How to Handle the First Ten Minutes of a Water Leak
Why this matters
A failed supply line keeps pouring water at full house pressure, which can be several gallons a minute, until someone closes a valve. Almost all the damage from a sudden leak is decided in the first few minutes: how fast the water is stopped, whether anyone walks into water that has reached electricity, and whether the things that cannot be replaced get moved. Plumbers and insurers both deal with what is left afterwards. This card is the order of moves for the part that is yours, with one evening's leak followed through it minute by minute.
The order matters more than the speed. Electricity first, then water, then belongings, then photos, then phone calls. People who reverse the first two get hurt; people who reverse the last two get less help from their insurer.
Step 1: Decide where you can safely stand
Before you reach for any valve, look at where the water is going.
- Water near outlets, cords or plugged-in appliances, such as a washer, a freezer or a floor lamp, or water coming out of a ceiling light: do not walk into that water or reach past those things.
- Water near the electrical panel or rising in a basement where the furnace, water heater or outlets sit at floor level: stay out of that area entirely and call the electric utility, which can cut power at the meter from outside.
- Water near electricity but the panel is in a dry place: turn off the breaker for the wet area, or the main if you cannot tell which breaker. See related: How to Shut Off Power at Your Electrical Panel.
- Water that is clean supply water, from a pipe, a hose or a tank: this card applies. Water from a toilet with waste in it, or coming up out of a floor drain, is a different event. See related: How to Handle a Sewer Backup in the First Hour.
What breaks if you skip it: the leak gets stopped thirty seconds sooner by someone standing in water with a live outlet beside the valve.
Step 2: Close the nearest valve that stops the water
Use the valve closest to the leak if you can reach it safely. That keeps water running to the rest of the house.
- Under a sink: the two small valves on the hot and cold lines.
- Behind a toilet: the one valve on the wall or floor near its base.
- Behind a washer: usually a hot and a cold valve, sometimes a single lever for both.
- Refrigerator ice maker: a small valve under the sink or behind the fridge.
- Water heater: the valve on the cold pipe going into its top.
Turn round handles clockwise until they stop. A lever handle is closed when it sits across the pipe rather than along it.
If the nearest valve is out of reach, will not turn, keeps dripping when closed, or you cannot tell where the water is coming from, go straight to the main water valve. See related: How to Close Your Main Water Valve and Fixture Stops. After closing the main, open the lowest faucet in the house, such as a basement or first-floor sink, to let the water left in the pipes drain there instead of out of the leak.
What breaks if you skip it: forcing a seized old valve with a wrench can snap it off, which turns one leak into two.
Step 3: If the main stays closed, turn the water heater down
If the main is going to stay closed for more than an hour or so, for example overnight until a plumber can come, set the water heater so it stops heating:
- Gas water heater: turn its control knob to the setting marked "Vacation" or "Pilot."
- Electric water heater: turn off its breaker at the panel (it is a tied double breaker, usually labeled).
Why: with no water coming in, any hot water drawn from a tap is not replaced. An electric heating element that comes on in a tank that is no longer full can burn out in moments, and a burner heating a closed tank with nowhere for expanding water to go can make the relief valve on its side open and discharge hot water. If the water heater itself is what is leaking, set it as above first, then close the cold valve on top, and keep clear of the water coming off it: it can be hot enough to scald. When the main is open again and a hot tap runs steadily, set the control back or switch the breaker back on; a heater that was itself leaking stays off until the plumber has seen it.
Step 4: Move what cannot be replaced
Once the water is off, spend two or three minutes moving things out of its path: photographs, papers, electronics, rugs, anything in a closet or cabinet under the wet area. Lift furniture legs onto foil, plastic lids or wood blocks so wet carpet does not stain them. Unplug electronics only where the outlet and the floor in front of it are dry.
Do not stand under a ceiling that is sagging or bulging with water; it can come down suddenly. Keep people out of that room and do not poke the ceiling near a light fixture.
Step 5: Photograph before you clean
Before you mop, take wide photos of each wet room, close-ups of the source and of damaged items, and a photo of the valve you closed. Keep the failed part, such as a burst hose or a cracked fitting: the plumber and your insurer may both want to see it. Your phone's photos carry the time; add a short note of what happened when. See related: How to Photograph and Record a Problem for Your Contractor.
