American Leak Detection of the East Bay

steve h.

The tech came in with only one small box of very old tools and he checked some lines on my pool and spa and there was one line left between the spa skimmer and the pump and the tech said he can not check it because the water is little dirty in the spa and he needs to plug the drain. What an excuse, he could have used other listening tools/devices to check the line or camera or something. When I called the office to tell them that there was one more line not checked, they said that they can send the tech again and I would be charged $180 an hour and I have to empty the spa. It would take only 5 minutes to check the line and they want to charge me $180 an hour.
What a ripoff, they want to charge a lot of money and use primitive tools that are 20 years old and they have none of the electronic devices,

Chris B.

Leslie's Pool Recommended American Leak Detection to me and I have informed them that their service to me was unacceptable and they should not recommend this ""mom and pop"" business. Though it appears they did find and repair the leak, the process was extremely painful and the associated problems were not rectified and the lead repair person was quite rude on being recalled to the site to explain the issues. I requested a significant refund for all the inconvenience and problems. All they would give me was $150 out of the $2250 paid and I was told to go to another source to repair the concrete patio to near original color. Since this is a ""mom and pop"" business they had to go to owner for any refund decisions and clearly did not have a corporate customer satisfaction protocol in place. I guess this is the problem with a micro-managed ""family"" business. So what were the problems after the Friday afternoon leak repair? 1: Despite assurances from multiple sources in their office, they were not even able to come close to a color match for the pool patio patch. Now we have a highly visible gray square patch on our 7 year old tan/brown salt finish pool patio. 2: The pool and spa lights did not work along with two outside connected outlets and American Leak Detection refused to return my calls over the weekend although I was highly concerned about the possibility of electrical shocks in the pool water with out of town visitors coming over the weekend along with our 2 and 4 year old grandchildren. I noticed that the pool breaker was tripped and well as an outlet GFI and they would not reset. My concern was that there was some sort of water introduced into the system perhaps around the underwater lights during leak detection. Two days later the electrical breakers were able to be reset which suggests to me that something had dried out that got wet. Three days later American Leak Detection informed me that their equipment had caused the circuit breakers in pool shed and GFI's to trip. They didn't bother to tell me this Friday or why they didn't reset the breakers or tell me that they couldn't be reset until something dried out or changed. It is still a mystery why 2 days later I could reset breakers but not before. 3: During the testing and repair process, they changed settings on Jandy activator valves. So when I turned pool on after repair drying, the spa immediately drained. I had no idea what was going on. After several hours of experimentation and searching for Utube videos, I was able to put the activator switches back into the correct positions. 4: Nobody would return my phone calls on Saturday and Sunday to help solve these problems (which could have involved safety issues). They need to have someone on call to solve weekend issues related to work they do on a Friday. Monday is not satisfactory but I guess this is what happens in a ""mom and pop' business where everything is micro-managed by the owners and there are no protocols in place. 5: After all this I called my pool/concrete contractor who installed the patio and he said ""why didn't you call me, I could have done the whole job for you and colored the concrete patch correctly?"" Good question, I didn't know how terrible the experience with American Leak Detection would be. I was told by Leslie's that they were the ""go to"" leak and repair company. If there is a next time I will call my patio contractor as I was very happy with their work. I just didn't know they could repair leaks. Now I know after over $2000 of work and a stressful weekend and a terrible looking cement patch.

L I.

I need zero stars for this company. Two complete idiots came to my home for an irrigation leak. One of these ""experienced"" morons kept telling me that the leak was under my driveway concrete 30 yards from the ""lake"" forming in my back yard. After an hour of complete rude nonsense and no digging in my yard I told them to get off my property. They charged me $375 for absolutely nothing. What do you know, I found it myself and I'm a 56 year old woman...... it was under the center of the ""lake"" in my yard. What a RIP OFF!!!!

Matt K.

We were referred to them because we potentially have a hot tub leak. We have called and emailed them multiple times for weeks-no response. Cleary they don't need the business or just have poor customer service. If this is indicative on how they communicate, they most likely are a poor company to use.

Robert A.

