A burst pipe is a race against volume. Shut the water off at the main valve, and if there is no working house shutoff, go to the SAWS meter box. Cut power where water is near wiring, open every faucet to drain the lines, and photograph everything before you move it. You then have roughly 24 to 48 hours to dry the space before mold starts.
- Shut the water off at the main valve first. If there is no working house shutoff, the SAWS meter box at the curb is the fallback — worth locating before you ever need it.
- Cut power anywhere water is near wiring, then open every faucet to drain the lines and take the remaining pressure off the break.
- Photograph everything before you move it. Claims are decided on what the damage looked like untouched.
- You have roughly 24 to 48 hours to dry the space before mold becomes the second problem.
Do These Six Things Right Now
- Shut off the water at the main.In most San Antonio homes that valve is on an exterior wall near the front hose bibb, in the garage, or in a small box just inside the property line. Turn it clockwise until it stops. If it is a lever, turn it a quarter turn so the handle sits across the pipe rather than along it.
- No working house shutoff? Go to the meter.SAWS puts the meter underground beneath a round or oval lid, set between the hose bibb at the front of your house and the street, roughly in a straight line between the two. On a corner lot it is often along the side. In some parts of the city the meters sit in the alley instead.
- Cut power to anything wet.If water is running near outlets, a panel, a furnace or an attic air handler, switch off those circuits at the breaker — but only if you can reach the panel without standing in water. If you cannot reach it dry, leave it and say so when you call.
- Open every faucet and flush the toilets.Once the supply is off, this drains the pressure and the standing water still sitting in the lines. Open hot and cold, indoors and outdoors, upstairs and down. Less water in the pipes is less water in the ceiling.
- Photograph everything before you move it.Wide shots of each room, then close shots of the pipe, the wet flooring, the ceiling stain and any damaged contents. Do this before you mop, before you move furniture, and before anyone starts tearing anything out. This is the evidence your claim is built on.
- Call.Call a licensed plumber for the pipe. Call SAWS at 210-704-SAWS (7297), staffed 24 hours a day, if the meter valve will not turn or the water appears to be coming from their side. If you smell gas at any point, leave the house first and call 911 and CPS Energy from outside.
Everything above takes ten minutes, and it decides whether this is a plumbing repair or a restoration project. A burst pipe is rarely expensive because of the pipe. What costs money is the water that kept moving while somebody hunted for the valve.
Where Your Shutoff Is, and What to Do If It Won’t Turn
Homes here are almost all slab-on-grade, so there is no basement where the water comes in. The main shutoff is usually on an exterior wall near the front hose bibb, in the garage, or in a buried box between the house and the street.
Older pier-and-beam homes on the near West, South and East sides sometimes hide the valve under the house, which is the worst possible place to hunt with a burst pipe running above you.
If that valve is seized, the meter is your fallback. SAWS puts it under a round or oval lid, in a direct line between the front hose bibb and the street. Corner lots often have it to the side, and some older areas have alley meters.
SAWS publishes no written step-by-step for operating the valve inside the meter box, and no position on whether a customer may work the curb stop. We are not going to invent one.
If the lid is stuck, the valve will not move under reasonable hand pressure, or you are unsure which valve you are looking at, stop and call SAWS at 210-704-SAWS (7297), answered around the clock. Snapping a meter valve during a burst pipe turns one problem into two.
If the lid is stuck, the box is full of dirt, the valve will not move under reasonable hand pressure, or you are unsure which valve you are looking at, stop and call SAWS at 210-704-SAWS (7297), answered around the clock. Snapping a meter valve during a burst pipe turns one problem into two.
If the lid is stuck, the box is full of dirt or wasps, the valve will not move under reasonable hand pressure, or you are not sure which valve you are looking at, stop and call SAWS at 210-704-SAWS (7297). That line is answered around the clock. A snapped meter valve turns your problem into a second problem on the utility’s side of the line.
Find your shutoff on a dry Saturday, confirm it turns, and tell the household where it is. A valve untouched for fifteen years often will not move on the night you need it. Replacing one is a small scheduled job, and the cheapest thing that shortens a burst pipe from an hour of running water to ninety seconds. A correctly placed valve also earns a utility rebate, covered in our guide to frozen pipes in San Antonio.