What breaks if you skip it: an insurance adjuster arriving a day later sees a dry floor and a fan. Your photos are the only record of what the first hour looked like.
Step 6: Call, in this order
- A plumber, if the leak is in the house piping, a valve or the water heater, or if you could only stop it at the main.
- An electrician, if water reached a ceiling light, an outlet or the panel. Power to that area stays off until they say otherwise.
- Your insurer or agent, if water soaked into drywall, ceilings, carpet or flooring. Many homeowner policies expect prompt notice and reasonable steps to limit further damage; read yours or ask your agent what it requires. This is not legal advice.
- A water damage restoration company, if drywall or carpet is wet beyond what towels and a fan can handle. The EPA's guidance is to dry water-damaged materials within 24 to 48 hours to prevent mold growth, so this call is not one to leave until next week.
One evening, followed through
The house: two stories. Laundry room upstairs, directly over the downstairs hallway. Electrical panel and main water valve, a lever type, side by side on the dry wall of the attached garage. Gas water heater beside them. The panel directory has breakers labeled "Laundry" and "Hall lights."
6:52 p.m. A loud hiss from upstairs. The rubber hot-water hose behind the washer has split. Water is spraying across the laundry room floor, and the washer's outlet is on the wall behind the machine.
6:53, Step 1. Reaching the washer's valves means reaching past that outlet while standing in water, so the nearest valve is out. Downstairs, water is dripping out of the hallway ceiling light. The garage is dry. Everyone stays out of the laundry room and the hallway.
6:54, Step 2. In the garage, the homeowner turns the main water lever across the pipe. The hiss upstairs stops within a few seconds. He opens the kitchen faucet downstairs, which runs for a moment and then stops as the pipes drain there.
6:55, Step 1 again. At the panel, dry floor, standing to the side: he turns off "Hall lights" and "Laundry."
6:57, back to Step 2. The washer's control panel, lit earlier, is now dark, which confirms the "Laundry" breaker really feeds that outlet; directories are often wrong, and a dark display is the check he can see. With that circuit off and the spray stopped, the laundry room is now safe to enter. He reaches behind the washer and closes both washer valves. He closes the kitchen faucet, then goes back to the garage and slowly reopens the main. Upstairs, nothing comes out of the split hose: the washer valves are holding. The house has water again everywhere except the washer.
Step 3 is skipped, because the main is open again. The water heater is left alone.
6:59, Step 4. A hallway rug is rolled up and carried out. Two boxes of photo albums on the hall closet floor go to the dining room. A towel goes under the drip.
7:01, Step 5. Photos: the split hose, the laundry floor, the hall ceiling around the light, the rug, the closet floor. The hose goes in a bag.
7:02, Step 6. The hall ceiling is wet around a light fixture, and the outlet behind the washer was sprayed, so the electrician goes on the list for the next morning and both breakers stay off until then. The drywall is soaked, so he calls his insurer's claim line and, on their advice, a restoration company that sets drying equipment that night, inside the EPA's 24 to 48 hour window. No plumber is needed for the pipes: the house piping is fine, and the hose is a washer part. Both hoses get replaced with new ones the next day.
What would have changed the evening:
- If the washer's valves had been seized and would not close, the main would have stayed off overnight, Step 3 would have applied, and the water heater would have gone to "Vacation" at 6:57. A plumber would have been the first call, to replace the valves.
- If the panel had been in a flooded basement, nobody would have gone near it, and the first call, before anything else, would have been the electric utility.
After the ten minutes
Once things are calm, the question is whether a leak like this could be caught sooner next time. Water sensors under washers, water heaters and sinks, and valves that close the main automatically when a sensor gets wet, exist for exactly this; see related: Leak Sensors and Automatic Water Shutoffs. Also tag your valves and make sure everyone in the house can find the main. See related: Your Home's Shutoffs: Water, Gas and Electric.
References
- US EPA, guidance on mold and moisture in homes, which advises drying water-damaged materials within 24 to 48 hours
- See related: Leak Sensors and Automatic Water Shutoffs
- See related: How to Close Your Main Water Valve and Fixture Stops
- See related: When to Stop and Call a Licensed Pro Around the House
- See related: Your House Records File and What Goes In It