How to Deal with Pipe Bursts and Other Winter Plumbing Disasters

Home emergencies aren’t fun and hopefully, as a homeowner, you don’t have to face one anytime soon. This time of year, plumbing disasters top the list of potential disasters you might experience and, unfortunately, these types of home emergencies are among the most costly and most damaging. To make matters worse, few homeowners have an intimate knowledge of their home’s plumbing system, which means when a problem does occur, it’s likely to get worse before it gets better.

What makes plumbing emergencies so damaging is the need for rapid reaction. When a pipe bursts or a plumbing junction fails, people’s first instinct is to call for a plumber in Colorado Springs—which is all well and fine, except it takes a plumber time to get from the shop to your home and to assess the problem once they’ve arrived. In that span of time—even ten minutes or so—the damages can rack up hundreds, even thousands of dollars!

Luckily, this doesn’t have to be the case and there are things you can do as a homeowner to stem the flow of damage in the event of a plumbing emergency. In fact, familiarizing yourself with some of the key first-response actions you can take can minimize a plumbing problem to the point of no damage at all! Here are some aggressive actions you can take, in the order that you should take them:

• At the first sign of a plumbing emergency—broken fixture, cracked pipe, burst fitting, etc.—find the water shutoff valve in your home and turn it off. This will stymie water at the point of entrance and prevent it from spilling into your home. This is the single most important thing you can do to minimize damage right off the bat.
• Call a trusted plumber in Colorado Springs as soon as you shut off the water in your home. Be sure to describe the problem as thoroughly as you can to someone on the phone, so they have some idea of what they’re walking into and what they might need to bring to get you back up and running again safely.
• Don’t let water saturate or set in your home. Have some old towels on hand that you can sop water up with, to make sure it doesn’t soak into carpet, warp wood or discolor linoleum. If your plumbing issue involves toilet backups or raw sewage, do not go near it!
• After you sop up water, position a dehumidifier in the room to help continue to pull moisture out of any surfaces it might be in. Adding a fan also helps, but a fan alone is only going to dry water, not pull it from the environment.
• Remove all items from the vicinity of the affected area before a plumber in Colorado Springs arrives. This will afford them a larger workspace where they can maneuver to get to the root of the issue and fix it without much hindrance.

Taking affirmative steps to prevent water from damaging your home in a plumbing emergency is going to be a great step towards saving yourself a huge amount of money and a major headache. Follow the steps above if you’re put in this position and know you’re doing all you can to protect your home.