What to Do in the First Ten Minutes of a Burst Pipe

Plumbing advice for South Carolina homeowners · Updated 2026-09-01

Shut the water off

Everything else is second. Your main shut-off is usually where the supply enters the building, often in a crawl space, a garage, a utility closet or near the water heater. If you cannot find it inside, there is a valve at the meter near the street, and it needs a meter key or a wrench.

It is worth locating your shut-off now, while nothing is wrong, and showing everyone in the house where it is. This is the single most useful five minutes of plumbing preparation available to a homeowner.

Then the power, if water is near it

If water is running near outlets, a panel, or down into a ceiling with light fittings in it, switch that circuit off at the breaker. If the panel itself is wet or you would have to stand in water to reach it, do not touch it. Leave the building and call the utility.

Open the taps

With the main closed, open the lowest faucets in the house, and the outside hose bibs. This drains the remaining water in the system away from the break instead of letting it continue out of the split. It also relieves pressure in the pipes, which matters if the cause was freezing and there is more ice still in the line.

Then call, then photograph

Call a plumber before you start cleaning up. Arrival windows are the constraint, so getting into the queue first is worth more than a tidy floor.

While you wait, photograph everything: the water, the affected rooms, the contents, and the pipe itself if you can see it. Adjusters pay attention to timestamps and to photographs taken before any cleanup. Do not throw damaged items away until they have been photographed.

Start moving water and air

Move what you can off the floor. Mop or vacuum standing water if it is safe to do so. Open windows and get air moving across wet surfaces, because the difference between drying in two days and mould in a week is largely airflow.

What we do when we arrive

We confirm the water is isolated, trace the run to find the actual failure point rather than the place the water appears, and open the smallest access that reaches it. The failed section is cut out and replaced in copper or PEX, and then the system is pressure tested and held before we call the job done.

If the pipe froze, insulating that run is part of the repair rather than an upsell, because a pipe that froze once will freeze again in the same place.