No water in the house

If you smell gas or propane, see a downed line, or have water near electrical equipment, leave the area and call 911 or the utility first. The checks below need no tools and no training; anything past them — gas, the panel beyond a breaker, a pressure tank, a septic lid — is a job for a licensed trade. This is general information for this area, not advice for your house, and following it is at your own risk (terms).

If your taps just went dry on a well system, this page is the ten minutes of triage that can save you an emergency call — or tell you to make one now. The failures happen in a predictable order of likelihood, and the cheap ones are more common than the expensive ones. Work down the list. Who answers tonight ↓

First, the two-minute checks

Before anything else: check the breaker panel — well pumps sit on their own double-pole breaker, and a tripped one is the free fix. Then find the pressure gauge on the tank (usually in the basement near where the water line enters). Reading zero with the breaker on points at the pressure switch or the pump. Reading normal (40–60 psi) with no flow points at a valve, a frozen line in winter, or a failed softener — put the softener on bypass and try again. If water runs with the softener bypassed, the problem is the treatment equipment, not the well.

The order of likelihood — and of cost

Rural plumbers around here see the same sequence over and over. The pressure switch sticks — the small grey box by the tank; a common culprit at any age and the cheapest fix on this list. The pressure tank waterlogs — tanks last 8–15 years and fail by losing their air charge, which short-cycles the pump; short-cycling and pulsing taps in the weeks beforehand are the warning. Replacement runs $450–$1,000 installed. The submersible pump dies — pumps last 10–20 years, and replacement crosses into well-contractor territory at $1,800–$4,500. A plumber who asks your tank age on the phone is the one who has done this before. Last and rarest: the well itself running dry, which is a well-driller conversation, not a plumbing one.

Who to call, in order

Start with the plumbers short list — both village-based options handle pressure systems, and one of them has been doing well pumps on Main Street since 1962. At 2am: of the shortlisted firms, Ottawa Plumbing and Heating states a 24/7 emergency line on its own site — 613-596-5711. If the diagnosis lands on the pump or the well itself, the well services page covers pump contractors and drillers, which are different trades: pump replacement is routine, drilling is quoted by depth and nobody can promise depth in advance. Emergency after-hours plumbing runs $200–$350 / hr — knowing whether your problem is a $200 switch or a $3,000 pump before you authorise work is exactly what the checks above are for.

While you wait

Stop the water heater if the house has been dry for more than a few minutes — an electric element burning dry is a second repair you don't need. Don't run the softener's regeneration. If this is a winter failure and the pump runs but nothing arrives, suspect a frozen line where it enters the house and get gentle heat on that section — never a torch. And once water is back after any pump or tank work, run a free Ottawa Public Health bacteria test before trusting the taps; opening the system is how contamination gets in.

Common questions