Emergency Plumbing Repairs, Day & Night, Across the Bay Area
If water is coming out where it should not, stop it at the valve first and ring us second. We answer around the clock, including holidays and weekends, and there is never an overtime charge. Emergency calls are dispatched ahead of scheduled work from our base in Union City. We aim to reply within thirty minutes; the average is nearer fifteen.
- Burst and split supply pipes
- Sewage backing up into showers, baths and floor drains
- Water heater failures, leaks and no hot water
- Main line and sewer lateral stoppages
- Overflowing toilets and blocked drains
- Gas odours and suspected gas leaks
- Seized angle stops and broken shutoff valves
Signs You Need Emergency Plumbing
Catching these early is almost always cheaper than waiting for the failure.
A pipe has burst or split
You hear running water inside a wall, or a ceiling starts to sag and stain. Copper that has been thinning for years often goes in one place under pressure. Shut the main, open a low tap to drain the pipes down, and move anything valuable clear of the water.
Sewage is coming back up
Waste rising in a shower tray, a ground floor bath or a floor drain means the blockage is downstream of the fixtures, in the main line or the sewer lateral. Stop using water everywhere in the house, including the washing machine, or you will add to what comes back.
No hot water, or a heater dripping
A tank that has rusted through will not be repaired, and it will keep leaking until the cold inlet is closed. A pilot that will not stay lit, a relief valve discharging, or scalding water all point at controls that need looking at the same day rather than next week.
Every drain in the house is slow
When the kitchen, the bath and the toilets all back up together, the problem is the shared line, not the fixtures. In older neighbourhoods that usually means roots in a clay lateral or a collapsed section. Camera work tells us which it is before anyone starts cutting.
You can smell gas indoors or by the meter
Gas is treated as an evacuate-first situation. Leave the building, call the utility or 911 from outside, and do not return until you are told it is safe. Once the supply is isolated we can trace the fault, test the line and repair it.
A valve has failed and will not close
An angle stop that spins without stopping the flow, or a main valve seized solid with scale, turns a small leak into a large one because nothing can be isolated. This is worth a same-day visit even if the leak itself looks minor.
Shut It Off First — Then Call Us
One fixture leaking: use the angle stop
Under a basin or behind a toilet you will find a small oval or round handle on the supply line. That is the angle stop. Turn it clockwise until it stops. If the handle is seized, do not force it hard enough to snap the stem — go to the main instead and tell us the stop has failed.
Water anywhere else: use the main shutoff
On most Bay Area houses the main valve sits near the front hose bib, on the wall where the service pipe rises out of the ground. If there is nothing there, open the meter box at the pavement edge and turn the valve beside the meter a quarter turn so it sits across the pipe. Keep a meter key with the box.
Water heater leaking or overheating
Close the cold inlet valve on top of the heater — it is the one on the incoming side, usually the right. On a gas unit, turn the gas control knob to off. On an electric unit, switch off its breaker. Do not open the drain valve unless you have a hose run to somewhere safe.
Smell of gas: leave, then call
Do not touch light switches, plugs or your phone indoors, and do not use a naked flame. Get everyone out, leave the door open behind you, and from outside call 911 or your gas utility first. Ring us afterwards. We will not work on a line until the utility has made the property safe.
How We Handle an Emergency Call
We answer and talk you through making it safe
The first thing on the call is stopping the water or the gas. We will tell you which valve to look for and where it usually sits on a house like yours, then take the details we need to send the right van and the right parts.
You go ahead of scheduled work
Emergencies are dispatched before booked jobs, at any hour, on any day of the year. Our target is a thirty minute response and our average reply time is around fifteen minutes. You are told who is coming and roughly when.
We find the actual fault, not just the symptom
Water tracks a long way along joists and pipe runs before it shows itself, so the wet patch is rarely above the hole. We open only what needs opening, use camera and leak location equipment where the fault is buried, and confirm the actual cause before quoting anything.
You approve the quote before work starts
Once we know what is wrong you get a price for the repair, including the out-of-hours visit, with no overtime loading. Nothing is done until you have said yes. If a temporary make-safe is the sensible first step, we will say so.
We repair, test and leave it dry
The repair is pressure tested or run under load before we pack up. If water has spread into flooring, walls or a crawl space we will tell you plainly what needs drying out and what can be left alone.
What Counts as a Plumbing Emergency
The simple test is whether waiting makes it worse. Water under pressure, sewage inside the house, gas you can smell and a heater that has failed all get worse by the hour, so they are emergencies. A dripping tap or a slow basin can wait for a booked appointment. If you are not sure which you have, ring and describe it — we would rather talk you out of a call-out than have you sitting on a burst pipe overnight.
