Hi everyone, I'm having trouble with a leak under my lawn/driveway. We just purchased this house (it was built in '01) and the previous owners had left it vacant for a year so we think that the pipes must have been damaged last year and then this year the winter freeze must have popped them open. I first noticed that there was a problem when my last water bill went up by 10,000 gallons and when I went to check the water meter, I noticed that the lawn next to my driveway was soaking wet. We called american homeshield and they sent out a plumber but apparently they don't cover anything outside the house. The plumber said that it would be easier to just replace the whole system for a total cost of $1900. Here's a diagram: [IMG]http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/1696/leako.jpg[/IMG] I know that if its a leak under the lawn I should be able to dig down and patch it up but if its under the driveway I don't think I have the tools or expertise to bore through the driveway and repair it. Should I even bother digging up the lawn to find the pipe and hope the leak is accessible or should I leave this to the pros?

I am planning to build my own drain water heat recovery system. The basic design routes a cold water supply through a coil of copper pipe wrapped on the main 3 inch copper drain line, which then feeds the shower's cold supply and the water heater inlet. During a shower ( I have teenagers!) the warm water draining preheats the water in the coil - sending pre-warmed water to the shower in the cold supply, and pre-warmed water to the water heater. These are available commercially but expensive. The key to the system is being able to wrap copper piping tightly around the 3 inch drain line. The commercial systems come with the pipe precoiled, and I believe the copper pipe is slightly flattened to increase the amount of area that contacts the drain pipe. To install, you need to cut out the drain pipe, install the coil and reinstall the drain pipe. I am hoping to wrap the copper pipe directly on the drain line. Does anyone have experience with wrapping copper pipe with this curvature? Will soft drawn copper bend around a 3 inch pipe easily without a pipe bending tool? I plan to use 1/2 OD copper, with two interleaved coils connected in parallel to reduce any back-presure. There will need to be 40 to 60 inches of coiled copper pipe on the drain pipe (50 linear feet of copper pipe). If I can solve this part, the rest is easy!