Yes, Slab Leak Repair (jack hammering the slab up and fixing a broken water pipe) can make a mess, but not normally.

The mess can be made by:

• An inexperienced plumber
• Failure to use drop cloths
• Failure to use plastic barrier sheeting
• Carelessness
• The location of the leaking pipe

No matter what the reason for the mess, it shouldn't be there when the plumbing is completed.

An inexperienced plumber

An inexperienced plumber is the number one cause of a mess in the home. This plumber will use the wrong equipment to locate the leak causing multiple attempts of finding the leak in the walls and under the concrete. This plumber also typically buys there tools at the cheapest places possible. I have seen a plumber using a jack hammer that blows the air that cools the electrical windings on the motor directly on the floor in the work area. This poor design of jack hammer blows dirt all over the home.
Failure to use drop cloths

Before any walls are opened up and before any flooring is penetrated the area surrounding the manifolds in the wall and the leaking pipe should be covered with drop cloths. This just makes common sense.

Failure to use plastic barrier sheeting

Plastic sheeting is not always used and is not always needed when opening up walls and floors. It really depends on the concrete as to whether or not a containment area is needed. If the concrete is dry, the area needs to be contained. If the concrete is wet from the slab leak the area will not produce dust so containment plastic sheeting is not needed.

Carelessness

Mixing the concrete patch material in the home is a sure sign of carelessness. The Portland cement dust will get everywhere. Leaving doors and windows open to spread the dirt through the home is a poor way to keep it clean. The air conditioning and heating system should be off during this procedure as they tend to move air and moving air can carry dust along with it. The object is to have a very small, very clean hole for minimal patching.

The location of the leaking pipe

We are finishing up a job today in Garden Grove that involved a slab leak that another comp any came in and quoted at between five and six thousand dollars. It was a complicated job, but how much profit margin does a comp any really need? I think that they bid the job so ridiculously high because they didn’t really want to do it. The leak was in a very bad location. It was underneath a cast iron tub on the shared wall of a condominium. To reroute the line we would have to open the wall in the neighbor’s unit. That is not a very viable option. The solution was to tunnel from one carpeted room under the tub lengthwise (about 7 feet total) and come up in the room past the bathroom which had a tile floor.

The hole needed to be a couple feet big on one side and couple of feet big on the other side. This does make a mess. It is a lot of concrete to break up, remove and replace. We moved everything out of the two rooms (There wasn’t much as the owners were just moving into this condominium. They hadn’t even owned it for 30 days.) We fished a new line under the bathroom and managed to get their home warranty company to pay their homeowner’s deductible. They are back up and running after two days, but the tile in the one room still needs to be replaced. That will take another couple of days. It is an inconvenience and replacing a room full of tile is messy, but it was the best route to take under the circumstances.