exceptional company!
Thank you!
Dr. C. B.

Had a very bad experience with this company. They are supposed to fix leak of my jacuzzi within 1.5 hrs.. since urgent they quoted 475$. However when the person showed up.. spent may be 20 min including trips to his truck to tell us about leak.. which we already showed photo. Did not want to fix , mentioning that they only detect leaks.. after 3 min discussion he charged us 375$ and has not provided any report yet.. when we tried to call they gave excuses of upcoming holiday, after holiday busy and are yet give us a report that we already paid 4.5 days ago with showing more pictures of where leak is happening .. I guess.
In our last ring they even hung up the phone. Be wary of them.. we have been most patient and accommodating knowing we are being stripped for nothing .. yet there behavior before paying and after is different.

I would strongly advise to beaware of this provider when ordering a service from them

My insurance company had ALD come to my home after I had discovered a leak in my over the garage apartment on 02/17/21, a leak which resultEd in water escaping onto and thru the garage sealing.  Their services were requested as the plumbing company I had initially called had failed to locate the leak and had failed to return as promised.  ALD responded on 03/22/21 though they too were unable to locate the leaks exact location.  The technician said it was a hot water leak, something I already knew, and somewhere between the shower enclosure faucet and the kitchen sink (all of which are in the same ten foot or so area).  Their representative further said that they would have to reroute that particular water line to limit costs and damages to my custom kitchen and bathroom cabinets, confirming what I had already told him.  The represent also said that ALD would provide a report to the insurance carrier in a few days and would provide me an estimate to complete the repair so I can compare it to other estimates should I decide to contact other plumbers and obtain other estimates.  It took about two weeks for them to send the report to my insurance carrier and have never provide me an estimate and it is now 04/16/21, and I still don't have hot water.  I don't know how much they charged as the bill was apparently sent to the insurance company.  I realize they are or were extremely busy due to the various electric companies turning the powere on and off again, causing blackouts which exasperated the freeze, though feel that should be able to provide an estimate of repairs.  I wouldn't recommend their services or request their services again as they couldn't actually find the leak and have yet to follow thru and provide an estimate as promised.

We had a disappointing experience with American Leak Detection.  It started off well when their tech came out to first look for the leak.  He was timely and professional, and by all accounts did his job properly.  He located our leak underneath a large stone walkway just a few feet outside of our front door.  They charged us $575 which we felt was fair and were thankful for the information.  

We then had some plumbers come out to get quotes on actually repairing the leak.  They were quite skeptical that there would be a pipe in that particular location and recommended we double check before proceeding with excavating underneath the walkway.  So, American Leak Detection came out again and located the leak in approximately the same spot.  They charged $350 for coming back out which we again thought was fair.  

We then hired a plumbing service to do the actual repair, part of which included $2000 for excavation.  They excavated underneath the walkway and found nothing.  No pipe.  No leak.  Just a bunch of rock and soil.  They did locate a leak about 20 ft away (not under the walkway) and repaired it.  

When I emailed American Leak Detection to let them know what had happened, their initial response was encouraging.  The employee that called seemed genuinely concerned about the issue and spoke glowingly of the owner and how much he cared about their customers.  They asked if they could come back out a third time and essentially do a post-mortem analysis, which we of course agreed to.  Afterward, they acknowledged that they should have located the leak in its actual location and not underneath the stone walkway.  They told us that their method is not foolproof, which was really more in the form of an excuse than an apology.  Also, we would have liked to have known that from the beginning instead of them standing behind their results when others were questioning it.  They offered a refund of the $575 we initially paid for them to come out, but said they needed to keep the other $350 to cover their costs.  We appreciated the offer, but there was no apology and no concern about the financial burden created for us by their mistakes.  

They eventually had a change of heart and agreed to refund all of the $925 we had paid them (for which we are grateful), but refused to help cover any amount of the $2000 we paid Steve's Plumbing to go looking for a leak that never existed.

The process of receiving a refund was drawn out over several weeks and mostly consisted of speaking with someone who was very defensive, said a lot of things about the situation that didn't make sense, and whose story changed several times.  She said we should have hired them to do the repair, but based on initial conversations and additional understanding provided by other plumbers, their reliance on their technology probably would have resulted in the actual leak being missed and a bunch of holes being made in our house to reroute our main line unnecessarily.

We can understand why the company wouldn't want to set a precedent of paying for plumbing services they didn't provide.  What we can't understand is how a company that claims to care so much about its customers can't even muster a passing sorry for the inconvenience when their mistakes prove to be very costly for those who hire them.  We would feel very differently about this situation if they had at least acknowledged and maybe even apologized for the $2000 we lost.  Instead, they chose to circle the wagons so fast they were rendered incapable of even the slightest bit of empathy, making it impossible to consider how the situation might actually be affecting one of their customers.  When we needed them to be the company they purport to be, they chose to be defensive and could not have cared less about out predicament.

So, based on our experience, I cannot in good conscience recommend that you hire this company (or at least this particular branch as they have multiple locations).  The 1 star review has nothing to do with the employees that came out or even the fact that their information was flawed.  Their technology isn't perfect and can't account for every single variable that might come up.   It has everything to do with how they chose to treat one of their customers when things didn't go according to plan.

I had a pool leak that I had already had a leak detection company come look at, and they couldn't find anything. I called ALD and they found the leak and literally marked an X on the ground where the leak was. They tested the whole pool while they were there. I highly recommend this company.

These guys were great!  

I just wish my Dad would have called them first - the other plumber he called spent two days digging all around the house and still couldn't find the leak. These guys came in with the right equipment and experience and were able to identify the leak within a couple hours.  

I would highly recommend American Leak Detection to anyone with water leak problems.

I was very impressed with the technician, Tommy.  He knew what he was doing. He was quite detail oriented, knew how to use all the high-tech equipment and a very nice young man. He patiently answered all my questions.
I was quoted a price when I scheduled my appointment and that is exactly what I was charged!
I'm hoping I don't have another leak in my pool, but, if I do, I will not hesitate to use American Leak Detection again.

Save your money and find a good plumber! We paid $575 to have American Leak Detection come out and locate a leak. They advertise that they can pinpoint the leak so we thought that would be helpful in fixing a leak that we knew we had but couldn't locate the exact location. The technician came out and ran a bunch of tests on all of our plumbing fixtures and said we would get a full report the next day along with a bid for repair. He was very courteous and professional. I had to call the office twice and finally got the report a week later. It was very vague, did NOT pinpoint the leak and did not include a bid for repair. So basically we paid them $575 to tell us that we had a leak in the same area we thought we did. Not great. Found a plumber that spent two days actually pinpointing the leak and fixing it. So like I said before, just start with a good, reliable plumber and you'll save some money.

I had them do $2000 leak detection for my clients pool, they missed the leak and supervisor Sean told me they were not interested in helping me further. WOW, never been more dismissed. Go elsewhere, he told us to so I will.

Absolutely the best experience I could have hoped for.  Noel, the technician that came out, quickly found the source of the leak.  Then, he went well beyond the scope of his job expectations in explaining exactly how to rectify the issue so we understood what to look for when the licensed contract plumber conducted the repairs.  He even got his hands dirty... something that goes well beyond what American Leak Detection is supposed to do when only trying to FIND the leak.  Extreme professionalism, immense knowledge, fast detection, and absolute care for the customer.  I would use these guys again in a heartbeat, and I would highly recommend them to anyone who wants the best for the job.

American leak detection, reviewed my situation and reimbursed me the amount I paid based on their recommendations.  I appreciate that they looked into what happened, apologize for any inconvenience and reimbursed me.