Plumbing in Atlanta shows its age intown and its slabs farther out. Older houses still run galvanized supply and cast-iron drains that scale, belly, and then leak inside a wall. Some later suburbs were built with gray plastic supply lines that crack at fittings and inside slabs. An attic or garage water heater lets go and the ceiling goes with it. An ice week freezes a hose bib and a crawl-space line that seemed fine all summer. The first skill is knowing where the main shutoff is and whether it turns.
If water is loose, say supply or drain, and say whether you have stopped it. A warm wet spot on a slab, a meter that spins with the fixtures off, or the sound of water under a floor is a leak you may not see. Do not open a ceiling just to look if the water has stopped. A slow lavatory drain is not a sewer. A gurgle in every tub when the washer dumps may be the building drain or a vent, and that distinction belongs on the call.
A cable clears a clog. It does not repair a crushed line under red clay or a root-filled cast-iron run toward the street. Ask which one you are scheduling, and ask whether a camera follows if the clog returns. Water heater talk should include the fuel, tank or tankless, a drain pan, the shutoff, where discharge goes, and haul-away. In an attic, the pan drain matters as much as the tank. Toilets that run, valves that will not shut, and disposals that only hum are smaller calls. Say small.
Frozen pipe work should thaw without an open flame under a bungalow. After an ice storm, a burst in a crawl space can sit unnoticed while you deal with the limb on the roof. Walk the house once the water is back on. Low-lying streets and full creeks are not a plumbing repair, but a backflow of storm water at a floor drain is a symptom to describe.
Say leak, drain, or water heater, and say whether the water is still moving. Plumbing in Atlanta is a shutoff, then a call, especially when the ice and the old pipes arrive together. Call the number on this page.