Burst Supply Pipes
Isolated, cut back to sound pipe and repaired properly rather than patched to get through the night and reopened next week.
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Need an emergency plumber in Ballito? If water is running right now, stopping it matters more than booking anyone, so the section below comes before the form on purpose. Out of hours costs more and you are told the figure before we set off, never afterwards.
Whatever is happening in your house right now, nobody can be standing in it inside the next four minutes. What happens in those four minutes is entirely down to you, and it makes a larger difference to the final cost than anything a plumber does afterwards. So this section sits above the enquiry form rather than below it, because if you are reading this with water running you should not be filling in a form yet.
Start with the stopcock. It is almost certainly in the meter box at your boundary, set into the verge or the pavement on the street side. Lift the lid, find the valve beside the meter, and turn it clockwise until it stops. That single action ends the supply of new water to the problem. Everything after this point is about the water already inside your pipes, which is a finite and much smaller quantity than the mains will happily keep delivering.
Next, assuming hot water features anywhere in this, cut power to the geyser at the board and shut the valve feeding it. A geyser holds well over a hundred litres, and an element left powered in a draining cylinder will burn itself out and add a second fault to the one you already have. This matters especially in a roof space, where the weight of water in a saturated ceiling is what actually brings it down, rather than the water itself.
Last, open the lowest cold tap in the house, usually an outside or garden tap. This drains the pressure out of the system through a spot you have chosen, instead of through the break you have not. Water will keep coming out of a burst above that level until the column empties, and giving it an easier exit lower down shortens that considerably. If the escape is above a ceiling, move anything valuable out from underneath and keep people from standing below it.
Find your stopcock now, not tonight. Go and lift the meter box lid on an ordinary afternoon, check the valve actually turns, and show whoever looks after the house when you are not there. On a coast where a great many properties are empty for most of the year and held by an agent or a neighbour, the person who needs to know where that valve is frequently is not the owner.
Four minutes. Do these before filling in anything.
Tell us what is escaping, roughly where it is coming from, and whether you have managed to shut the stopcock. That last answer changes how urgent this is.
And what we will tell you is cheaper on Monday, because an after-hours rate for a dripping tap helps nobody.
Isolated, cut back to sound pipe and repaired properly rather than patched to get through the night and reopened next week.
A cylinder letting go into a roof. Made safe first, then assessed, and photographed throughout because a ceiling means a claim.
Backing up inside the building, which is a health matter and not a scheduling one. Cleared, then the cause identified.
Seized valves that failed you at the worst moment. Replaced, so the next emergency is a four minute problem rather than an hour of panic.
Evenings, weekends and public holidays, at a rate told to you up front. If it can safely wait, we will say so and book you in.
Photographs of the damage as found, what failed and what was done, which is what an assessor needs and what most emergency invoices lack.
Stop the water first. Everything else is secondary to that.
We talk you to the valve before we talk about attending, because those minutes are worth more than we are.
Told honestly, including when it is not fast enough and you should call somebody else.
Out-of-hours figures given on the call, never discovered afterwards on an invoice.
Stopping the damage and repairing the fault are separate, and you are told which one is happening.
What out of hours costs, what counts as an emergency, and what to do before anyone arrives.
Out of hours carries a higher call-out than a weekday appointment, and you are told that figure before anybody gets into a vehicle rather than discovering it on the invoice afterwards. The hourly rate applies from arrival. What we will not do is let you book an after-hours call-out for something that could safely wait until Monday without telling you so first. If your problem is a dripping tap at nine on a Saturday night, you will be told to close the isolator and we will see you in the week.
Close the main stopcock at your boundary, which is normally in the meter box on the street side of the property, turning clockwise. Where hot water is any part of it, kill the geyser breaker as well and shut the control valve feeding it. After that, find the lowest cold outlet you have and open it wide. The trapped column then drains out through a point of your choosing rather than through the failure above it. Those three things take about four minutes and they decide how much damage this becomes.
Water escaping that you cannot stop. A geyser leaking into a ceiling. Sewage coming up inside the house. No water at all in an occupied property. A gas smell, which is an emergency for the gas supplier first and a plumber second. Things that are unpleasant but not emergencies: a single blocked toilet where another is available, a dripping tap, low pressure, a slow drain. Those are cheaper on Monday and we would rather tell you that than take the call-out.
In the meter box at your boundary, usually set into the pavement or the verge near the street. Lift the lid and you will normally find the meter itself and an isolating valve beside it. Some properties also have a secondary valve where the supply enters the building. It is genuinely worth finding yours on an ordinary afternoon rather than in the dark with water running, and it is worth showing whoever looks after the house when you are away.
No, and paying for a call-out to be told so is an avoidable expense. A supply interruption affecting your neighbours is the utility's to resolve, and no work inside your property will change it. Ask one neighbour before you call anybody. The same logic applies to drains: if several fittings backed up at once and it started when the power went off, that is very likely the network rather than your pipework, and it is covered on the drain unblocking page.
Yes, and on this coast that is a large part of after-hours work. Give us a contact who can provide access, whether that is an agent, a caretaker, a tenant or a neighbour with a key. We will photograph what we find before touching anything, make it safe, and send you the assessment and the quote wherever you are. Where the situation is genuinely urgent we will make it safe first and quote the repair afterwards, and we will tell you clearly which of those we are doing.
We will be honest with you about it rather than promise and disappoint. This town's population trebles over the festive weeks and the local plumbing trade does not, so response times across the whole coast stretch in that fortnight regardless of who you call. If your property is holiday or letting stock, the single most effective thing you can do is have it checked in October, because a fault found in spring is an appointment and the same fault found in December is a queue.
It depends honestly on where you are and what else is running, and you will be given a realistic time rather than an optimistic one. Ballito and Salt Rock are short trips. Umhlali, Zimbali and Sheffield Beach are a little further, and Stanger further still. If we cannot get to you quickly enough for the situation you are describing, we will say so on the phone so you can call somebody else, rather than accept the job and leave you waiting on a promise.
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If water is running, close the stopcock before you send this. Tell us what is escaping and whether you managed to shut it off, and you will get a realistic time back.