Plumbing hack or scam?

Alright, let’s talk about this little product called Aquapea and whether it’s something that should even be in a plumber’s toolkit. Spoiler alert: probably not. Here’s the deal. Aquapea is marketed as a quick fix for pinhole leaks, but from what I’ve seen in testing, it just doesn’t live up to the hype.

There are three main ways to fix a slab leak—either you tunnel under the slab, bust through the floor, or reroute the lines through the walls or overhead. Now, these methods work. They’re tried and true. But there are so-called plumbers out there using products like Aquapea to try and patch leaks without doing any real plumbing work.

The idea behind Aquapea is that you pop this little epoxy ball into the pipe, and it’s supposed to plug the leak from the inside. It comes in four sizes for four different leak sizes. Sounds like a neat little shortcut, right? Well, maybe not.

I tested 2 different sizes. In order to test this, I drilled a hole in a pipe, filled it with water to simulate a leak, and dropped in the Aquapea. In the first test, it plugged the leak at first, but once I disconnected the pipe and there was no more water pressure, the little ball fell right out.

The second test, it filled it for a minute, but then water started trickling out again, and when I looked closer, the epoxy ball had either slipped out or water was leaking around the edges. And I only got it to go into the hole to begin with by banging on the pipe. On the third test, I couldn’t even get the epoxy to stay in place at all.

The instructions say you’re supposed to knead this little epoxy ball before putting it in the pipe. But here’s the thing—it didn’t even mix properly. And there’s a solid little bead in the middle of the epoxy that doesn’t seem to do much of anything. The whole process left me confused. Am I supposed to shake the pipe to get this thing to work? Because that’s what these guys in the video were doing—shaking and rattling the pipe like they were trying to coax the ball into place.

Let me tell you, if you’re crawling under a house to fix a leak, the last thing you want to be doing is messing around, hoping this little bead will magically land in the right spot. And you definitely won’t have the room to be shaking pipes. It’s unreliable, and worst of all, if this epoxy ball gets stuck in your line, it could cause bigger problems down the road. Imagine getting a call back from a homeowner because the Aquapea you used clogged up their kitchen faucet or a hose bib. Now you’ve got an even bigger mess to deal with.

We’re talking about a $75 product that might work temporarily, but then you’re left with epoxy floating around in the system. Not exactly what I’d call a reliable fix.

Look, plumbing is about doing the job right the first time and every time. If you’ve got a slab leak or any kind of pinhole leak, the proper fix is to repair or reroute the line. Products like Aquapea are just shortcuts that don’t really solve the problem long-term. You might get lucky and it’ll hold for a little while, but more often than not, you’ll be dealing with a call back and a bigger headache. And that’s if you get it to hold at all.

So, next time someone tries to sell you on the idea of using Aquapea or any other gimmicky leak-fix product, ask yourself: Do you want a quick band-aid that’ll fail eventually, or do you want a permanent fix that won’t cause you trouble later? My advice? Stick to tried-and-true methods that get the job done right each and every time.