When water is coming through the ceiling or the toilet is backing up into the bathroom, nobody thinks clearly, and that is normal. What you do in the first few minutes still decides a lot about how much gets ruined before a plumber ever shows up. Most of it comes down to knowing where a couple of valves are and what to stop doing. Read this once on a quiet day, then walk around the house and find the shutoffs, and you will be way ahead of the game when something does go wrong at the worst possible hour.
Find the main shutoff before you need it
The main shutoff stops all the water coming into the house, and it is the single most useful thing to know in a plumbing emergency. In a lot of homes it sits where the supply line enters the house, often on an outside wall near the front or in the garage. Some houses only have a shutoff at the meter, which usually sits in a box near the street and can take a meter key to turn.
Go find yours today, then try it. Turn it off and back on. Valves that have not moved in years can seize, and a main that will not turn while water is pouring through the house is its own emergency on top of the first one. If it is stuck, dripping at the stem or broken, that is worth fixing on an ordinary afternoon instead of finding out on the worst night of the year.
Show everybody in the house where it is, teenagers included, and keep whatever tool it needs close by. Working the handle once a year keeps it from freezing up again.
The water heater has its own valve
If the leak is coming from the water heater, you can usually stop it without shutting off the whole house. Look for the cold water line running into the top of the tank. It should have a valve on it, either a handle you turn or a lever you swing a quarter turn. Closing it stops new water from going into the tank.
That does not empty the tank. A heater leaking from the bottom will keep dribbling until what is inside runs out, so put a bucket or towels down and move anything you care about. On a gas heater, turn the control knob to off or pilot. On an electric one, flip its breaker off at the panel, because an element sitting in a tank that is draining can burn itself out.
A tank that has started leaking from the steel is finished. Once the immediate mess is handled, you are looking at a replacement, and you have a little time to talk it over with us instead of making a rushed decision standing in a puddle.
A sewage backup means stop using water
When sewage comes up through a floor drain, a tub or the lowest toilet in the house, the main line out to the street is blocked. Everything anybody uses in the house is now trying to go down a pipe that cannot take it, and the lowest opening is where it all comes out.
So stop. No flushing, no showers, no laundry, no dishwasher. Tell everybody in the house, because one more flush upstairs can push more of it out downstairs. Keep kids and pets away from it, and do not try to clean sewage up with your bare hands. If it is spreading toward things you care about, move them if you can do it without wading through.
Backups like to pick their moment. A main that slowly built up over months will often give out over a weekend with a house full of people. Our line answers around the clock for exactly that kind of call. More about what counts as urgent, and what can wait for daylight, is on our emergency plumbing page.
A gas smell means leave first, call second
A rotten egg smell in the house is a gas leak until somebody proves otherwise. Do not go looking for it. Do not flip light switches on or off, start a car in the garage, or use anything that might throw a spark. Get everybody out of the house, leave the door open behind you, and once you are well away from the building, call the gas company and then call us.
This is the one emergency where the phone call happens from the sidewalk. Gas does not need much to catch, and the first job is making sure nobody is inside if it does.
Once the gas company has made it safe, the leak itself still has to be found and fixed, whether it is at an appliance connection, a fitting or a line that failed underground. That is work we do. If you ever smell gas faintly near the water heater, the stove or the dryer, treat it exactly the same way and get out first. A faint smell is still a leak, and it is not worth sticking around to decide how bad it is.
What to say when you call the 24-hour line
Call and a person answers, day or night, and the first thing they will want to know is whether anything is still running. Tell us what is happening and where it is happening: water through the kitchen ceiling, sewage in the downstairs shower, a burst line in the garage. Say whether you found the main shutoff and got it closed, and whether you smelled gas at any point.
Then give us the address and the best number to reach you. If there is anything about getting in, a locked gate, a dog in the yard, a tight side yard, mention it. While you are still on the phone, we will often walk you through what to shut off or move before the truck leaves.
Same-day service is normal for us, and you will get a realistic window for when somebody can reach Highland rather than a hopeful one. Some jobs mean digging after dark under work lights, and we do that too. Our page on handling plumbing emergencies in Highland covers what happens once we are there.
What people ask in the middle of it
Should I call a plumber or the water company?
If the problem is on your side of the meter, like a burst pipe, a leaking water heater or a backed-up main, call a plumber. If water is bubbling up out of the street or the meter box itself, the water company needs to hear about it too. When you are not sure which side of that line it is on, call us and we will help you sort it out.
Is a slow leak an emergency?
Not usually in the middle-of-the-night sense, but it should not wait long either. A drip under a sink or a damp spot that keeps spreading is doing damage the whole time it runs. If you can shut off that fixture and nothing is pouring out, it can be a daytime call. If you cannot stop it, call right away.
What if I can’t find the main shutoff?
Check the outside walls near the front of the house and in the garage first, then look for the meter box out near the street. If nothing turns up, call us and describe the house. We can usually point you in the right direction over the phone, and once we are out there, we will show you where it is for next time.
If something is pouring, backing up or smells wrong right now, call the shop at (909) 888-8736. If it can wait until morning, send us a note and we will set up a time. Either way, a person is on the other end.