Where the Numbers on This Site Come From

By Artistic Plumbing Editorial Desk · Published Sep 3, 2026 · Reviewed per our editorial policy

A slab leak page is mostly arithmetic and code text: gallons an hour, dollars a foot, what an inspector signs off on, what a policy says about concrete somebody had to break. Here is where those pieces come from and who checks them.

Two things go by that name here: a library of articles and a telephone number. No one producing the articles carries a plumbing license or has ever cut into a floor. The number goes to a licensed plumbing partner instead. Funding is itemized on how we make money, and whoever stands behind the byline is described on the about page.

Six kinds of source, and what each may settle

Federal agencies. USGS for water hardness, the NRCS soil survey for shrink-swell clay, EPA for household leak volumes and mold cleanup, EIA for the energy behind a hot line under concrete.
Model codes. The International Residential Code and the International Plumbing Code, read in the published text and not somebody's summary of it, for what may be buried under a slab and how it is protected.
State regulators. The Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners, the California Contractors State License Board, the Oklahoma Construction Industries Board. They settle which trade credential covers the job and where one gets verified, nothing about price.
Utility rates. The published price of a thousand gallons turns "the meter never stops" into a number on next month's bill.
Industry bodies. The Copper Development Association on tube types and pinhole corrosion, the Post-Tensioning Institute on slabs with cables in them, the Insurance Information Institute on policy structure.
Cost aggregators. Angi, HomeGuide and comparable marketplaces appear for one job only, price bands, always attributed and always tagged with the year the sample was taken. Never for a technical claim.

Attribution sits in the line, not in a footnote

No number appears here without its publisher standing next to it inside the same clause. Checking one should cost a reader a click, not an afternoon of hunting.

Costs appear as bands carrying the year they describe. One averaged number would bury what actually sets the bill: a leak reached through a hallway slab and one reached from a tunnel under the footing are separate jobs at separate prices. Where no credible body publishes a figure at all, the claim gets deleted rather than softened. A number with no publisher behind it is not a fact.

A code minimum is a floor, not a measurement

Code language is reported as what the code demands, never as a description of the house you are standing in. The IRC sets three and a half inches as the minimum thickness for a concrete slab-on-ground floor. That is a rule for building, not a measurement of your hallway, where the pour may be thicker or may predate the edition cited.

So these pages write "the code requires" and stop. Same for cover over buried pipe, sleeving, and materials permitted under a slab. Editions get adopted state by state and amended locally, so the model code is named and the jurisdiction question is left open rather than faked.

Safety and insurance run on quoted wording

Two subjects here can cost a reader a house or a claim, so both run on quotation, not interpretation.

Emergency instructions are not paraphrased. If gas is smelled near a slab, the instruction printed here is the one utilities and fire departments give: everyone leaves the building first, and both calls, emergency services and the utility, are placed from outside. Standing water near live circuits, foundation movement and mold growth each go to the licensed trade that owns them.

Insurance works the same way. Policies turn on phrases like "sudden and accidental" discharge, and on whether access or tear-out of the concrete is covered at all. Those phrases are quoted from the state insurance department or the industry body that uses them, followed by the only honest next step: read your declarations page and call your adjuster. No page here forecasts that a carrier will pay.

AI writes the first pass; the checking is not automated

The first version of every page comes out of a language model. Printing that plainly is part of the arrangement here, not a concession tucked into small type. A draft becomes a page only after an editor runs one fixed pass over it.

Open each code citation and confirm the requirement says what the draft claims.
Walk every figure back to the body that issued it and check the year.
Hold each safety and insurance sentence against the regulator's own phrasing, verbatim.
Delete anything untraceable instead of hedging it.
Strike any line that reads as though this site performs plumbing work.

A desk signs these pages because a desk is what produced them, and the paragraphs above occupy the place a manufactured credential would otherwise fill.

The list of things that never run here

An author who does not exist, with a portrait, a biography, or unverifiable trade experience.
A license number, a bond, or a certification, none of which this publication holds.
Reviews, testimonials, star ratings, or rating markup in the page code.
A generated image passed off as a photograph of work this site performed.
One article rebuilt over and over with a different city name dropped into it.
Any suggestion that this site carries on from a plumbing company that once used a name like it. It does not, and shares nothing with one.

How the images are made

Every picture here is generated. Nobody drove out with a camera. The IPTC digital source field inside each file declares it synthetic, so any software reading it knows.

Captions and alt text stay literal: a moisture meter pressed to a baseboard, a low flow triangle turning on a water meter, a saw cut opened through concrete. None of it is offered as work this site performed, as a job some partner completed, or as somebody's actual house. Where a cutaway drawing teaches a buried line better than a photograph, the page draws it and says so.

Reporting a line that reads wrong

The fastest way to get an error repaired is to be specific: name the page, quote the disputed line word for word, and say what belongs there instead.

Write to help@artisticplumbing.net. What else helps a report land is set down on the contact page. Confirmed errors get corrected where the mistake sits, not in a footnote nobody reaches.

The date under a heading marks publication and nothing else. A revised stamp goes on only where the substance shifted: a price band recalculated, a citation re-read against the current code edition, a wrong line repaired. Otherwise it is left alone, since a date nudged forward under unchanged words exists for crawlers.