Plumbing in the Triangle

The trade where waiting costs the most

Plumbing is the trade where a slow response turns a small bill into a large one. A dripping supply line behind a wall does not stay a plumbing problem: it becomes drywall, flooring, cabinetry and sometimes framing.

That is why three of our plumbing services are emergency-eligible and covered around the clock: leak detection and repair, sump pump service, and gas line service. Those are the failures where an hour genuinely matters.

The rest, drains that are slow rather than blocked, a water heater that is working but old, a fixture you want changed, are ordinary dispatch-window work and we will book them that way rather than charge you an emergency rate.

If you smell gas

Leave the building first. Call the gas utility from outside. Then call us. Do not operate light switches, do not touch any appliance or control, and do not go looking for the source.

Our phone agents escalate any report of a gas smell to a person immediately. Nobody will try to talk you through a diagnosis while you are standing in the house.

Know where your shutoffs are

The most useful thing you can do before you ever need us is find two things and remember where they are.

The main water shutoff. Usually where the supply enters the house, in a crawlspace, a garage, a basement or a utility closet. On a slab house it is sometimes only at the street meter, which needs a key. Find it now, turn it to check it actually moves, and turn it back. A seized shutoff you discover during a burst pipe is the difference between a wet floor and a flooded house.

The gas shutoff, at the meter outside, and the individual appliance shutoffs.

We will point both out on any visit if you ask, and we would rather spend two minutes on that than take a call from someone standing in rising water who cannot find the valve.

Triangle-specific problems

Clay soil and mature trees are why root intrusion in drain lines is so common here, particularly in older neighbourhoods with clay or cast iron laterals. A drain that backs up seasonally rather than randomly is usually roots.

Slab-on-grade construction means many houses have supply lines running in or under the concrete. A leak there is not visible until it shows as a warm spot, an unexplained water bill or damp flooring, which is why leak detection is a real service rather than a formality.

Crawlspaces freeze. Uninsulated pipework in a vented crawlspace is the single most common burst pipe we attend, every January.

What we do not do

We do not work on well pumps, pressure tanks or anything upstream of them. That is a well and pump contractor. Everything downstream of the pressure tank is ours.

We do not do septic systems, tanks or drain fields. That is a licensed septic contractor, and Wake County keeps a list.

We do not do water mitigation or drying after a flood. We stop the water; a restoration contractor dries the house.