A burst pipe floods your walls. Sewage backs up into your home. A gas smell means danger. These aren't things to wait on, and you shouldn't have to. Call us right now, any hour, and we answer.
Find the shut-off where the meter enters your house, usually near the street or in a front-corner cabinet. Turn the handle clockwise until it stops. This stops water from pouring into your home while we drive over. If you can't locate it or it won't budge, skip this and call us instead.
Turn on the lowest faucet in your home, usually a basement or ground-floor sink. This lets trapped water drain out after you shut the main valve off. Open a hose bib outside too if you can reach one safely.
Don't turn on lights, appliances, or outlets within 10 feet of standing water. Wet electrical systems are serious. If you smell gas, leave the house right away and call 911 from your car or a neighbor's place. Do not use your phone inside if you smell gas.
Grab rugs, documents, furniture, and anything that can be damaged. Push it to a dry room. This takes five minutes and saves you later.
Let fresh air move through the house. This helps with moisture and smell while we're on the way.
When a plumber gets to your house, the first thing we do is find the source of the water or the leak. If we don't know where it's coming from, we can't stop it. We'll look at the burst pipe, the flooded slab, the backed-up drain, or the gas line that's leaking. Then we shut off water to that specific line if the main valve didn't do it, or we pinpoint the gas leak and isolate it. We bring heavy-duty equipment: wet vacs, dehumidifiers, line locators, and repair supplies. Our job is to stop the emergency right now, explain what happened, and tell you what comes next.
Not every plumbing issue is an emergency. A slow drain is annoying and should be fixed soon, but it's not urgent. A drippy faucet wastes water and money, call in the next day or two. A water heater that's dead means no hot shower, which is miserable but not dangerous. An emergency is water or gas pouring out, sewage backing into your home, a visible leak inside walls or under your foundation, or a smell of gas. These things cost you money every hour they continue. Mold and rot start in wet walls within days. Gas is a hazard. If you're not sure, call anyway. We'd rather tell you it can wait than have you ignore something serious.
Pacific Grove and the surrounding coast get steady moisture from the marine layer. Older homes around Monterey and Carmel especially can have corroded pipes inside walls or slab leaks that show up as soft spots or dark stains on concrete. If you see any of those signs, don't wait for a burst. Call us for a camera inspection and leak detection. We can see inside pipes without breaking open your walls. Same thing if you notice your water bill jumped or you hear running water when nothing's on. Both are signs of a hidden leak that will turn into an emergency if ignored.
We're licensed and insured. We answer the phone in less than a minute during the day and night. Once you describe the problem, we tell you honestly whether we can get there in 45 minutes or if you need to call another crew in San Jose or Santa Cruz. We don't quote a price until our plumber sees the actual damage. Before we do any work, we go over what we found and what it costs so you can decide. No surprises. Call now.
Nights, weekends and holidays cost the same as Tuesday morning. Call (831) 555-0128 and a Pacific Grove plumber picks up.