What happens after you call at night
The call reaches a person, not a recording. You give the address and describe what you see, and the job goes out from our Los Angeles location, which handles every call we take, from Echo Park and Boyle Heights to North Hollywood and San Pedro. Los Angeles County is large, so instead of promising an arrival time, whoever answers tells you honestly how the night looks. The plumber arrives ready to close off water or gas at the source and start the repair on the spot.
Night calls in this city have a recognizable shape. Under a 1920s bungalow on a raised foundation, a galvanized supply line rusts through at a threaded joint and soaks the crawl space. In a postwar ranch house in the Valley, copper buried in the slab springs a pinhole and warms a patch of floor. On a hillside street with high pressure, a worn regulator lets a braided toilet hose burst. In an older apartment building, a clog in the shared stack pushes wastewater up through a tub on a lower floor. Stopping the damage comes first. After that you are shown the failed part, and a written repair price is in front of you before anything else happens.
The housing stock explains it. The US Census ACS counts about 1,554,300 housing units in the city of Los Angeles; the median one was built in 1965, and 70 percent went up before 1980, so a great deal of pipe has spent half a century or more in walls, floors and yards. Detached single-family houses are just 36 percent of the total. Most Angelenos live in apartments and condos, where one leak can involve several units, an owner and a building manager, so the source is pinned down before any wall is opened. Plenty of emergencies are fully repaired on the first visit. When the honest answer for tonight is a temporary repair, we say so, and the lasting fix is priced separately in writing.
The same at 2 p.m. and at 2 a.m.
- C-36 Plumbing work, California CSLB license #1131308
- A human voice on the line around the clock, weekends and holidays too
- A written estimate you approve before any work starts
- Our written workmanship warranty on every repair
When the emergency line is the right call
- A split supply line or hose spraying under a sink, toilet or washer
- Water coming through a ceiling from a bathroom or the apartment above
- A warm spot in a slab floor, or a water meter turning with every fixture off
- Wastewater rising in a tub or floor drain, or surfacing on a lower floor of the building
- A sewage ejector pump alarm sounding, or a smell of gas indoors
- A water heater leaking, or no water at any tap in the house
Someone picks up
A person notes the address, any gate or building code and what is happening, then dispatches a plumber from our Los Angeles location, the one location we run.
Water off, damage contained
The correct valve gets closed, floors and furniture get covered, and the plumber traces the leak to its origin, whether that is under a raised floor, beneath a slab, inside a wall or in a neighbor's unit.
The repair price, written down
You see the repair price on paper and give your yes before any pipe is cut. Midnight or midday, that order never changes.
Tested at full pressure, then dried out
With the repair finished, service is restored and every new joint is watched under full line pressure. The wet area is dried before the plumber leaves.
Why Los Angeles calls us when plumbing fails at night
Our base is Los Angeles, and night calls come in from all over the county. Three practices travel with each one.
Open all night: 24-hour emergency response
Saturday night, Sunday morning or the Fourth of July, a person answers, and the plumber is dispatched from our Los Angeles location.
Parts that come along
Copper and PEX fittings, PVC, galvanized nipples and unions, angle stops, ball valves, pressure regulators and braided supply hoses travel to every call, so many night repairs need no second trip.
The price before the work
Before any wall comes open, you hold a written estimate and approve it. If the work stretches past what was planned, the approved figure holds.
What makes one emergency repair bigger than another
Access first. A burst hose or a failed angle stop is in plain sight. A leak under a raised Craftsman floor can often be reached from the crawl space without opening a wall. A pinhole in copper under a Valley slab has to be located before the concrete is touched, and the choice is then between cutting into the floor at that point and rerouting a new line overhead. In an apartment building, getting to a leak inside a shared wall may first require the owner, the manager or the tenant next door to agree on access.
Then the cause. One pinhole is a smaller job than galvanized or copper pipe worn thin along its whole length, which is where a repipe in copper or PEX comes up. When a hillside pressure regulator dies, the surge it lets through can ruin hoses, valves and the relief valve on the water heater, so a new regulator belongs in the repair. A burned-out sewage ejector pump needs a new pump with a working float and alarm, not a plunger. Roots in a clay lateral call for a camera and a jetter. Permits apply to repipes, water heater replacements, sewer lateral repairs and gas piping changes: LADBS issues them inside the city of Los Angeles, and every other city issues its own.
The rule does not move with the clock: one written estimate covers the job, and the work waits for your approval.
Emergency calls across the county
Los Angeles is our base and our only location. Emergency calls from the rest of the county are dispatched from here too, and the person on the line is honest about how far the plumber has to travel.
Central Los Angeles and the hillsides
Hollywood, Silver Lake, Echo Park, Koreatown, Mid-City, West Adams, Highland Park, Eagle Rock and Downtown: Craftsman and Spanish Revival houses on raised foundations, hillside homes in the Hollywood Hills and Mount Washington with regulators and ejector pumps, and block after block of older apartment buildings with shared stacks.
The Valley, Burbank, Glendale and San Fernando
Ranch houses on slabs in Van Nuys, North Hollywood, Sherman Oaks, Studio City and Encino, where copper under the floor pinholes, plus Burbank, Glendale and the small city of San Fernando, each with its own water utility and its own permit counter.
The Westside and Inglewood
Westwood, Venice and Westchester inside the city, and the separate cities of Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Culver City, Santa Monica and Inglewood, where apartment and condo buildings hold much of the housing and a leak is traced to its unit before anything is opened.
The harbor, the South Bay and beyond
San Pedro and Wilmington inside the city, Long Beach, Torrance, Carson and the rest of the South Bay, the San Gabriel Valley, Santa Clarita and the Antelope Valley are served from our Los Angeles location as well. Distances there are long, and the wait is described honestly on the call.
Answers for a night emergency
Every call to the emergency number is picked up by a person, on Christmas as on any Tuesday. There is no voicemail asking you to try again in the morning.
The wait depends on the plumber's starting point and on the number of calls already underway. With a county that runs from Lancaster to Long Beach, we do not promise arrival times; you get a plain answer on the phone instead.
A holiday night call follows the same rule as a weekday afternoon one: the price is written before any work, and the work happens only once you agree. What time you called never shows up on the bill.
While you wait, shut off the water. On many Los Angeles houses the main valve is outside where the supply pipe comes up from the ground, frequently beside the pressure regulator or near a front hose bib. The meter box at the curb (an LADWP box inside the city) has a valve too, usually turned with a meter key. Apartment and condo shutoffs may be in the unit or in a room the building controls. If you smell gas, reverse the order: get everyone outside, call SoCalGas from the street, then call us.
Our 24-hour emergency response is not limited to houses. A Koreatown restaurant kitchen counts, and so does a building where a dozen units drain into one cast iron stack.
Drain Cleaning & Hydro Jetting
Stoppages filmed first, then cut loose and flushed with a high-pressure jet.
Water Heater Repair & Install
Tanks repaired or replaced, strapped twice and permitted with LADBS or your city.
Sewer Repair & Repipe
Rooted clay laterals repaired, and galvanized or worn copper lines repiped.
Gas Leak Detection & Repair
Leaks in gas piping found, repaired and held under a pressure test.
Any hour, any city in the county
Day or night, a person answers and sends a plumber from Los Angeles to your address, in the city or anywhere else in Los Angeles County.