All H20 Plumbing Connections

On January 7, 2020 my office received a call regarding a potential possible leak somewhere in the home. I went on January 8th, 2020 to check out the issue. Checked house to determine there was a leak sound that could heard in left bathroom upstairs and downstairs inside garage. However, noise travels within copper pipes. Pipe was ran underground and in slab of home. There was no piping schematics as to how it was run. Suggested to homeowner that they have a leak detection company come out which I normally have owners deal with directly. However, owners were not in town and asked me to handle it. (I mostly communicated with Michele and also with Holly) when I contacted American leak detection company they stated that the earliest they would be able to come to the home would be Monday January 13th, I push for them to come earlier as I have been dealing with them for years, and they managed to call me back and make arrangements for the 9th of January. After locating leak they marked the leak at the upper height of the hot water heater, I informed the homeowners that if that was correct area we would need to drain the water heater, disconnecting it, removing the water heater from its pedestal, opening the concrete block at the top and repairing it and that the cost would be probably over $1000. My technicians took the water heater off of its pedestal, opened the wall, slightly hallow on top, then found that the cells were poured pure solid of concrete. Had to carefully chip out entire cell without damaging pipe. Explain the extensive work needing to be done to the customer, that it would be over $2000 to proceed, they informed me to document everything and to proceed.
I asked homeowners when the job needed to be finished by knowing that this is a rental property and they said that the home was going to be rented out again as of February 1st, 2020. I mentioned at the start of the job if pinhole leaks are in copper once they start very often are very problematic and occur again, usually resulting in the need of re-piping of home. Owner stated that they needed the job done before February 1st and they had future plans of doing remodeling and would rather put off the re-piping until that time.
As my technicians were chipping out cell, found leak was lower below water heater which was on a support approximately 24-inch base and bolted to a wall and attached with stucco, cemented to wall. We had to carefully remove base and continue to chip down wall. Found leak. Pipe came up through slab in garage then connected in wall to water heater and broke off through concrete to house. Repaired leak and tested then found second leak coming from outside to water heater under garage floor slab. Talked with homeowners and informed that at this point we were already over $2000 in repairs. Homeowner said to document everything. We then needed to run pipe through attic and down wall and back to water heater in house. I explained job to homeowner, he wanted us to run pipe into garage and put shut off valve in the garage instead of just connecting outside to where existing shut off valve was located. Had to use Rotary drill through concrete and rerun pipe from outside, bringing inside a connection for pipe outside and drill second hole for hose bib and then replace old hose bib with a new hose bib. As we were connecting all pipe and opening wall to house, we found a third leak in a wall thar was not as bad as the other leaks, as it was just a drip. Ask homeowner if he wanted us to repair it and he said to go ahead. (Those added repairs bringing additional pipe work in garage)
Informed that we could repair concrete wall and drywall, homeowner said to go ahead. I did not charge for my personal time on the job, just for the plumbers/technicians. We made many adjustments to our busy season schedule to fit in the repairs for the homeowner to make sure we met the deadline given. As more things arose, we had to juggle more, even having a plumbing technician work on a Saturday without charging for overtime. Unfortunately, we cannot see through the walls or concrete, and as it is very unusual for pipes to be ran through cells that are poured solid. I could never guarantee an exact price due to unforeseen issues that could happen. Things like this does happen as it is not usual. I have been in business for a long time on Marco Island, and always try to do my best for all my customers and pride myself on my excellent reputation. We built our business on our referrals and take pride in them. Its our way of knowing that our customers appreciate everything we do for them.