Best way to find leak quickly...

[flyerphann]

This afternoon i went down to laundry room and slipped on a decent
size pool of water. One bath towel cleaned it up, but enough that things
weren't just wet, there was standing water. The water was between
the hot water heater and AC unit, and so i'm trying to figure out which
is the problem without waiting too long...both are less than 5 years old,
hot water heater is only 2 so i'm hoping that's not the problem.

I checked all pipes above and none were wet, except for the AC condensation
one did have some dampness shortly after it comes out of the front of the
unit...it would seem hard to believe that much water would come from that,
and none is in the 'catch tray' beneath the unit, tho the part that seemed
wet wasn't over the tray...

My only plan is to put towels down and see if i can diagnose off which gets
wet first...but there must be something smarter than that...

 

[flyerphann]

update: took hot shower, no water around hot water heater...is some water in bucket I put beneath p-trap in condensation drain coming out of the ac unit...so I'm hopeful that's the problem and not HWH...

so any tips on stopping leaks in plastic joints of p-trap would be great. I have waterproofing spray, but that doesn't seem right. Normally I'd use the tape stuff, but don't seem like threaded connections...

 

[phishfood]

It is probably condensation forming on the outside of the condensate drain, instead of a leak in the piping itself. If so, insulating the drain pipe should fix the problem.

 

[flyerphann]

doesn't feel like condensation. I think whatever water is sitting in the
trap pipe is just leaking out...even with the a/c off this afternoon, I'm still getting the pvc being wet at one of the joints (at least one)

attaching pic of what things look like with what comes out going down to p-trap. lot of little pipe pieces, I'm thinking they just didn't do a good job during install...

 

[johnjh2o]

Are you sure the line isn't plugged?

 

[flyerphann]

not 100 percent.

when i look down the one open part that sticks up, it doesn't look full, and i see 'some' water pass thru when i pull the cap off and pour water down thru. I could probably do the wet-vac trick i've seen people do and see if that helps as well.

 

[CT18]

See if you can pull all that piping apart, i have seen some not glued. If it is not glued and you glue it be careful, sometimes the glue will get in condo pump and clog it. You can pour some water in the piece that is not connected to see if it is clogged.

 

[flyerphann]

thanks. yeah, appears some pieces are glued and some not...course,
brilliant me even chipped one of the coupling pieces that wasn't glued taking it apart, tho doesn't seem to be leaking there now. luckily water flows downhill and the piece going into the joint goes far enough.

blew pipe out with some compressed air, still a little bit of water (not much), so at this point gonna call in someone who knows more than me.