If you experience a plumbing flood, there are a few basic things you should do to minimize the damage to your home and provide a speedy resolution.
Find the Source
First and foremost, figure out if the water is backing up into your home or if it is actively leaking from your pipes and appliances. This may not seem like a huge distinction, but it is important to identify the root cause and implement an effective solution. If the water is backing up into your home from, for example, a blocked sewage line, it is likely to come from your drains, sinks, and even your toilet.
If the water is leaking from your pipes or appliances, by contrast, it is likely to be localized to a single area to begin with. It will be recognizable by a visible trickle, drip, or even gushes of water from the affected areas. Water leaking from your system, rather than backing up in it, is more likely to move quickly (if it is severe), while water backing up in your drains may bring a foul odor.
Turn off the Water
Turning off your home’s water supply is one of the easiest ways to identify roughly what is causing the flood. If the leak is coming from your plumbing system, turning off the water will effectively stop the leak. Doing this will also minimize the damage while you wait for someone to address the issue at hand.
Turning off your water is often as simple as flicking a switch or closing a valve, these days. If you do not know where the mains supply valve is in your house, it is a good idea to find out, so that you can act quickly in the event of a plumbing flood. A plumber should be able to help you find your mains valve if you have no other way of identifying it.
Call a Professional
Once you have the situation as controlled as you can make it, you should call a professional to make sure the issue is handled quickly. After all, whether the issue at hand is a leaking pipe, a broken sump pump, or a faulty water heater, it is best to have someone who knows what they are doing address the issue. If you try to go it alone, you could make things far worse!
Trying a DIY fix could even be dangerous! A burst pipe may be daunting, but a faulty water heater can seriously scald someone working on it if they do not know what they are doing. All in all, it is far safer, more cost-effective, and efficient to let a professional assess and fix the causes (and results) of a plumbing flood in your home.