Plumbing in Albuquerque is scale, cooler lines, and a freeze that shows up after a mild afternoon. The night drops, an exterior bath or a hose bib lets go, and the morning is a ceiling or a wall. Water heaters fill with mineral and die in garages. Evaporative cooler supplies leak at the roof and imitate a flat-roof failure. Older houses hide galvanized lines in plaster. Cottonwood and other valley trees find sewer lines in the North Valley and the bosque edge. A slab leak still shows up as a warm floor. None of this requires a week of rain.
Shut the main on a supply leak and say whether the valve works. Separate a drip at a faucet from water at the ceiling, and separate both from a drain that is slow. One tub is not a building sewer. Several fixtures together might be, especially where roots are likely. A cable clears a clog and does not fix a broken pipe. Ask if a camera is included. If the stain happens only while the cooler runs, say that first so the visit is about the line and the curb, not a membrane.
On a heater, say gas or electric. Ask for a shutoff, a pan, a discharge line, and haul-away, and ask whether scale killed the old tank. If the house has frozen before, say where. The repair should not leave the same pipe in the same exterior wall without a plan. Wells are less the story inside the city than on the edges. Mention a well if you have one. Adobe hides the path of a leak, so report where water first appeared.
The cooler line and the domestic line meet in the ceiling story and nowhere else. If the roof was dry and the cooler was on, say so before anyone starts on the membrane. A hose bib on the north wall is the freeze you can point at. A line inside an adobe wall is the freeze you cannot. Both are Albuquerque mornings.
Do not give a clear night another chance at a pipe you already suspect. Call the number on this page.