The water workers found the leak today. They came roughly around 10:30 AM this morning and started hammering the tiles where the water and sewage pipes are located. After about 2 hours of digging, they found the pipes. Turned out there were three of them. We never expected to see the third pipe.
One of the workers went upstairs to turn the water valve back on. Immediately we saw the leak. All of our water was leaking from the third water pipe. One of the workers started to ask me a question pointing outside. He wanted to know if this pipe lead outside. At that moment, I remember that there was an outside water faucet when we had a gate. it was removed when they took my gate down. Bingo!!!
My housemate, an engineer, than explained to me what happened. When they removed the water faucet, the water had no where to go. Yeah they blocked it but this leak existed before they removed the outside water faucet. How do I know, my old housemate and I lost water over two years ago. Also, when I left Saigon, I would always turn the water off but when I got home, there was no water in my house. Before I left for the US last August, I turned the water off. I decided to shower before I left but was surprised that no water was left.
It had all leaked underground.
The vibration from the construction on the canal definitely made the leak bigger. Looking at my water bill, the increase of water started before Tet. I normally used 4000 litters a month.
My housemate did find a small sink hole where the water was draining but it was not that big. The water workers ended up filling it with dirt. They sealed the third pipe and will check on it tomorrow. As of now, the ground water pump has not gone off.
(Water workers starting to remove the floor tile to get to the water pipes)
(They raised my floor so they had a lot of soil to go through)
(The water leak from the small water pipe)
(My landlord and I forgot about this water pipe which was the culprit for the leak)