Repairs
Something that worked on Monday and does not now. Leaks, valves, fixtures and the fittings behind them, found and fixed, then checked with the water back on.
This is the unplanned call. Something that worked on Monday and does not work now. Planned work on a room that is being rebuilt is remodels, and this is the page for everything that did not give you any notice.
What it covers
The repairs that do not belong to a category of their own. A joint weeping behind the washing machine. A shutoff that turns and stops nothing. A toilet refilling itself every twenty minutes for no reason anybody can see. A faucet that has started to drip and will not be persuaded. Pipe that split in a cold snap and showed itself in the thaw. Pressure that has dropped off through the whole house. Water hammer banging in the walls every time a valve closes.
It also covers the diagnostic half, which is often the real job. A lot of calls start as one symptom and turn out to be something adjacent: the stain on the ceiling is not the bathroom above it, the low pressure is one failing valve rather than the whole supply, the noise is a loose pipe rather than a fault. Finding the thing is most of fixing it.
If the problem is a blocked drain, start at drain cleaning. If it is hot water, start at water heaters. Everything else starts here.
What the job involves
- Finding it. The visible symptom and the actual fault are often in different rooms. Water travels, and it shows up at the lowest point it can reach.
- Stopping it. Isolating at the nearest working shutoff, which is also where you find out whether the shutoffs work.
- Repair against replace, said out loud. Some things are worth repairing. An old valve in a wall that is open right now is usually not, and you get told which is which before the decision is made.
- Doing the repair. With the surrounding surfaces protected, because a repair that damages a finished room is two jobs.
- Looking at what is next to it. A pinhole in one section of pipe says something about the rest of that run, and it is worth a look while we are already there.
- Checking it. Water back on, and the repair watched for leaks.
When you need it
- A drip, weep or spray from a joint or a fitting
- A damp patch or a stain arriving on a ceiling or a wall
- A toilet that refills by itself when nobody has used it
- A faucet or a shower that drips no matter how hard it is turned off
- A shutoff that will not turn, or turns and does not shut anything
- Pressure that has fallen at one fixture, or through the whole house
- A bang or a knock in the pipes when a tap or an appliance shuts off
- A pipe that froze, or one that split and showed itself when it thawed
- A main shutoff you have never turned and are not sure you could
- Something that used to work and now does not, with no obvious reason
Why it matters
Very few plumbing failures stay the size they started. A weep at a fitting is a fitting that has begun to fail, and the direction of travel is one way. The useful thing about a small leak is that it is a warning delivered early and cheaply, while the repair is still a repair.
The main shutoff deserves a paragraph to itself, because it is the one valve in the house that turns every other failure into a manageable one. It is usually near where the water service enters the basement, or beside the meter, and in many houses it has not been turned in years. A main that turns makes a burst supply line a wet floor. A main that does not is a call to the water department while the ceiling comes down. It can be tested on any dry afternoon, and it should be.
Then there is the quiet cost. A toilet that refills itself has a worn part inside the tank letting water through to the bowl and down the drain, and it does that all day and all night, invisibly, at a rate that only the water bill notices. The same is true of a dripping faucet. Neither announces itself, which is why both get left for years.
How Connerney handles it
- Licensed and insured. Licensed and insured in Massachusetts.
- The options explained. Repair or replace, and why, before the decision gets made rather than after.
- Checked before we go. Water back on, the repair checked for leaks, and the area left clean.
- Owner run. Bill Connerney owns the business, answers the phone and books the jobs, and our team of experienced plumbers does the work. Rated 5.0 on Google across 20 reviews, and BBB accredited since 2018.
Questions people ask
- Where is the main water shutoff, and how do I know it works?
- Follow the water service in from the street. In most houses here it comes through the foundation wall in the basement, near the front or the side facing the road, and the main shutoff is the first valve on it, usually beside the meter. Turn it off, then open a tap on the lowest floor. If the water stops and stays stopped, it works. If it slows to a trickle and keeps trickling, the valve is not closing fully and it is worth replacing before the day you need it to. Do it on a dry afternoon, not during a leak.
- The toilet refills by itself for a few seconds every so often. Is that worth a call?
- Yes, because it is not going to stop on its own and it is wasting water every hour of the day. Water is leaking from the tank into the bowl past a worn seal, the level in the tank drops, and the tank refills to top it up. On a good toilet that is a small repair inside the tank. On a toilet that has been repaired several times already, or one whose parts are no longer made, it can be the point where replacing it costs less than keeping it.
- A pipe has frozen. What should I do to the house before anyone gets there?
- Close the main shutoff, then open the tap nearest the frozen section so pressure has somewhere to go as the ice lets go. Keep heat on in the room, open cabinet doors around the pipe, and if you can see the frozen run, warm it gently from the tap end back toward the freeze with a hair dryer or a heating pad. Never an open flame. If water appears anywhere as it thaws, the pipe has split, and the main stays closed until that section is replaced.
- The pipes bang when a tap shuts off. Is that harmful?
- It is, slowly. Water hammer is the water in a pipe stopping dead when a valve closes fast, and the shock goes into the joints, valves and appliance connections on that run. Washing machines and dishwashers, which close their valves in an instant, are the usual cause. It is fixed by securing pipe that has come loose, by fitting a small shock absorber called a water hammer arrestor near those appliances, or by both, and it is worth fixing before a joint decides it has had enough.
Related services
Where we work
Based in Natick, working across MetroWest Massachusetts.
Plus the surrounding MetroWest towns. If you are nearby, call and ask.
Call us, or request service
Tell us what is going on. If no one picks up, leave a message and Bill will call you back as soon as he can. If it is easier to write it down, the form reaches the same place.