PEmergency plumber, Chicago
Burst pipe? The water goes off before anything else happens.
Sims & Sons is an emergency plumber in Chicago for two jobs: burst and frozen pipe repair, and water heater replacement. We find the main, shut it, cut out the split, repair in copper or PEX and put a gauge on the line before we pack up. Most burst pipes we see in January are on an outside wall behind a kitchen sink.
Nothing on this page is a binding quote. A price is binding when it is written down for your address, after we have seen the job. Plaster and drywall patching are never in a plumbing price, and we tell you so before the first cut.
01Burst and frozen pipes
Burst pipe repair in Chicago, done in the order that stops the damage.
Water off first. The torch comes out after that. A plumber who starts with the torch while the line is still live is making your ceiling worse.
Shut-off, cut-out, repair, pressure test.
Frozen water expands about nine percent. The ice itself rarely splits the pipe where it sits; the pressure builds between the ice plug and a closed faucet, and the pipe lets go there. So the split you find is often a few feet from the cold spot, and the freeze is still in the wall when the thaw starts and the water comes out. That is why most calls come in at the warm afternoon after a cold night, not at 4 a.m.
On arrival we close the main or the nearest working valve and open a low faucet to drain the line. We do not leave a burst-pipe call with the water still on. If the main is a seized gate valve that will not turn, we tell you, and we can replace it with a full-port ball valve while the house is already dry.
Then we open the wall or ceiling only as far as we need to see sound pipe on both sides of the damage. Copper gets cut back to clean metal and a Type L coupling sweated on. PEX-A gets an expansion fitting. Galvanized steel, which is still in plenty of Lakeview two-flats, does not get a threaded patch from us. It gets transitioned, because the threads on an 80-year-old galvanized run are where it is thinnest.
| Existing pipe | Our repair | Why | Test |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copper | Cut back, Type L coupling, lead-free solder | Matches the run. No mixed metals on one line. | Line pressure, 15 min on gauge |
| PEX | PEX-A expansion fitting or splice | Holds better than crimp on a run that already froze once | Line pressure, 15 min on gauge |
| Galvanized | Cut out, dielectric transition to copper or PEX-A | Threads are the weak point. Patching moves the leak. | Line pressure, 15 min on gauge |
| Push-fit | Temporary only, to get water back on | Gets a family through the night. We return to make it permanent. | Visual, then permanent repair |
02Winter shut-off notes
Know where your main is before February finds it for you.
These are the numbers we watch on the North Side. None of them are magic. They are the points where the calls start.
20°Foutside
Below this, unheated runs start to freeze. Kitchen sinks on exterior walls go first, then anything running over an open porch. Open the cabinet doors under the sink so room heat can reach the pipe.
0°Fovernight
Let the cold tap on the worst wall run at a pencil-lead drip. Moving water is hard to freeze, and an open faucet relieves the pressure that splits the pipe.
55°Fthermostat
The lowest we would set a house you are leaving for a few days in January. Lower than that and the outside walls of a frame cottage drop well below the room reading.
1/4turn
A lever ball valve closes in a quarter turn. An old round-handle gate valve takes several turns and may not seal at all. Find out which one you have now, not with water on the floor.
Where the main usually is
In most Chicago two-flats and greystones the water service comes in from the street side, through the front foundation wall, and the main valve sits just inside, before or after the meter. In a frame cottage it can be behind a furnace or boxed into a closet. In a courtyard building there may be a valve per riser and the main is in a utility room you need a key for.
Outside hose bibs freeze every year. Close the inside shut-off for each one in November and open the outside spigot to drain it. If there is no inside shut-off, that is a short job for us and cheaper than the ceiling below it.
If you smell gas or the water has reached an electrical panel, leave the basement and call. We do both trades, so the same visit covers the water and the circuits it got into.
03Water heater replacement
Water heater replacement in Chicago, with the vent checked every time.
A new tank on an old flue is the job that goes wrong quietly. We look at the venting before we price the tank.
40 or 50 gallons, gas or electric.
Tanks fail two ways. The slow way is rust: the anode is spent, the steel goes, and you find a puddle and rust-colored water from the hot side. The fast way is the bottom seam letting go and 50 gallons on the basement floor. If your tank is past 10 to 12 years and has never had an anode changed, you are on borrowed time either way.
