The Coogee Emergency Plumbing Checklist

Unfortunately, the last thing you want to be thinking about when your pipe breaks or your drain clogs is what to do next, and the clock is ticking. With a little bit of preparation, anything can change. A practical, Coogee-specific checklist of what to know and do before, during and after an emergency, for a very densely populated beachside suburb, with most people renting, and buildings stacked up the hill.

Before anything goes wrong

The one thing you can do right now while it is calm is to find the water shut-off. The isolation valve is normally located underneath the kitchen sink in a Coogee apartment or in a laundry cupboard, or near the front boundary or the meter in a house. For older buildings, there can be a common shut-off in a common services area. Find yours, see if it spins and ensure that all the family members know where it is. In the event of an emergency, the seconds you save by not looking for it are the difference between a mop-up and a ruined floor, and if you live in a multi-unit block, the difference between your flat and the flat below.

There are a few more prep payoffs:

• Know where the gas meter and its shut-off are, if you have gas.
• Have the number of a licensed emergency plumber on hand.
• Have the building manager or strata contact on hand, in a dense Coogee block they will need to know fast.
• If you are renting, keep your rental agency’s after-hours contact with you.
• Identify the units under your unit. If you’re upstairs, a flood comes towards them.

The moment it happens

1. Stop the water. Close the isolation valve (or the main valve if you can’t isolate the problem fixture). If it smells like gas, then turn off the gas at the meter.
2. Shut off power to affected areas if water is near outlets or the switchboard, but only with dry hands and dry footing.
3. If a gas leak: vent and evacuate. Open the windows, do not touch any electric switch, not even a light, no flames and get out. Pooled gas in a completely enclosed flat is an actual danger of explosion.
4. Contain as much as possible. Wipe up, move valuables and furniture from wet floors.
5. If water is flowing downward, warn the unit below.
6. Before beginning the clean-up, take pictures of everything, as the insurance company will want to see the initial condition.
7. Contact a licensed plumber. Explain what is going on, the floor, and if the other units are affected.

What not to do

• Never tape a burst pipe and see what happens. Mains pressure will not tolerate tape, the failed patch equals hours of water damage.
• Never put chemical drain cleaner in a backed-up drain. It will not move a serious blockage, it can damage older pipes, and it poses a risk to anyone who opens the pipe afterward.
• Don’t overlook a backup on lower level drains. In Coogee’s dense blocks, a blocked shared stack surfaces in the lowest units first and rapidly gets worse.
• Do not assume that the landlord/strata will “sort it” and wait. Stop the damage now, and work out the responsibility later.

After the emergency

After the crisis has been resolved, have your plumber provide a written report of the fault, its cause and the repair. It will be required for your insurer, and if you are a renter, for your agent or landlord to arrange reimbursement, since urgent repairs are the landlord’s financial responsibility under NSW tenancy law. The report also helps establish whether the problem was in your lot or in common property, which decides who pays.

You should also ask whether this was a one-off or a warning. A flexi hose that has ruptured is unfortunate; a drain that has backed up several times is telling you something. At that juncture, you can avoid going through the whole process again next season by performing a camera inspection.

Who to call

Keep the number of a plumber who actually covers this part of the Eastern Suburbs. Our emergency plumber serving Coogee and surrounding Rose Bay suburbs is on call 24 hours a day, and knows the compact apartment developments and hilly streets here. Save yourself the hassle and just save the number of an emergency plumber today, the best time to have the number of an emergency plumber is before the emergency occurs.

The bottom line

Being prepared for plumbing emergencies in Coogee can help prevent devastating situations. Identify your shut-off, act quickly to turn the water off, protect the unit below, record what you did, and call someone who is familiar with the area. In a heavily rented beach suburb, the households and tenants who suffer the least when such events occur are nearly always the ones who did the most boring preparation ahead of the event.