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 West Des Moines, 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 West Des Moines 24 hours a day, and we give you an honest arrival time rather than the one you want to hear.
West Des Moines has the hardest published water in the metro. West Des Moines Water Works lists an average of 154 mg/L, about 9 grains per gallon, and that shows up as mineral scale in older lines and inside equipment far more than in neighbouring cities.
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.
The city spans Polk, Dallas, Warren, and Madison, and people often assume that changes who issues their permit. It does not.
At roughly 9 grains per gallon this is the hardest published supply in the metro, and scale bonds with everything else to form a genuinely hard deposit.
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.
West Des Moines issues plumbing permits through its City Access Portal at Development Services on Mills Civic Parkway, and the city works to the same 2024 Uniform Plumbing Code we do.
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.
The city maintains more than 260 miles of public sanitary sewer through Public Services, with treatment handled by the regional authority. The private lateral from your building to that system belongs to you.
West Des Moines Water Works runs its own supply, roughly half from Raccoon River alluvial wells and about thirty percent from Jordan aquifer wells 2,500 feet down, treated at the A.C. Ward plant, with the balance purchased.
Roughly a four and a half mile run for us and we operate 24 hours, so same-day service is standard and an active leak or backup is prioritized.
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