Water is pouring out of a wall, a ceiling, or a pipe in the basement. Call (201) 676-3099 or book a free estimate.
Water is pouring out of a wall, a ceiling, or a pipe in the basement. Don't read the whole page. Do the four steps below, in order, then come back for the rest. Step 4 is a phone number that a real person answers, day or night.
Do this right now
It's usually where the water line comes into the house: the front basement wall near the meter, a utility closet, or the garage. A round wheel handle turns clockwise until it stops. A lever handle turns a quarter turn so it sits across the pipe. If only hot water is spraying, the valve on top of the water heater stops it faster. Can't find it, or it won't budge? Call us — we'll walk you through it while the crew rolls.
If water is near outlets, the electrical panel, the furnace, or anything plugged in, switch off the breaker for that area — or the main breaker if you can reach the panel with dry feet on a dry floor. Never stand in water to reach a switch or a panel. If the panel itself is wet or you'd have to wade to it, leave it alone and tell us when you call.
Open the lowest faucet in the house — a basement sink or an outside spigot — and one faucet upstairs, so the pipes empty and the pressure drops. Then move furniture, rugs, boxes and electronics out of the wet area. Towels at the edges, a bucket under any drip. If a ceiling is bulging, poke a small hole over a bucket so it drains before it falls. Take photos of everything before you clean up. Your insurance company will ask.
A real person answers 24/7 — not a machine, not a call center. Tell us what's wet, where the water came from, and whether the main is off. We dispatch a licensed crew the same day; in Bergen, Passaic, Hudson, Essex and Morris that's often within the hour. You can text a photo to the same number.
What we do when we arrive
You approve the price before any work, even at 2am. Typical fixed-price range for the pipe repair itself in North Jersey: $350 – $2.5K. The water-damage side depends on how long it ran and where it went.
- Confirm the water is off and find the actual break. It's often not where the water showed up — water travels along pipes and joists before it drops.
- Cut out the failed section and repair it properly with new copper or PEX. Not a rubber clamp, not tape, not a push-fitting on a corroded pipe. Then pressure-test before the main goes back on.
- Check the rest of the run. A pipe that froze or pinholed in one spot usually has a weak neighbor a few feet away.
- Start the dry-out. Open the wet wall or ceiling if it needs it, pull soaked insulation, get air moving. The drywall, paint and any mold treatment get priced as a written, itemized number you approve first.
- Document it: photos before and after, the cause of the failure, and an itemized invoice — the paperwork an adjuster actually needs.
Why pipes burst in New Jersey
Water expands when it freezes. A pipe on an outside wall, in a crawlspace, in a garage ceiling or behind a kitchen cabinet freezes on a single-digit night, and the split shows itself when it thaws. Most of the "burst pipe" calls we take in January are really thaw calls.
Houses built before the 1970s often still run galvanized steel that rusts from the inside until it pinholes. Copper pitted by decades of our water chemistry does the same thing, just slower.
Street pressure over about 80 psi hammers every joint in the house. A pressure-reducing valve is a cheap fix that also saves your faucets and your water heater.
A clamp on a split, a push-fitting on dirty pipe, a washing-machine hose that was never replaced. Every one of those has a clock on it. Most of them go off while you're away for the weekend.
What NOT to do
- Don't turn the water back on "just to see." You already know.
- Don't tape or clamp it and forget about it. That's how a $600 repair becomes a $6,000 ceiling.
- Don't put a torch, a heat gun or a space heater on a frozen pipe. A hair dryer, slowly, from the faucet end — or wait for us.
- Don't wait until morning if a ceiling is holding water. Ceilings come down on their own schedule.
- Don't let a water-damage company start ripping out walls before you have a written price. Demolition is easy to sell at midnight.
Stop the next one
Fixing the pipe is half the job. The other half is fixing why it broke. After the repair we tell you, in writing, what caused it and what stops it: insulating or rerouting pipes off cold walls, heat cable where a reroute isn't possible, a pressure-reducing valve, new braided hoses on the washer, or a whole-house repipe if the galvanized is at the end of its life.
And the cheap stuff you can do tonight: keep the heat at 55°F or higher when you're away, open the cabinet doors under sinks on outside walls during a deep freeze, let the farthest faucet drip on the coldest nights, and disconnect the garden hoses before the first frost.
Questions people ask next
How do I find my main water shutoff?
Follow the water meter. In most NJ homes it's on the front basement wall where the pipe comes in from the street; in a slab house it's often in a utility closet or the garage. There's a valve on the house side of the meter — that's yours. Find it today, on a dry day, and show everyone in the house.
The pipe is frozen but hasn't burst yet. What do I do?
Open the faucet it feeds so melting water has somewhere to go, and warm the room. Never use an open flame. Shut the main if you see any drip. Then call — we thaw pipes with controlled electric heat, check for splits, and fix why it froze so next January is boring.
Will insurance cover a burst pipe?
Sudden bursts are usually covered; damage from a slow leak that ran for months usually isn't. Every policy is different, so call your carrier the same day. We give you dated photos, the cause of the failure and an itemized invoice — what the adjuster needs.
Do you charge more at night or on weekends?
You get the price before we start, every time — nights, weekends and holidays included. There's no after-hours fee that shows up later on the bill. If it's on the number you approved, it's on the invoice. Nothing else is.
Need burst pipe repair near you?
If you searched “burst pipe repair near me” anywhere in New Jersey, that's us. First Call Contracting is based in Paramus and sends its own licensed crew to all 21 counties — written price before work starts, no deposit, a real person on the phone 24/7.
Water off? Now make the call.
A real person answers, a licensed crew rolls today, and you approve the price before we touch anything.
Or call Alex direct: (201) 676-3099