The Clock That Matters After a Burst Pipe
Two clocks start the moment the pipe opens. One runs in minutes and decides how much water ends up in the building. The other runs in hours and decides whether the building dries out or starts growing something.
Calling a plumber is not step one, and that is deliberate. The fastest truck in the city is twenty minutes away, and a half-inch line at street pressure moves a great deal of water in twenty minutes. Whoever is nearest the valve matters most.
No Water at the Tap Is Not Always a Burst Pipe
During the January 2024 cold snap, SAWS took hundreds of calls from customers whose faucets had stopped. Across the whole system that morning there were three actual outages. Nearly every caller had frozen plumbing in their own walls, and the utility cannot thaw that.
To tell them apart, check fixtures on different sides of the house, hot and cold separately, then ask a neighbor. If they have water and you do not, it is on your side of the meter. If only some fixtures are dead, that is a localized freeze waiting to become a burst pipe, usually in an attic run or at a hose bibb.
A frozen line that has not split yet is an opportunity. Warm it gently with a heating pad, a hair dryer, a space heater kept clear of anything flammable, or hot towels, and never with a flame; the full method is in our guide to frozen pipes in San Antonio. Shut the main off first, because thawing is the moment a burst pipe announces itself.
On freeze calls the split almost never shows itself while the line is still frozen. It appears on the thaw, mid-morning, once the sun is on the roof and the attic warms before the rest of the house. The people who had no water at 7am and thought the worst was over are the ones calling at eleven with a burst pipe coming through a ceiling.
Why the First Day Decides How Big This Gets
Pumping the water out is half the job. What decides whether a burst pipe becomes a mold remediation project is the moisture left in the carpet pad, the drywall and the framing behind the baseboard. The EPA is unambiguous: dry the area within 24 to 48 hours and, in most cases, mold will not grow.
In practice that means fans and a dehumidifier the same day, pulling wet carpet pad rather than hoping, and checking behind the baseboard with a moisture meter rather than by eye.
That window is why a burst pipe repaired the following evening still leaves the house wet for a full day. Getting a plumber out the same night is only partly about the pipe. If a failed tank caused it, the replacement is scheduled water heater work.
| What you are seeing | Shut off | Call first |
|---|---|---|
| A visible burst pipe, spraying | House main, or the meter | Licensed plumber |
| Water coming through a ceiling | House main, plus the water heater if it is in the attic | Licensed plumber |
| Water bubbling up in the yard or at the meter box | Nothing yourself | SAWS 210-704-7297 |
| No water at all on a freezing morning | Main, before you start thawing | Check neighbors, then a plumber |
| Water near an outlet, panel or air handler | The affected breakers, then the main | Do not wade in — call for help |
| Sewage coming up a floor drain or tub | Stop using every fixture in the house | Plumber, and SAWS if it is at the cleanout |
| Any smell of gas, at any point | Nothing. Leave the building. | 911 + CPS 210-353-4357 |
Utility numbers are published by SAWS and CPS Energy. A backed-up main line is a different problem with a different owner — we mapped that boundary in who pays for a sewer backup in San Antonio.
One note on that last row. Gas is not a plumbing problem you work through, it is an evacuation. Get out, leave the door open, and call 911 and 210-353-HELP (4357) from away from the house. No light switches, no phone indoors, no flashlight, no flames. The protocol is in what counts as a plumbing emergency.
Documenting It So the Claim Survives
The Texas Department of Insurance draws the line plainly: most policies cover sudden and accidental water damage and exclude gradual seepage. A burst pipe that split in a freeze is the covered side. A fitting weeping behind a wall for eight months is the other, which is why adjusters ask how long it has been going on.
So photograph before cleanup, not after. You are establishing both the extent of the damage and that it happened suddenly. Insurers can also deny a claim where the owner failed to protect the property, so the shutoff and the fans are part of the record.
Report it within days of first seeing it. Keep receipts, keep the invoice describing what failed, and keep the section of burst pipe itself — it is the most useful object in the whole claim.
