A plumbing emergency is one of the most dreaded homeowner’s nightmares. The sheer chaos and damage even a tiny leak can cause is enough to make everyone a bit nervous as soon as they notice their pipes are leaking. Flooding can occur both as a result of bad plumbing and natural disasters.
What’s important is that you remain calm and know how to act during a plumbing emergency. We spoke to the Swanson Services Of New Mexico plumbing experts, who were kind enough to offer a few pieces of invaluable advice.
Evacuate Your Home
The first thing you should do is make sure that everyone in your household is out of harm’s way. Once you’ve done this, shut off the water valve immediately to stop the flow of water into the house. It’s also recommended that you call 911 if it’s safe to do so and let them know about your problem, as well as give them your address.
If there are electrical appliances near your home, be careful not to touch anything before disconnecting these appliances from their power sources first. Finally, turn off any electrical equipment near the leaks, such as dishwashers or washing machines.
Prevent More Damage
If you notice flooding on your floor or on some other surface, you should do what you can to dry them out. Open doors and windows around your house if possible to allow for airflow and remove as much water from surfaces as possible using towels or rags.
Put the removable debris in a bucket with a lid if possible. This precaution will be most helpful when it comes time to inspect your home for mold damage, which takes place after the emergency has been dealt with.
Call An Experienced Plumber
Once everything is safe and under control, contact a reputable plumber and see if they can come right over to take care of the problem at hand. Sometimes, plumbers might not pick up their phones because of their busy schedules, so keep trying.
Find What’s Causing The Problem
Once you’ve cleaned up as much of the damage as possible, you will need to inspect your home for what caused the plumbing emergency in the first place. It could be a tree root or broken pipe or even something entirely different so finding the source is vital if you want to prevent this from happening again in the future.
If you’re unsure about how to handle it yourself, contact someone who has experience with this kind of thing, and they might be able to help. You can also choose to hire an experienced plumber if you don’t think that doing DIY repairs is suitable for your situation. This will also allow them to assess the damage properly, give you an estimate on repair work needed, and they might even be able to fix your problem for you the same day.
Clean Up And Repair
After everything has been taken care of, it’s time to clean up the mess left behind by water damage. This means not only mopping the floors but washing all surfaces with disinfectants or natural cleaning products if no mold was found in your home during an inspection.
Plumbers are competent experts, but they will appreciate it if you remove obstacles preventing them from doing their job faster. For example, moving furniture around is annoying and takes time away from repairing leaks, so do what you can to make life easier for everyone involved in this process or look for Man and Van Services Near Croydon to move your stuff around.
Once repairs have finished, take the necessary steps to ensure that any future plumbing emergencies are taken care of. This might mean investing in a better plumbing system or hiring someone to make regular checkups on your plumbing systems.
