What Is Considered a True Plumbing Emergency?: Insight from Your Trusted Katy, TX Plumber

7/21/2020

Photo By posteriori at istock

The COVID crisis has taught us anything, it should be that we take a lot of things in life for granted. A lot of people are missing the small things that made up their day that is no longer attainable such as a coffee at the coffee house, a quiet evening at the library, or the ability to hug loved ones that don’t live within our immediate family. Hopefully, this experience will teach people to pay attention to smaller details.

While not quite as important as your loved ones, there is one thing in your home that most people don’t notice until it’s gone: running water. The average home takes for granted all the water running under their feet or up their walls at all times of the day. However, the minute something goes wrong with their plumbing system, they realize just how easy they have had it. Until you have had to call an emergency plumber in Katy, TX in the middle of the night you won’t be truly grateful for running water.

Similar to cars, most plumbing issues can be avoided by scheduling regular plumbing service visits and maintenance checks. An annual check is usually all it takes to stay ahead of plumbing issues so that you don’t wind up calling a plumber over the weekend. The problem is that your pipes don’t often have warning signs that flash to indicate there is an issue. Instead of getting a warning something may be wrong, homeowners find out when they have a clogged up drain or water bursting out of a pipe. That is why emergency plumbers exist.

Of course, some plumbing issues can wait until the end of the weekend or until the morning. If this is your first time experiencing an issue with your plumbing everything can easily feel like an emergency. It can be hard to sort out when you should call a plumber and when you should wait. Here are just a few examples of times that you absolutely should call an emergency plumber.

Clogged Drains

A partial blockage deserves a call to a plumber, but since some water can still pass through you can avoid using that drain or associated water fixture and wait to call a plumber. However, a clogged drain requires a call to a plumber right away. A blocked drain does not allow anything to pass, which means every time the water is used sewage and water will flow back into your home. Not only is this an unsanitary situation, but it means you can’t use any water in your home which turns it into an emergency. An emergency plumber should be able to clear the drain with standard equipment and get your system back into working order in a fairly efficient manner.

Broken Pipes

While this may seem like a no-brainer, some people still try to wait it out. If a water pipe bursts, then you have a lot of water suddenly flowing into your home. The very first thing you need to do is find the main shutoff valve and turn off all the water that is coming to your home. This is vital so that your home does not flood leaving you with an extensive amount of flood damage. Of course, stopping the flooding alone is not enough if you have to go an entire weekend before calling a plumber.

You need an emergency plumber to come out and replace the pipe so that you can get water back into your home. It is actually extremely unsafe to live without access to water, and you would likely find it harder than you think. Not only would you not be able to use water to cook or clean but won’t have a natural drinking source. You will not even be able to flush the toilet. It is worth that call to the plumber.

Broken Water Lines

Pipes can burst outside of your home just as easily as they can burst inside of your home, and they present the same types of issues. Some would argue this is even more of an issue to deal with since broken water lines outside of the home are dug into the ground. The costs of moving all the earth and replacing plumbing lines can quickly add up. Underground water lines have their own issues due to tree roots, natural corrosion, or breaking due to changes in weather temperatures affecting the soil. Your yard can quickly become flooded or even worse filled with sewage materials causing the entire area to stink as the sewage bakes in the Katy, TX sun. If you have any reason to think that an underground pipe has burst, you need to call an emergency plumber right away.

Potential Gas Leak

Gas is not something that you should ever play around with. If you think that you have a gas leak in your home the first thing you need to do is get you and your family outside of your home and to someplace safe. Once you do this, you need to call your utility company to turn off the gas at your residence and an emergency plumber to address the actual gas leak. Since gas is transferred into homes via pipes, a certified, professional emergency plumber is the only one that should repair the leak. When gas is involved it is never a DIY project, nor something that should wait.

If you are experiencing one of the above issues, then you need an emergency plumber in Katy, TX. bluefrog Plumbing + Drain of West Houston is a team of professional plumbers who can handle any situation in a quick and efficient fashion. Don’t live a minute longer without water than you need too, call our company and we will gladly come to your home and solve your plumbing issues.