I will give this company two stars only because they successfully found the leaks, but DO NOT hire this company to do the repairs. They claimed they could do the repairs, but failed miserably.
American Leak Detection accurately found a leak from a broken pipe to my swimming pool after the Napa Earthquake in 2014. Therefore, when my pool was leaking water in late 2019, I called them again. They accurately diagnosed a leak where the skimmer box had separated from the pool. They said the skimmer box needed to be replaced and they claimed they could do the repair work. Booking them to do so was a terrible mistake on my part.
After a miscommunication on the start date, the repair technician arrived and began to jackhammer out the concrete around the old skimmer box to replace it. Through the course of casual conversation I learned that the ""technician"" had only been doing this sort of work for three weeks. After several days, the work was completed; although I had my concerns because the newly installed components were not level. When I called the office to voice my concerns, they promptly sent their ""lead technician"" who assured me that the slanting was necessary to make sure everything fit properly with my pool and existing piping. Knowing my pool was nearly 20 years old I accepted this explanation.
Nine months after this repair, the pool started leaking again. I once again called American Leak Detection asking for leak detection services. I identified myself on their voicemail as an existing customer, which must have sealed my fate. Multiple calls to them were never returned. To me, this can only mean that they knew the repair work was faulty and they had no intention of working with me again in any capacity.
I have been forced to retain a different pool repair vendor (who has been fantastic!). The new vendor was able to immediately identify where the repair work on the skimmer box was faulty and why it had failed. I paid American Leak Detection thousands of dollars for shoddy repair work that failed in a matter of months. Now, I'm forced to pay to have the work done all over again. DO NOT hire this organization for repair work!

Changhui D.

When my water meter kept turning (red triangle), my long-term plumber strongly recommended American Leak Detection. I called the Easy Bay office as I live in Fremont, and I was promptly scheduled. Luis came and did a very thorough job. Super nice dude. He identified the center and area of the leak. My plumber came today and dug out the dirt. We saw the leak that was very close to where Luis marked. Great job!

Twila B.

Luis G from American Leak Detection took ten minutes to find the plumbing leak, after two others tried and failed. He was professional, efficient and courteous. His customer service and people skills are excellent! I highly recommend the company to anyone who wants the job done efficiently the first time!
Twila Brown, Hercules

Lewis W.

They rearranged their schedule to accommodate me. That was very nice of them. They are on the high side. $ 495.00 for the first 2 hours. They didn't even go in the water to check the structure of the pool. I told him where I believe the two leaks were. He verified one but didn't bother looking at the one at the hot tube. He said If the leak was there before , it's probably still bad. I received the report back from them within a day. Great service.

Laura J.

These bozos will keep you hanging for days with no communication only to be happy to charge you for a dive which they offered but indicated I would be on my own to do any repairs - what? So unless you plan on doing your own repairs, I would find another company. Their rates are extraordinarily high and customer communication is minimal at best.

After essentially no communication for a week - they start calling/emailing immediately after I posted this review. Other reviewers have noted that they were contacted by Am Leak Detection after posting poor reviews and the company asked them to change their reviews - that completely defeats the purpose of Yelp reviews. Joe - who repeatedly tried to contact me after this posting should spend his energy working on increasing his location's customer service instead of the hours of time invested in responding to poor Yelp reviews.

Don't waste your money as there are other much more competent companies around

Dustin M.

First a few things need to be said about the need for this service and the industry In General

Pool owners' ""want and need""
* anyone with an older pool should have the underground plumbing tested- no debate
** If there is a leak (concrete deck or plaster cracking, chemical loss...) it's important to get a professional eye on the project. They can dive the pool and check difficult problem areas without draining the pool.
*** Pool owners should want to know about the health of their property, and be conservative about the expenses of ownership.
**** The process is interesting

Industry
* Manipulative. It's not you, the customer. It's profit motivation and efficiency for the business- not geared for the customer. They have set up the system for customers who don't understand their pools and they're thusly unwilling or incapable (both?) of the bravery and creativity it takes to be truly customer oriented.
** Knowledgeable pool owners will be frustrated. You have to pay for it eventually, so they've got you by the short hairs- FOR NOW
*** Eventually, someone will figure it out and turn the industry around. I would hope that a conscientious business would have already done it, but ""free market"" blah blah blah... (shrugging)

American Leak Detection
* outside of the above- they get a good rating for being responsive, professional, and competitively priced
** Their technician in Brentwood, Don, is one of the few reasons they get a positive review from me.
*** Brian, the office manager, is the other. I pressed him fairly hard. He was professional where others might have been otherwise. He was unable if not underpowered to do anything about my request to test a portion of my pool and make it a customized/ financially intelligent option. As a result, I paid twice as much as I ""needed"" to and the tech was involved for 3X longer than he needed to be.
But again... the industry is not set up for efficiency

Use ALDetection
In my opinion, They're the best service in the group

Good luck!