We replace tank for tank. Gas units get a new flex connector and a sediment trap, a leak check on every joint, and the draft hood checked with a lit match or smoke pencil once the burner is running. Electric units go on a properly sized 240V circuit, which is where being electricians first matters: if the old tank is on undersized wire, we see it and fix it in the same visit.
Every install gets the expansion tank checked. If your building has a backflow preventer or a pressure-reducing valve, the water has nowhere to go when it heats, and the relief valve starts weeping. An expansion tank on the cold line handles that. If the relief valve discharge pipe is missing or ends a foot off the ceiling, we run it down to within inches of the floor.
| Tank | Fuel | Usually suits | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40 gal | Gas or electric | One or two people, one full bathroom | Two showers back to back will run it cold, electric more than gas |
| 50 gal | Gas or electric | Three to five people, two bathrooms | Taller tank. Measure the closet and the flue height first. |
| 50 gal electric | 240V, dedicated circuit | Apartments with no gas line, or a house going all-electric | Breaker and wire gauge must match the elements. We check both. |
| Venting | How it works | Needs | Common problem we find |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atmospheric | Hot exhaust rises up a metal flue into the chimney on its own | A sound, lined chimney and upward pitch on the connector | Unlined masonry chimney left orphaned after a furnace upgrade, so the tank back-drafts |
| Power vent | A fan pushes exhaust out through a plastic pipe in the side wall | A 120V outlet near the tank and a wall route outside | No outlet within reach, or the termination too close to a window |
| Direct vent | Sealed unit drawing outside air and exhausting through the wall, no fan | An exterior wall close to the tank | Only works where the tank can sit on an outside wall |
Electrical work for a water heater is covered on the electrical page, including dedicated circuits and what a 60 amp service can carry.
04A burst call, start to finish
From the phone ringing to a dry wall.
The order does not change at 3 a.m. or 3 p.m.
You call 312-282-1170. Someone picks up.
We ask where the water is coming from and whether it is near anything electrical. If you can find the main, we talk you through closing it while we are on the way.
On the phone
Water off, line drained.
Main or nearest working valve closed, a low faucet opened. If water reached a panel or outlets, those circuits go off too.
First minutes on site
Price stated, then the wall opens.
You hear the call-out charge and the time-and-materials basis before we cut. We open only enough to see sound pipe both sides.
Before any cutting
Cut out and repair.
Copper stays copper, PEX gets expansion fittings, galvanized gets transitioned. Any other frozen section on the same run gets checked while it is open.
Typically under two hours for one split
Pressure test with a gauge on the line.
Water back on slowly, the repair watched at line pressure for 15 minutes. No drips, no drop on the gauge, or we do it again.
Before we pack up
Written note of what was done.
Material used, where, and what we would still worry about. Useful for your insurer, who will want to know.
By email after the visit
05Before you call
What people ask us with the water still running.
Short answers. If yours is not here, ring and ask a person.
We tell you the call-out charge on the phone. The repair is time and materials, and we state it on site before any cutting starts, once we can see where the split is and what the pipe is made of. A ceiling bay with copper is a different job from a galvanized riser inside a plaster wall.
Whatever the run already is, unless it is galvanized steel. Copper stays copper with Type L and a soldered coupling. Galvanized gets transitioned to copper or PEX-A, because a threaded patch on 80-year-old galvanized only moves the next leak a foot down the line.
No. We open what we need to reach the pipe and leave the hole clean and dry. Patching and painting is not in our price and we say so before we start. Leave the hole open a day or two with a fan on it; closing up wet plaster is how a leak turns into mold.
Usually whatever is there now. Switching fuel means a new gas line or a new 240V circuit, and that changes the quote. Because we are electricians too, a switch to electric is one firm and one visit, with a load check on your service first.
If you need a sewer line excavated or a whole bathroom plumbed from bare studs, call a firm that does only plumbing. Our plumbing side is leaks, burst and frozen pipes and water heaters. We would rather send you to the right outfit than take a job we do twice a year.
Water on the floor right now?
Find the main if you can. Then ring. For a scheduled water heater swap, send the job and we write the quote after one visit.