The Water Bill That Arrives Three Weeks Later
A burst pipe on the supply side runs at full pressure for as long as it runs, and the meter counts every gallon. That bill lands weeks later, long after the drywall is back up.
SAWS does run a leak adjustment program and it is worth pursuing after a burst pipe, but you must prove the leak was repaired, so keep the invoice. It is a one-time credit assessed case by case, not an automatic recalculation.
SAWS accepts applications through its online leak adjustment portal and requires proof the repair is complete. Terms have changed since the pandemic-era version, so confirm current eligibility with SAWS directly.
If paying for the burst pipe repair itself is the obstacle, SAWS runs an income-qualified emergency repair program, Plumbers to People, on 210-233-CARE (2273). It covers fresh-water leaks such as broken pipes, faucets and toilets, but not drain or sewer work.
If the burst pipe is in the yard, check which side of the meter it sits on before paying anyone. SAWS maintains the line from the water main to the meter; everything from the meter toward your house is yours.
Hiring under pressure, take thirty seconds to confirm the license: the state search is free and Master Plumber numbers begin with M, and why that matters is in why you should hire a licensed plumber. Our approach to after-hours emergency plumbing is to stop the burst pipe first and price the rest afterwards.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I turn the water off at the SAWS meter?
The meter sits under a round or oval lid, in line between your front hose bibb and the street, or to the side on a corner lot. SAWS publishes no written procedure for the valve inside that box and we will not guess at one. If it will not move easily, call SAWS on 210-704-7297.
Should I turn off the water heater too?
Yes, if the supply is off and the tank may drain. An electric element firing with no water around it will burn out, and a gas burner heating an empty tank is worse. Switch an electric unit off at the breaker and a gas control to pilot. In an attic install the tank is often the burst pipe itself.
Will my insurance cover a burst pipe and the damage it caused?
Usually, when the failure was sudden. The Texas Department of Insurance states most policies cover sudden and accidental water damage and exclude gradual seepage. Cover for the resulting damage is generally broader than for the pipe itself. Photograph before you clean up, report within days, and keep the failed section.
My pipes are frozen but nothing has burst yet. What should I do?
Shut the main off first, then warm the area with a heating pad, hair dryer, space heater or hot towels. Never use an open flame. Open the affected faucet so meltwater has somewhere to go, and watch for the split as it thaws. If you cannot reach the frozen section, call a plumber.
Can I just clamp the pipe and wait until Monday?
A repair clamp on accessible copper can genuinely hold a burst pipe long enough to restore water and sleep, and we would rather that than two days without. What it cannot do is dry the house. If water reached flooring, drywall or a ceiling, the drying starts now regardless.
The leak is in my front yard. Is that mine or the utility’s?
It depends which side of the meter it sits on. SAWS maintains the line from the water main to the meter; the customer maintains everything from the meter toward the house. Water surfacing on the street side of the box is a SAWS call. Between the box and your house, it is yours.
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Water Still Moving? Call Now.
The first thing we do on a burst pipe call is walk you to your shutoff, at any hour. Stopping the water is free advice. Everything after that is quoted before we start.
Serving San Antonio, Helotes, Boerne, Bulverde, Schertz, Somerset and Stone Oak. How we price work is explained on our pricing page.Sources
- SAWS — Report Water Leaks — the 24/7 emergency line, and the meter as the boundary of SAWS responsibility.
- SAWS customer meter and leak guide (PDF) — meter location, corner-lot and alley placement, and the flow-rate leak check.
- U.S. EPA — A Brief Guide to Mold, Moisture and Your Home — the 24 to 48 hour window for drying water-damaged materials.
- Texas Department of Insurance — water damage and mold coverage — sudden and accidental damage versus gradual seepage, and reporting timeframes.
- SAWS — leak adjustment application — the one-time leak credit and the proof-of-repair requirement.
- CPS Energy — Natural Gas Safety — the gas emergency number and the evacuate-first protocol.
More about Mark Vargas, who wrote and reviewed this page, and our wider FAQ page.
