
Burst Pipe
A split line will not stop on its own, so close the main valve and call before the water gets into adobe or under the slab.
When this becomes an emergency
- Water running down an outside wall from a line that feeds the roof cooler.
- A loud hiss inside a wall that keeps building instead of fading.
- Damp plaster spreading across an adobe wall from the inside out.
- The pressure tank cycling hard while every tap in the house sits closed.
What a pro does
Cutting the water comes first. On a house fed by a well that means the main valve and often the pump breaker too, because a pump will keep feeding a split line until somebody stops it. Then the plumber works out where the break sits. In much of New Mexico the answer is the evaporative cooler supply, a small line run up to the roof and left charged into the first cold night of the fall, and that line freezes long before anything inside the heated part of the house ever will. High desert nights do this quietly. A day can top seventy and the same night can drop below freezing, so a homeowner goes to bed with no reason to think about it. Adobe and plastered block make the tracing slower than it would be in a stud wall, since there's no cavity to open and look into, and the wet patch on the surface can sit well away from the actual split. Once the damaged run is exposed the plumber cuts the bad section out, rejoins with fittings that match the existing material, and pressure tests the repair before anything gets closed back up.
Frequently asked questions
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