Emergency Plumber in Richardson, TX

The defining Richardson emergency is the slab leak that stops being slow. The expansive clay under the city swells after a wet spring and shrinks hard through a dry summer, and after five decades of that movement the copper supply lines cast into the concrete abrade and open. Most slab leaks announce themselves gradually - a warm spot on the floor, a climbing water bill, running water audible with everything closed - but a joint that finally lets go under full pressure floods a floor from underneath, and no amount of mopping helps until the water is off.

The second source is the supply material itself. Some Richardson homes still have galvanized steel supply pipe, which rusts shut from the inside, and some 1970s and 1980s housing has polybutylene, which fails at its fittings with very little warning. Both have the same emergency profile: a pipe that gave no notice at all, usually inside a wall.

Third is the water heater. A mid-century Richardson home has had its heater replaced once or twice, but often not recently, and a tank that splits in a hall closet or a garage empties forty or fifty gallons onto the floor and then keeps refilling. On these houses there is a related point worth raising with your plumber while they are there: Richardson's mid-century homes sometimes have aging gas connections to the heater, and that is worth checking during any heater work rather than after it.

• A slab leak joint letting go under full pressure
• Polybutylene or galvanized supply pipe failing at a fitting inside a wall
• A water heater tank splitting in a closet or garage
• Cast-iron drain lines backing up at the lowest fixture in the house
• A hose bib or exterior line cracked by a freeze, leaking into the wall

In a 1960s or 1970s Richardson house the main shut-off is usually on the incoming line where it enters the building - commonly in the garage, in a utility closet, or on an exterior wall - and there is a second valve at the city meter in a box near the street. Go and find both today, while nothing is wrong, and try turning them. A valve that has not moved in thirty years can be seized, and finding that out now is far better than finding it out with water rising.

Buy a meter key. The valve in the meter box usually needs one, and in a house of this age that box valve is sometimes the only one that will actually close. They cost a few dollars at any hardware store and they live better in a kitchen drawer than in a plumber's van you are waiting on.

Then label the local shut-offs: under each sink, behind each toilet, and at the water heater. On fifty-year-old angle stops, test them gently - if one will not turn, note it and have it replaced during the next routine visit rather than discovering it during a flood.

Mid-century housing is the most freeze-exposed stock in the metroplex. Richardson's 1960s and 1970s homes have supply lines running through unheated attics, exterior walls and garages, and those are the first to freeze and split. Old hose bibs crack easily too, and a cracked bib can leak inside the wall once things thaw rather than visibly outside.

Before a hard freeze, drip a faucet on the coldest exterior wall, open under-sink cabinet doors on outside walls, disconnect and drain hoses, cover the hose bibs, and make sure you can find the main shut-off fast. If a line splits, close the main first and then submit your request. After a region-wide freeze every licensed plumber in North Texas is working a backlog, and the requests that went in early are the ones that get seen first.

If water is coming through a ceiling rather than across a floor, cut power to that part of the house at the breaker before you go near it. On a slab house with original wiring, that is not a precaution to skip.