Older Bay Area housing stock fails in fairly predictable ways. Homes plumbed before the 1960s often still have galvanized steel supply pipe that has been closing up with rust from the inside for decades, and it tends to let go at threaded joints. Copper installed later can develop pinhole leaks, and our hard water leaves scale that seizes valves and shortens the life of water heaters. Knowing which era a house belongs to tells us a great deal before we arrive.
Drainage emergencies usually start outside. Mature street trees send roots into the joints of clay sewer laterals, and a line that has been coping for years will finally block when it gets a bit more paper or grease than usual. Cabling clears the immediate stoppage; a camera survey afterwards shows whether the pipe itself is sound. On low-lying property near the bay, high groundwater can also push into a cracked lateral and keep it running full.
There is no overtime charge on any of this, at any hour, including public holidays. The price we quote at two in the morning is the price we would quote at two in the afternoon. Most quotes are free, and for many faults a clear photo or a short video sent over is enough for us to price the work before we set off. Some on-site estimates carry a fee based on distance, and you will be told that on the call rather than at the door.
What Affects the Price
We quote every job up front, so you approve the price before anything starts. These are the things that move it:
- What has actually failed — a valve, a section of pipe, a heater or the main line
- How buried the fault is, and how much has to be opened up to reach it
- Whether the water can be isolated at a fixture or the whole house must be shut down
- Pipe material and age, since brittle galvanized and old copper often need more replaced than the visible fault
- Access, including crawl space height, slab construction and whether the run is under concrete
- Whether a temporary make-safe now plus a planned repair later suits you better than one visit
- Parts availability for older or obsolete fittings
Most quotes are free and can be done from photos or video you send us. Some on-site estimates carry a fee based on distance, and we tell you that before we come out.
Cutting the Odds of the Next One
Walk the house once and locate the main valve, the water heater inlet and the stop under every basin and toilet. Turn each one and back again so it does not seize. Tell everyone in the household where the main is.
If your only shutoff is at the meter, a key hanging in the garage saves ten minutes of hunting while water runs. A shifting spanner will not always turn a stiff meter valve without damaging it.
Scale from hard water welds old stops solid over the years. Swapping them out during a normal booked appointment is straightforward and quick; discovering they are seized while a supply line is spraying across the bathroom is not.
A single slow fixture is usually local. Several slow fixtures are the main line telling you it is nearly full. Clearing it while it still drains is far cheaper than clearing it after it backs up.
Staining on the floor, rust at the base or a relief valve that weeps means the tank is on borrowed time. Planned replacement beats a failed tank emptying itself into a garage.
Emergency Plumbing — Frequently Asked Questions
Straight answers, without the sales pitch.
Do you really answer at night and on holidays?
Yes. The line is answered around the clock, every day of the year, including public holidays. Emergency calls are dispatched ahead of scheduled work rather than added to the end of the diary. Our target response is thirty minutes and our average reply time runs at about fifteen. If we are further out than usual, you will be told a realistic time rather than an optimistic one.
Where is the main water shutoff on a typical Bay Area house?
Most often on the exterior wall near the front hose bib, where the service pipe comes up out of the ground. If there is no valve there, the next place to look is the meter box set into the pavement or the front garden, where a valve sits on the street side of the meter. Turning it a quarter turn so the handle lies across the pipe closes it.
Should I try to clear a sewage backup myself?
Stop using water first, which is the single most useful thing you can do. Household drain chemicals rarely shift a main line blockage and they make the job harder and more hazardous for whoever opens it up. Roots and collapsed clay pipe need a cable or a jetter and then a camera to see what is left. Keep people and pets away from the standing waste.
What do I do if I can smell gas?
Leave the building straight away. Do not touch light switches, plug anything in, use a phone indoors or light a flame. Leave the door open as you go, get well clear, and from outside call 911 or your gas utility. They will isolate the supply. Ring us after that and we will trace, test and repair the line once the property has been made safe.
Can you give me a price over the phone at 3am?
Often, yes. Most quotes are free, and for many faults a photo or a short video of the leak, the valve or the heater data plate is enough to price the work before we leave. Some on-site estimates carry a fee based on distance, and we tell you that on the call. Either way, the quote is approved before any work begins.
My ceiling is stained but I cannot see a leak. Is that urgent?
Treat it as urgent. Water travels along joists and pipe runs and shows itself well away from the source, so a small stain can sit under a much larger problem. Shut the main if the stain is growing, put a container underneath, and call. Leaving a saturated ceiling can turn a repair into a collapse and a much bigger drying job.
Do you charge extra for nights, weekends or holidays?
No. We do not add overtime charges, ever. The rate you are quoted is the same whether we come out on a Tuesday morning or at 2am on a holiday weekend.
Are you licensed and insured?
Yes. Power Plumbing USA holds California contractor license #1082507 and carries full liability insurance. All work is performed to California Plumbing Code, and we pull permits where the job requires them.
Where We Provide This Service
We cover 15 Bay Area cities from our Union City base. See the full service area →