24 Hour Plumber for Palo Alto and Menlo Park

What counts as a plumbing emergency?

Useful to sort these into three groups, because treating everything as urgent wastes money and treating nothing as urgent costs far more.

Call now, whatever the hour:

• A burst or actively leaking supply pipe
• Water coming through a ceiling or down a wall
• Sewage backing up into the house
• No water at all to the property
• A water heater leaking from the tank body
• Any smell of gas — though that’s a different call first, see below
• A slab leak: unexplained warm patch on the floor, or running water audible with every fixture off

Call today, but it can wait for daylight:

• A single blocked fixture when other drains still run
• A dripping water heater relief valve
• A running toilet or a leaking tap
• Low pressure at one fixture

Book it in the week:

• Slow drains with no backup
• A fixture you want replaced
• Routine jetting or a camera survey

Can a burst pipe wait until morning? No. A supply line under pressure moves a lot of water very quickly, and the cost difference between a plumber at 2am and the drying, flooring and drywall work after six hours of unchecked flow isn’t close. Shut the main and call.

What to shut off before we arrive

Four things, in order of how often they matter:

1. The water main. Usually at the meter near the street, sometimes in a box at the property line. Turn clockwise until it stops. Find it now, while nothing is wrong — the worst time to learn where your shutoff is, is while standing in water. In older Palo Alto homes the valve itself is sometimes seized, which is worth discovering on a calm afternoon rather than during a burst.
2. The fixture stop, if the leak is clearly at one fixture. Small oval or lever valve under a sink or behind a toilet. Isolating one fixture beats shutting the whole house.
3. The water heater. If the leak is at the heater, close the cold inlet valve on top of the tank and turn the gas control to OFF or switch off the breaker. Don’t leave a leaking tank heating.
4. Electricity near standing water. If water is reaching outlets, appliances or a panel, kill that circuit — or the main breaker if you can reach it safely and dryly. If you can’t reach it safely, stay out and tell us when you call.

Then take photos before cleanup starts. Insurers ask, and you’ll want them.

Gas is a different emergency — and the number depends on which city you’re in

This catches people out, and most emergency plumbing pages for this area give the wrong number for half their readers.

If you smell gas: leave the building first, then call from outside. Don’t switch anything on or off, don’t use the doorbell, and don’t go looking for the source.

In Palo Alto, you are not calling PG&E. Palo Alto runs its own gas system — it’s the only city in California that owns and operates its full utility suite — so gas, water and wastewater emergencies go to City of Palo Alto Utilities dispatch on (650) 329-2579.

In Menlo Park, it is PG&E, on 1-800-743-5000.

Either way, if there’s immediate danger, 911 comes first. Call us after the utility has made the situation safe — we handle the appliance and the pipework, they handle the supply.

Sewage backing up — is it your pipe or the city’s?

Worth knowing before you authorise anything, because the answer changes who pays.

In Palo Alto the city owns the sewer main in the street; the lateral running from your house to that main is yours. If the backup is in the main, the city responds and it isn’t your bill. If it’s in your lateral, it is.

The practical signal: when a backup affects several properties at once, or when it surfaces at a street cleanout rather than inside the house, call the city utility before paying a plumber. When it’s confined to your property, it’s a lateral problem. We can usually tell quickly on site, and we’d rather tell you to call the city than bill you for their pipe.

For what follows a confirmed lateral problem, sewer line services in Palo Alto covers diagnosis and repair, and who pays for sewer lateral replacement covers the responsibility question in more depth.