Water coming through a wall with no obvious source. A spray from a line under the sink. A pipe that froze overnight and let go when it thawed. Every minute the water stays on, it spreads further into the subfloor, the insulation and the wall cavity.
Call (206) 813-0805Shut off the main. It's usually where the water line comes into the house — in a crawl space, a garage, near the water heater, or low on an outside wall. Turn it clockwise until it stops.
If the break is before that valve, or the valve won't move, the next shut-off is at the meter by the street. The meter and the street-side valve belong to your water district, not to you or the City of Burien. Burien is served by five water providers — Highline Water District, King County Water District 20, Water District 49, Water District 125 and Seattle Public Utilities — and the city's utilities page has a map of which serves your address. Call the district for your address; they can shut it off.
Once the water is off, open a tap at the lowest point in the house to drain what's left in the pipes. If water has reached outlets or the panel, keep out of that room.
A pipe inside a wall can run for a long time before it shows. By the time paint bubbles or the baseboard swells, the insulation in the cavity is soaked and the bottom plate of the wall has been sitting in water.
The pipe itself needs a plumber. The water it let out is the restoration job: opening the wall far enough to reach the wet material, extracting and drying the cavity and the floor, and checking with a moisture meter that it's dry before anything is closed up. If the leak was under the house, the crawl space gets the same treatment.
Most of Burien's homes went up in the decades after the Second World War. In a house that age, some of the supply pipes may be original and some replaced, and a leak in one spot is worth a look at the rest.
Shut off the water first. Then, if the drywall is bulging, a small hole at the lowest point with a bucket under it lets the water out in a controlled way rather than all at once. Don't cut further than that — opening the wall properly is part of drying it, and it's easier to do once someone can see where the pipes run.
Only if the water is off. A small spray under a sink or in a wall puts out more water overnight than most people expect, and pinhole leaks can open up. Shut off the main, or the valve for that fixture if there is one, and it can wait for a plumber. The wet cabinet or wall still needs drying either way.
Almost certainly. If every tap, toilet and appliance is off and the meter is still moving, water is going somewhere — often a pipe under the house, in a wall or in the ground between the meter and the house. Keep the main off where you can, and get it traced before the damage shows.
It depends which side of the meter it's on. The line from the meter to the house is usually the owner's; the meter and the street side belong to the water district. If it's between the meter and the house, it's a plumber for the pipe. If it's reached the foundation or the crawl space, that's where the water damage is.
Pipes freeze where the cold reaches them: exterior walls, garages, crawl spaces, attics, and outdoor taps.
If a pipe has frozen: no water from a tap, or frost on a pipe you can see. Open the tap it feeds, and warm the pipe slowly — a hair dryer, a space heater kept well clear, warm towels. No open flame. Have towels and a bucket ready: a split pipe often doesn't leak until it thaws.
Water off first, then call (206) 813-0805. Answered any hour.