Plumbing in Charleston corrodes, and sometimes it meets floodwater. Salt air attacks water-heater shells, angle stops, and hose bibs on the peninsula and the islands. Older houses still have galvanized supply and cast-iron drains that scale and then split inside plaster. Raised cottages let you hear a leak under the floor. Slab houses in outer neighborhoods announce a hidden leak with a warm spot or a meter that turns while every fixture is shut. Shutoffs that have crusted shut are the first thing to test on a calm day.
If water is loose, say whether you stopped it and whether it is supply or drain. A burst heater in a closet is not a slow lavatory. Street water that came in during a high tide or a tropical rain is not a failed washer hose, even if both leave a wet floor. Describe the waterline. Outdoor showers, a Charleston habit, leak behind siding and rot the wall. Soft siding beside that shower is a plumbing fact and a wall fact. Say both.
A cable clears a clog. It does not rebuild a root-filled yard line or a collapsed cast-iron run. High groundwater makes an exterior line a different dig than a dry inland lot. Ask if the visit is a clearing or a repair, and whether a camera follows a clog that returns. Water-heater work should name fuel, tank or tankless, a pan and where it drains, a shutoff, discharge piping, and haul-away. In salt air the flue, the whip, and the pan fail early. Small jobs, a running toilet or a dead disposal, should be named as small.
After flooding, do not energize wet equipment, and say if the heater or the washer sat in the water. A floor drain that burps when the street is full is a symptom. Wells and septic systems show up on outer islands and rural lots more than on the peninsula. Say if you are on one. A city sewer call and a septic call should not be scheduled as if they were identical.
Say leak, drain, heater, or floodwater in the fixtures, and say whether the main will turn. Plumbing in Charleston is salt, age, and sometimes the harbor in the yard. Call the number on this page.