What to do when a pipe bursts

A burst supply line puts out gallons a minute, and the first ten minutes decide how much of the house it reaches. The order matters: stop the water, protect what water ruins, then make the calls.

First: stop the water

Find the main shutoff and close it. In Portland homes it's usually where the water line enters the house: a basement wall, the crawl space, or a garage wall on slab homes. There's a second shutoff at the meter box near the curb if the indoor one won't turn. Know yours before you need it; mid-flood is a bad time to learn the crawl space layout.

This is worth a minute of your winter. When the Gorge outflow pushes ice through Troutdale, Fairview, and Gresham, supply lines in crawl spaces and exterior walls go first. During the January 2024 winter storm, Portland's Water Bureau reported 4,000 calls about emergency water shutoffs. If your shutoff is stuck or you can't find it, an ice event is a bad time to learn that.

Then: protect what's in the path

• Kill power to the wet area if you can reach the panel without stepping in water. Water plus wiring is the one combination that turns a plumbing problem into a different emergency.
• Move electronics, rugs, and furniture off the wet floor. Pull out what you can carry, set the rest on blocks or foil-wrapped legs.
• Punch a small drain hole in a bulging ceiling with a screwdriver and a bucket under it. A controlled hole beats letting the sheetrock decide where it lets go.
• Photograph everything before you move or clean. The claim pays on documentation, and wet damage is at its most legible in the first hour.

What not to do

• Don't run the furnace to "dry it out." Household air won't dry a wall cavity, and pushing wet air around feeds mold.
• Don't open walls yourself. The crew needs to see where the water went, and premature demo destroys the moisture evidence that sets the scope.
• Don't wait on it because the flow stopped. Water in insulation and framing keeps working for days after the visible puddle is gone.

What to say on the request

"Burst pipe, water off, kitchen ceiling coming down" is enough to route on. The crew covering your part of the metro calls you back and takes it from there. The burst pipe service page covers what the repair and dry-out involve, and flood cleanup covers what happens when the water has already spread.