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Engineers Stumped Over Random Pinhole Pipe Leaks Plaguing Folsom Homes

FOLSOM (CBS13) — Copper pipes are leaking at random in Folsom and no one knows why. The problem involves more than 200 people now and it's costing some of them thousands of dollars to repair.

City engineers have never seen this before — the sheer quantity of homes experiencing pinhole leaks.

Mary Garrido discovered a leak in her garage pipes early Wednesday afternoon.

"We had water dripping all through our garage and soaking boxes and things," she said.

Garrido has already seen others fall victim.

"I immediately yelled an expletive - pinhole leak because I knew immediately," Garrido said.

For Mary, this just made a mess. But others are shelling out thousands in repairs. Even ceilings have caved in.

"There's no way to know or predict if it's going to happen in our house again," Garrido said.

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The city of Folsom is scrambling to figure out the issue. Engineers have discovered three trends about these leaks: they're happening on the cold water line on horizontal pipes in homes built between 1980 and early 2000.

"The majority of the leaks have been one piece of pipe or one stick of pipe," said Marcus Yasutake with the Folsom Environmental and Water Resources Department.

Yasutake said the city is having water quality analyzed and samples taken from pipes affected. He said the water is safe and meets state and federal standards.

"All the testing and all the sampling and all the results don't point towards an public health safety concern," Yasutake said.

But neighbors like Mary are disturbed by what they can see in their pipes and taste in their water.

"If there's already been that many leaks just in the past few days...something is accelerating this," Garrido said.

As part of the study on this problem, the city is also looking into how these pipes were installed. They are hoping to give eager residents answers by mid-September.

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