Water You Cannot Shut Off
If the fixture stop will not close and you cannot find the main shutoff, call now. We will talk you through finding it while we are on the way.
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OUR SERVICES
Emergency plumbing in Urbandale, answered 24 hours a day. Burst pipes, sewer backups, failed water heaters, and anything putting water where it should not be.
OVERVIEW
An emergency is anything actively causing damage or making a building unusable: water you cannot shut off, sewage coming up through a floor drain, no water at all, or a gas smell near an appliance. We answer the phone in Urbandale 24 hours a day, and we give you an honest arrival time rather than the one you want to hear.
Urbandale sits at a median build year around 1992, which puts most of the city on material that is now roughly thirty years old. Old enough for mature landscaping to have found any joint that shifted, and young enough that the pipe itself is usually still sound.
All work is performed in compliance with the 2024 Uniform Plumbing Code as adopted by the State of Iowa.

WHAT COUNTS AS AN EMERGENCY
Some plumbing problems can wait until morning. These cannot.
If the fixture stop will not close and you cannot find the main shutoff, call now. We will talk you through finding it while we are on the way.
Waste surfacing at a floor drain or a low fixture means the main line is blocked. Every further gallon used in the building makes it worse.
A tank that is both failing and leaking is a flooding risk, and in a finished basement it does expensive damage quickly.
Leave the building and call the gas utility first. We handle the plumbing side afterward, but that call comes before ours.
A lot of Urbandale homes were built in the same window, which means their original equipment tends to reach end of life at the same time.
Thirty years of tree growth over a lateral is enough for a root system to find any opening, even in PVC.
EMERGENCY SERVICES
Residential and commercial, around the clock.
Waste surfacing indoors, usually at the lowest drain in the building. We clear the line, then camera it once the immediate problem is contained.
Split lines, failed joints, and leaks inside walls and ceilings. We isolate first and repair second.
Iowa winters find every under-insulated run. Thawing safely matters more than thawing fast, because heat applied wrongly splits the pipe outright.
Tanks that have opened up, relief valves discharging, and units leaking into a finished space.
Toilets, sinks, and tubs that will not drain and will not stop, including the shutoff that should have worked and did not.
A restaurant or clinic that cannot open is losing money by the hour, and those calls are treated accordingly.
WHY CLOG BUSTERS
A real person, an honest arrival time, and a fixed price before any work starts.
Not a queue and not a voicemail box. Someone who can tell you what to shut off and what to stop using right now.
You get the actual window rather than an optimistic one. If we cannot be there quickly we say so while you still have time to call someone else.
Urbandale permits this work through Building Services in Community Development at 3600 86th Street, with water heater and sewer service line permits both named on the city fee schedule.
First we stop the damage. Then we find the cause properly, because something applied in a hurry to the wrong problem is not a repair.
Even at three in the morning you approve the number before work begins. An emergency is not an excuse for open-ended billing.
FAQ
Still stuck? Call the Des Moines shop at (515) 259-1991.
Shut off the water. For one fixture that is the stop valve underneath it, and for the whole building it is the main shutoff, usually where the supply enters. For a water heater, close the cold inlet and turn off the gas or the breaker. We will talk you through it on the phone.
You are quoted a price and you approve it before any work starts, whatever the hour. There is no open-ended clock and nothing added at the end.
Usually not. A slow drain is a scheduled call. Waste coming up through a floor drain, water you cannot stop, or no water at all are the ones that cannot wait until morning.
Stop using every fixture in the building, because each one adds to what is coming up. Then shut the main if the source is supply rather than drainage, and stay clear of standing water near anything electrical.
Yes. Restaurants, clinics, offices, and multi-unit buildings. If a business cannot operate, that is treated as urgent regardless of the hour.
Urbandale spans Polk and Dallas counties. It makes no difference for permitting, because the city issues them regardless of which side your address falls on.
Not usually by itself. Median build year here is around 1992 and that material is generally sound. Accumulation over three decades of use is the more common cause of trouble.
About a five mile run for us and we operate 24 hours a day, so same-day is normal and an active leak or backup is prioritized.
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