how do I find the leak????

[alleycat]

After a day of cleaning, with heavy use of the slop sink and washing machine, I have water dripping from the plywood / ceiling in my basement. It's right below where the washer and slop sink are (which are side-by-side on the first floor). The drip seems to have started about a half hour AFTER I finished all the work, and has been going for a good hour and a half, at about a drip every 12 seconds or so. Not sure if it's clean water or grey water.

How do I figure out what's leaking? I can't find any water around the washer or the sink, and they are draining fine.

House is not quite 3 years old, on a well, and plumbing is pex.

I shut off the water lines to the washer - should I do the same for the sink?

Many thanks for any help--

[patrick88]

What type of drain line is it? What type of water line is it? Do you have a picture of the Washer/sink setup.

[alleycat]

I don't have a pic and I'm not sure I understand the question - the sink drains into a pvc pipe (w/ an elbow/trap) and the washer drains into a grey flexible hose that runs into a drain hole in the wall, about 4 feet high from the floor. It's a Sears HE washer. I measured from the basement walls then measured upstairs, and the drip seems to be closer to the washer than the sink, but hard to tell.

[geniescience]

... flexible hose that runs into a drain hole in the wall, about 4 feet high from the floor....a p trap for the washer is at the bottom of that pipe.

it could be leaking. Wait until you eliminate the water supply as a possible source. I guess the sink p trap isn't leaking, since you said it is dry.

you turned off the washer supply. Has the leak stopped?

david

[alleycat]

husband returned home from the football game and determined that my measuring was off (-:
we pulled out the insulation in the ceiling and found that the leak seems to have come from the bathroom, situated about 5 feet away from the washer/slop sink. I didn't use the sink/toilet in that bathroom all day, so it's still a mystery; water was coming from a drilled hole in the ceiling where the water supply line to the toilet runs, and also seeping through the plywood about 5 inches away from that hole. There was about a 1/4 cup of water in the bucket this morning, but the dripping has stopped.
Plumber is coming Thursday for some other work so we'll have him take a peek.