What to Do Before the Plumber Arrives

The first 2 minutes: stop the water

Water damage is measured in minutes, not litres. Almost everything expensive about a burst flexible hose or a split pipe happens in the time between the failure and someone closing a valve, so this comes before the phone call, not after it.

There are 3 levels of isolation, and using the smallest one that works keeps the rest of the house in water while you wait.

1. The fixture stop tap. Under a basin, a vanity or a toilet cistern there is usually a small chrome tap on the supply line. Turn it clockwise. That isolates the fixture and nothing else.
2. The mains tap. In the water meter box at the front boundary, on the house side of the meter. A straight lever is a ball valve and needs a quarter turn. A T-shaped handle or a round wheel turns clockwise, and the wheel needs several full turns.
3. The hot water unit. Its own cold water inlet has an isolating valve, usually at the top of the unit. Closing that stops a leaking tank refilling itself.

Confirm it worked rather than assuming. Open the garden tap at the front of the house: the flow should fall away and stop within a few seconds. Never force a handle that will not move, because an old brass stem that snaps cannot be closed at all, and at that point only SA Water can stop the water.

Make it safe: power, gas and standing water

The second job is making sure nobody gets hurt while waiting. These take under a minute between them.

• Water near electricity. If water is running near a power point, a downlight or across a floor you have to walk over, switch off the relevant circuit at the switchboard. If the switchboard itself is wet, do not touch it and call an electrician.
• Electric hot water. If the tank is leaking or has drained, switch off its circuit breaker. An element left energised in an empty tank burns out in minutes and turns a repairable unit into a replacement.
• Gas. If you can smell gas, turn it off at the meter, open doors and windows, do not operate any switch or appliance, and get everyone outside before making the call.
• Ceilings. Plasterboard bulging with water is a collapse risk. Stay out of that room and keep children and pets out of it.
• Standing water. It is slippery, and if it has come back up through a floor waste or a gully it is waste water and a health issue. Keep everyone out of it and do not run any appliance that discharges into a drain that is already backing up.

Photograph it before you clean it up

The instinct is to mop. Take 60 seconds of photographs first, because once the water is gone the evidence is gone with it, and a home insurance claim turns on evidence and timing.

• Wide shots showing the room and how far the water travelled, then close shots of the source.
• The failed component itself where it is visible: the split flexible hose, the corroded fitting, the gully surcharging in the yard.
• A short video with the sound on if water is still running. It dates and evidences the event better than any still image.
• The water meter reading, if a hidden leak is suspected. A reading now and a reading in an hour with every tap off is the fastest proof a leak exists.
• Written notes: when it started, what you did, and in what order. Made at the time, they are worth far more than a recollection 3 weeks later.

Most home policies treat a sudden escape of water differently to a gradual leak, so the first question an insurer asks is when it started and how quickly it was stopped. Keep the photographs with the plumber's invoice and any written report. Together they answer the claim in a single email.

Clear the access, because this is the part you control

This is the single biggest thing you can do for the visit. Time on site is what you are paying for, and clearing the access yourself removes 10 or 15 minutes of it before anyone picks up a tool. On the narrow allotments through Goodwood, Unley, Black Forest and Norwood, access is frequently the difference between a comfortable job and an awkward one.

• Empty the cupboard under the sink or vanity. The cleaning products, the bin and the bucket all have to come out before anyone can get their head and shoulders in there.
• Find the water meter and clear the lid: leaves, soil, mulch, and whatever has been parked on top of it.
• Unlock the side gate. On a typical inner-south block the sewer inspection point, the hot water unit and the gas meter are all down the side passage.
• Uncover the overflow relief gully if you know where it is. It is the grated riser near the back or side of the house, and on older properties it is often hidden under a pot plant, a paver or a garden bed added decades later.
• Secure the dog. No slight on the dog: it is a plumber crouched at ground level with an open bag of tools.
• Leave a parking space out the front where you can. Streets through the inner south fill up, and a truck carrying a jetter needs to be near the job rather than around the corner.
• Clear the path to the switchboard and to the hot water unit, including anything stacked against them.

Have these details ready when you call

A precise 30 seconds on the phone decides which parts are on the vehicle when it arrives, and that decides whether the job finishes on the first visit.

• What is happening in plain terms: which fixture, how long it has been going on, and whether water is running right now.
• Whether it affects the whole house or a single point. That answer changes the diagnosis more than anything else you can say.
• The rough age of the house. A 1920s bungalow and a 2015 townhouse fail in completely different ways, and the plumber is already narrowing it down as you speak.
• For hot water: the brand, the model and the date off the compliance plate on the side of the unit. Photograph the plate and send the picture through.
• For a blocked drain: whether the overflow relief gully outside is surging, and whether more than a single fixture is affected. Those 2 answers separate a local blockage from a main sewer blockage.
• Anything that recently changed: a new bathroom, a new dishwasher, a landscaping job, a tree taken out, a driveway poured. The trigger is usually the last thing that changed.
• The address with a cross street, and where to park.

What not to do while you wait

• Do not pour drain cleaner into a blocked drain. Caustic product sits in the standing water rather than reaching the blockage, it will not touch a root mass or a collapsed pipe, it attacks older pipework, and it burns the person who opens the line. It also coats a camera lens, which is how a supermarket product turns into a delayed diagnosis.
• Do not keep flushing a blocked toilet to see whether it has cleared. Every flush puts several more litres into a pipe with nowhere to put them.
• Do not plunge a toilet that is already full to the rim.
• Do not run the washing machine, the dishwasher or a long shower while any drain is backing up. All of it discharges into the same line, and the surplus comes up at the lowest point in the house.
• Do not dismantle a tap or a cistern you cannot reassemble. A dripping tap can wait until Tuesday. A tap in pieces cannot, and a job that could have been booked in has just become an after-hours call-out.
• Do not tamper with a hot water unit's relief valve or with any gas appliance. Both are licensed work, and both are licensed work for good reasons.
• Do not clean up waste water without gloves. Sewage carries bacteria and it is not an ordinary spill.

By emergency: the 60 second version

The whole list takes about 10 minutes and it pays twice. The visit is quicker, and the price is agreed with you before any work starts, so there is nothing to find out at the end. Marc texts an arrival time before setting off, so you know exactly when to have the gate unlocked, the cupboard emptied and the dog inside.

Questions we get asked

References

• SA Water: report a leak or a fault, and meter responsibility
• Government of South Australia: gas safety and the Office of the Technical Regulator
• Standards Australia: AS/NZS 3500 Plumbing and Drainage