Just realized I seem to have leak between the water meter and the house. Under asphalt...

[CBme]

Noticed my last water bill seemed high and so I went back and noticed my usage yoy is 50-100% more than previous years for up to the last 7 months. Wonderful.. Shut off the house and the water meter kept going. Shut off the water before the meter and it stops.
Change is that about 45' of the length ~75' is under asphalt and the 20% is under big shrubs that would need to get ripped out.
Questions:
1. Is there a way to determine where the leak is in the length without digging it all up?
2. Where to look for folks who are experienced and quick with outdoor plumbing? (I'm in Kirkland)

Also, I turned off the water for a minute but then turned it back on as I started to think that the muddy water could come into the pipe wherever the break is so it might be better to continue to have positive pressure, especially given it looks like this has been happening for months so we may not suddenly have sink hole in the next few days. Thoughts?

 

[Jeff H Young]

leak detection, plumbing contractor. a lot of specialists in that line

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Jeff H Young]

leak detection company, plumbing contractor. some companys just do locating and inspection

 

[Terry]

Options are getting a leak detection company out to mark where the think the leak is, then find a plumbing company for the repair.
Or there are outfits that use what is called a mole, a device using air pressure to punch a new hole under that section of blacktop and pull a new water service pipe though. That way the paving stays intact.

 

[Mr tee]

I think leak detection is a waste of time/money because the whole line needs to be replaced. If it is leaking in one place the rest is on the edge of failure. As Terry noted there are ways of tunneling that would avoid damaging the asphalt.

 

[Fitter30]

Directional Drilling & Horizontal Boring​

 

[John Gayewski]

You should have someone bore a new line into your house then disconnect the old and connect the new. Sounds easy but it's expensive and sometimes a real pain. I'm working on a similar situation right now. We currently can't find the shut of for this house which makes it even worse.

 

[CBme]

Thanks everyone for the replies!

Searching for how to handle this is exceptionally difficult as the thousands of plumber listings are all about hot water heaters and internal plumbing. And I don't want to just start calling random plumbers who will claim they can figure it out, I want someone who has expertise in dealing with sort of "not-open-field" plumbing/repair. Extra complications as I'm part of a 4 unit townhouse/condo group and there is a line that comes in from the street within a few feet of mine and there are cable, phone, electrical, and gas all coming in through the same area (and there is runoff drain towards the surface and sewer lines deeper. So any trenching or trenchless may be extra challenging.

For the location, I decided to try to do that first as this is only a 21 year-old structure and the incoming pipe is copper (1 1/4"). So my assumption is the pipe failure isn't due to degradation, more likely that it is a connection point that failed, and if the failure is in one of the spots not under the asphalt, it should be a lot cheaper to dig up and repair than tearing up and repairing the asphalt or doing a whole new line. Either way, I'll at least know where the problem so I can get better estimates. I just had to repair an abs sewer pipe that cracked at the point it exits the house due to the external pipe having settled more than the house. So it is possible something similar happened. I've found someone who does location (Simply Leak Detection) and booked him though he can't come out until Wednesday.

The keywords you guys gave me (mole, horizontal boring, etc) are great as they can help narrow down my search for the repair part. But if you have any specific recommendations of folks you know in my area that can do this sort of thing, please let me know as I'm still in flailing-mode, sifting through endless google, angies list, yelp, etc results trying to find the right folks to give a quote.

 

[CBme]

Just an update in case anyone was curious or comes across this post in the future with a similar sounding issue. My initial guess was fortunately correct. There was a flexible pipe that connected to the copper after it exists the house (the best possible location for a leak to have happened in terms of ease of digging up for repair). It looks like the flexible pipe sunk more than the copper/foundation and added stress at the connection point that failed at the edge of the inserted copper pipe.

The location company/person (Simply Leak Detection) came in, hooked a customized air compressor up to the washer connection to pump in air. Then he has a mental spike hooked up to an amplifier device and headphones. He found it immediately and just spent another 20 mins verifying to make certain. Total cost was $460 and I feel was worth it to have certainty of next steps, especially as most plumbers I checked with would have had to call him, or someone like him, to verify where the leak was first anyway. I dug at that spot and found the leak. I'll just finish digging it out so a repair will only take a few minutes instead of hours.

https://imgur.com/GIwXmuO