Emergency Plumbing Guides
These guides exist to be useful before you hire anyone. Several of them tell you how to fix something yourself, when to wait until morning, or when to call the city instead of us.
What to do right now
Do these first. None of them need tools or plumbing knowledge, and they limit what this ends up costing you.
Stop and get out if any of these are true
Water has reached anything electrical and you cannot cut power from a dry position, or sewage has entered living space. In either case leave the area, do not touch switches, and call from outside.
- Shut off the water at the mainIn most Ogden homes the main shutoff is where the supply line comes through the foundation wall, usually in the basement or crawlspace on the street side, often near the meter or the water heater. Turn it clockwise. If it will not move, do not force it, because an old gate valve can snap.
- Shut off the valve at the fixtureMost toilets and sinks have their own shutoff on the wall or under the basin. It turns clockwise. That isolates the problem without taking water off the whole house.
- Move what water can ruinLift boxes, rugs, electronics and anything sitting on a basement floor. Most of the cost of a plumbing emergency is damage to belongings rather than the repair itself.
- Photograph everything before you clean upPhotos and a short video of the water, the source and every damaged item. If you claim on insurance this is the evidence, and it cannot be recreated once the area is dry.
Does this need a plumber tonight?
- Water escaping that you cannot stop
- Sewage in living space
- No water during freezing weather
- Water near anything electrical
- The water is off and nothing is getting worse
- A single slow fixture with the rest working
- A contained drip in a bucket
Start here if something is happening right now
The two most useful pages on this website are how to shut off your water and whether what you are looking at is actually an emergency. Nearly everything else follows from those two answers.
Shutting the water off is worth more than any other single action in a plumbing emergency, because almost all of what a leak costs you is damage rather than plumbing, and damage is a function of how long the water runs.
Knowing whether it is genuinely urgent is worth almost as much, in the other direction. A great deal of what gets sold as emergency plumbing is not, and paying emergency rates for a running toilet is money spent on nothing.
- How to shut off water to your house
- Is this a plumbing emergency?
- Can this wait until morning?
- What to do when a pipe bursts
- What to do if sewage backs up
- How to thaw a frozen pipe safely
- When to call the city instead of a plumber
- An emergency plumbing checklist for before it happens
What this work costs
[PLACEHOLDER: PRICING] Pending from the client.
Access and scope drive the price. You hear the number and agree to it before work starts.
Questions people ask about this
Are these guides trying to sell me something?
Several of them actively tell you not to call. That is deliberate. A homeowner who was told the truth at midnight is a homeowner who calls back.
Can I really do this myself?
Some of it. Shutting off water, clearing a hair blockage, replacing a toilet flapper, thawing an accessible pipe. Each guide is explicit about where the homeowner part stops.
What should I read before anything goes wrong?
The shutoff guide and the checklist. Both take one calm afternoon and they are the difference between a manageable incident and an expensive one.
If that is not quite what you have
- How to shut off water to your house
- Is this a plumbing emergency?
- Can this wait until morning?
- What to do when a pipe bursts
- What to do before the plumber arrives
- Emergency plumbing checklist
- What to do if sewage backs up
- How to thaw a frozen pipe safely
- How to prevent frozen pipes in Utah
- At what temperature do pipes freeze?
- Signs a frozen pipe is about to burst
- Can a plumber thaw frozen pipes?
- How to shut off a leaking water heater
- When to call the city instead of a plumber
- Who is responsible for the sewer line?
- Why does my sewer keep backing up?
Not sure how urgent this is?
Describe what you can see and hear. We will tell you whether it needs someone tonight, and what to do in the meantime either way.
Emergency line: [PLACEHOLDER: PHONE]
Or send it over
Four things and a photo.