What to do when a pipe bursts at home

Here's what to do, in order, when a pipe bursts at home, written by Gold Coast plumbers who get called to a couple of these every week.

Step 1, turn off the water main

This is the single most important thing you can do. Every minute the water stays on, more is coming through the burst. Even a small pinhole can dump 50+ litres an hour.

Your water main is almost always one of three places:

• Near the front fence or footpath, a small green or black box in the lawn, often labelled "WATER".
• Against an outside wall of the house, usually on the side closest to the street.
• In a meter pit, a concrete or plastic box flush with the ground, lid lifts off.

Inside, you'll see a tap or lever. Turn it 90° (a quarter turn) clockwise. That stops water to the whole property. If you've got a tap-style valve, turn it clockwise until it stops.

Tip: if you can't find it now, you don't want to be looking in a panic. Find it once today, while everything's calm, so you know where it is for next time.

Step 2, turn off the hot water system

If the burst is on the hot water side, the hot water unit will keep pumping water out through the burst. Worse, if it's a gas storage unit and runs dry, the burner can damage the tank.

Find the isolation tap on the cold water pipe going into the hot water unit (usually right next to it) and turn it off. For electric storage units, also flick the breaker labelled "Hot Water" on your switchboard.

Step 3, turn off the power to anything wet

If water is anywhere near power points, light fittings, or your switchboard, kill the power at the main breaker. Electricity + water + you is a combination you don't want.

If the water is contained well away from any electricals, you can skip this, but err on the side of cutting power if there's any doubt.

Step 4, start moving water and stuff out of the way

Grab towels, buckets, the wet/dry vac if you have one. The goal is to stop standing water from soaking into floors, skirting, carpet underlay and plasterboard, that's where the real damage and cost comes in.

• Lift rugs, move furniture off wet carpet.
• Pull anything off the bottom of cupboards if the burst is in a wall.
• Open windows and doors, airflow now means less mould later.

Step 5, call a plumber

Now you can call. Tell the plumber where you are, what the situation is, whether you've isolated the water, and whether anything's still leaking. A good emergency plumber will give you an ETA on the call, not a callback.

On the Gold Coast, ring us on 0472 657 042 any time of the day or night. We answer 24/7 and we'll aim to be on-site within the hour for genuine emergencies.

Step 6, document for insurance

While you're waiting, take photos. Lots of them. The burst itself, the affected rooms, ruined items, the time on the clock if possible. If you end up making a contents or building insurance claim, photographic evidence makes the difference between a fast pay-out and a frustrating one.

Also: don't throw anything out yet. Insurers usually want to inspect (or have an assessor send photos) before items are removed.

Why pipes burst in the first place

The most common causes we see on the Gold Coast:

• Old copper pipe corroded through. Most homes 30+ years old will see this. The copper goes thin from the inside out and one day a pinhole pops.
• Tree roots cracking a pipe. Roots love the moisture inside drain and water lines. They wedge their way in through tiny gaps and pry the pipe open over years.
• Water hammer fatigue. If you've ever heard a loud "thunk" in your walls when you turn a tap off, that's water hammer. Over years it stresses pipe joints.
• Freeze damage. Rare up here but happens in the hinterland, water expands as it freezes and splits the pipe.
• Pressure spikes. If your home's pressure regulator fails, water can come in at 1000+ kPa, well above what household pipework is rated for.

What it'll cost

An honest range, on the Gold Coast in 2026:

• Business-hours burst pipe repair (single break, accessible): often a few hundred dollars.
• In-wall or under-slab repair: more, there's plasterboard, tiling, or concrete work involved.
• After-hours emergency rate: higher, and quoted on the call before we leave.

You'll always see a written fixed-price quote before any work starts, that's our rule, day or night.

What you can do to prevent the next one

You can't stop all bursts, but you can reduce the odds.

• Replace old galvanised or aged copper pipework when you reno, cheaper to do during a wall-out than as an emergency.
• Install a pressure regulator if your home doesn't have one (or your existing one is 10+ years old).
• Insulate exposed pipework in unheated spaces.
• Watch for warning signs, damp spots on ceilings, unexplained spikes in your water bill, sounds of running water when nothing is on.
• Get a plumbing health check if you've just moved into an older house. We'll go through it and flag the high-risk stuff.

If you're on the Gold Coast and something's burst right now, don't read further, call us. 0472 657 042. We answer.

Why the first minutes matter so much

Most homeowners underestimate how fast water damage compounds. A burst caught in ten minutes with the water isolated is often a mop-up and a repair. The same burst left running for a day while you're away can soak carpet, plasterboard, cabinetry and the unit below, and damage costs vary enormously from there, sometimes into uninhabitable-for-months territory.

The maths overwhelmingly favours every minute of isolation speed. Knowing where your meter valve is, having a smart leak detection system with auto shut-off, replacing flexi hoses proactively, all pay off in real money when something fails.

What we charge for emergency burst pipe response on the Gold Coast

Simple: the after-hours rate is quoted on the phone before we dispatch, and the repair gets quoted on-site before any work starts. No surprise invoices, day or night.

Why pinhole leaks specifically are common in older Gold Coast coastal homes

Beach-strip homes 30+ years old have copper pipework that has been quietly accumulating chloride pitting from coastal humidity for decades. By year 30-40, the first pinhole opens. By year 35-45, the second and third follow within months. At that point the answer is usually a whole-house PEX repipe ($4,500-12,000 for a typical 4-bedroom home) rather than another spot repair, because the rest of the original copper is the same age and chemistry.

If you have had one pinhole, the next one is statistically likely within 6-24 months. If you have had two, plan the repipe.

What to do if you cannot find the water meter

It happens. The meter is hidden under garden growth, the lid is jammed shut, or you have just moved in and never looked. Some options:

1. Look at the closest hot water unit isolation valve. Closes hot water side, slows the leak if it is on the hot line.
2. Look for any in-house stop tap, sometimes there is a secondary isolation valve in the laundry, garage, or under-house cavity.
3. For apartments, call the building manager emergency line to isolate at the common cold water valve.
4. Call us, we will talk you through finding the meter on the phone and dispatch immediately. Don't waste time looking alone if you are getting nowhere.

The proactive burst-pipe audit

For homes 30+ years old, a whole-house pipe audit is worth doing: pressure-test the system, inspect every visible run, check the age of every flexi hose, and get a written list of the pipes most likely to fail next. Tells you what to fix proactively vs what is fine for now.

Ask us for a quote, like everything else we do it's priced up front. It catches issues before they become 3am emergencies.