Signs That You Need an Emergency Plumber | Timberlane, LA
There are a lot of plumbing emergencies that can happen in your home, but a flood is by far the biggest problem. Not only do floods cause a lot of damage in your home, they can also be very dangerous. The best thing you can do if you want to protect your home from a flood is know what to do when one occurs. One of the first things you should do is call an emergency plumber to get things cleaned up and fix the problem, but there are other ways to prevent damage to your Timberlane, LA home while you wait for professional help.
What Causes Flooding?
There are a lot of different things that can cause flooding in your home, and the cause of the flooding often determines its severity. We’re going to talk about plumbing-related floods for the sake of this article, but many of the tips apply to floods in general.
Plumbing-related floods that require an emergency plumber are usually a result of a burst pipe or some other major leak. When a pipe is fully burst, it doesn’t take long for it to fill a room with water. However, plumbing floods may also come as a result of a clogged sink or toilet, and they can even be caused by a faulty toilet float that makes the toilet fill up continuously.
Stop the Water
The first thing you should do when there’s a flood in your home—even before you call an emergency plumber—is do what you can to stop the source of the flooding. If you know where your main shutoff valve is, go directly to that and turn off water to your home. This ensures that there isn’t too much standing water in your home by the time a plumber gets there.
Even though you’ve stopped the water, you shouldn’t clean it up because you don’t know what contaminants are in there. While a lot of floods come from one of the water lines in your home, floods can also come as a result of a broken waste line, which means you don’t want to be touching the water that your home is filled with.
Turn Off Power
One thing that a lot of homeowners don’t think about in the immediate aftermath of a flood is how big of an electrical risk the water poses. This is another great reason to avoid touching and cleaning up the water yourself; if you’ve got a few feet of standing water in a room, that water could be electrically charged from touching an outlet or power cord somewhere.
If you know how to and you’re comfortable doing it, shut off the power to your home as soon as possible. This will ensure nobody gets shocked while you wait for an emergency plumber.
If you’re not familiar with turning off the power in your home, it’s a pretty simple process. First, locate your electrical service panel; this is a large metal box that’s generally built into the wall somewhere. Open the door and inspect the panel first; if you see any loose wires or the panel looks damaged, call an electrician. If everything looks good, you can simply shut off the electricity to your home using the switch inside. In some cases, you may have multiple panels you need to do this with.
Call a Professional
Since time is of the essence when it comes to dealing with a flood in your Timberlane, LA home, you should call an emergency plumber as soon as you get the chance. You should wait until after you’ve turned off the power and water in your home, but that’s about the extent of what you should do to deal with flooding in your home.
An emergency plumber can get to your home in a hurry so you don’t have to worry about the pool of water causing too much damage. Plus, emergency plumbers are equipped to deal with all the major problems that are classified as emergencies, which means stopping a flood and taking care of water damage is right up their alley.
Evacuate Your Home
Once you’ve done what you can to minimize damage in your home, the next step is getting out of there while you wait for an emergency plumber to arrive. You shouldn’t be cleaning up water damage or trying to fix plumbing problems, so there’s no need for you to be in your home at this point.
One important thing to remember when it comes to plumbing floods is that they often only affect one small part of your home; because of this, you can usually be confident that your belongings inside the home will be safe. Don’t worry about grabbing any important possessions to save them from damage, especially not if they’re in the room where the flooding occurred and you haven’t shut the power off.
Cleaning Up
Floods can cause a lot of damage, so cleanup is important, too. After the initial steps are taken care of, you should salvage what you can from the room where the flooding occurred, disinfecting anything the water touched. Depending on the extent of the damage, you may need to call somebody to redo parts of your floors or walls.
In Case of Emergency
Plumbing emergencies are no fun, especially if you’re dealing with a major flood. The good news is, knowing the proper procedures can save you a lot of hassle and money when your home floods. This is one of many reasons why you should know how to shut off water and power to your home in an emergency.
Unfortunately, floods happen all the time, so emergency plumbers are in high demand. At bluefrog Plumbing + Drain of New Orleans servicing the Timberlane, LA area, we’ve got plumbers who can get out to your house and stop the flooding in a hurry. Next time you have a plumbing flood in your home, give bluefrog Plumbing + Drain a call.
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