Common Plumbing Emergencies
Find what is happening in your house and go straight to it. Every page leads with what to do in the next sixty seconds before it says anything about hiring anyone.
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
Find your problem
Problems are grouped by what you can actually see, because that is what a homeowner knows at the moment something goes wrong. Nobody standing in water knows whether they have a lateral defect or a scaled cast iron branch.
The most common mistake at this point is treating a symptom as the problem. Water rising in a bath is not a bath problem. A toilet backing up while other drains are slow is not a toilet problem. Both are the main line, and the pages below say so.
If more than one fixture is affected by anything, that is the single most important thing to notice, and it changes what you should do next.
- Water leaking, from a ceiling, a wall, a basement or under a floor
- Sewage backing up into the house
- A pipe frozen or burst
- A toilet overflowing, backing up or not flushing
- Drains blocked, one or several
- No water, or a sudden loss of pressure
- A water heater leaking or flooding a garage
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
I do not know what my problem is.
Describe what you can see and hear when you call. Where the water is, whether it is clean or foul, whether more than one fixture is affected, and whether it is getting worse. Those four facts identify most problems.
More than one drain is slow. Does that matter?
It is the most diagnostic thing you can notice. It means the blockage is in the line they share rather than in any fixture, and you should stop using water in the whole house.
Is my problem urgent?
If water is escaping and you cannot stop it, sewage is in living space, or you have no water in freezing weather, yes. Almost everything else can wait until morning once the water is off.
If that is not quite what you have
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.