24/7 Emergency Plumber in High Point, NC

Profyce is a free referral service. Your call goes to an independent local provider; Profyce does not do the work itself.

Water is running where it should not, or the water heater quit, or a drain is backing up into the tub. Call the number below. It routes to an independent plumbing company that takes emergency calls in High Point, and the call costs you nothing.

While you wait, stop the water. Find the main shutoff where the supply line enters the house, usually in the crawlspace, basement, garage or on an outside wall near the foundation, and turn it clockwise until it stops. If you cannot find it, the meter box near the street has a valve too. The City of High Point publishes a handout on locating your water meter that draws a line between the property owner’s responsibility and the city’s, and the plumber who answers can tell you which side your leak is on.

Once the supply is off, open the lowest faucet in the house to drain pressure from the lines. If water reached outlets or appliances, flip the breaker for those rooms, but only if the panel is dry and you can reach it without stepping in water. Turn off the water heater at its breaker or gas valve so it does not heat an empty tank. Lift rugs, boxes and electronics off the wet floor.

What makes High Point different for plumbing

High Point sits mostly in Guilford County, but the city limits reach into Davidson, Forsyth and Randolph as well. The city says it is the only North Carolina city in four counties. Your county affects permits and inspections, so tell the plumber which county your address falls in if you know it.

Water comes from the City of High Point Public Services Department. The 24-hour line for water and sewer emergencies is 336-883-3111, or toll free 888-883-3632. Use it if water is bubbling up from the pavement, if the leak is at the meter or in the street, or if you need the meter valve shut and cannot turn it yourself. For anything on your side of the meter, the city will not send a crew. That is what the plumber is for.

According to the city’s 2024 drinking water quality report, the supply is drawn from the East and West Fork Deep River, held in Oak Hollow Lake and Arnold Koonce City Lake, and treated mostly at the Ward Water Plant on Pendleton Street. The report lists both chlorine and chloramines as disinfectants and says the city adds chemicals to protect pipes. It does not publish a hardness value, so there is no official number for how much scale builds up in a High Point water heater.

Housing age is the biggest factor in what a plumber finds behind your walls. The 2024 American Community Survey puts the median year built at 1990, but 37.7 percent of the city’s 51,373 homes went up before 1980 and 7.3 percent before 1940. The older pockets include the Uptown Suburbs district, with Emerywood, Johnson Place, Roland Park, The Parkway and Sheraton Hill, where homes date from 1903 to 1963, along with Johnson Street, Sherrod Park, West High Avenue, Washington Street and the Highland Cotton Mills Village southwest of downtown. Homes from before 1960 commonly have galvanized steel supply lines and cast iron drains. Homes from 1978 to 1995 may have polybutylene supply lines, which chlorinated water degrades at the fittings and bends.

The city’s Lead-Free HP program says lead pipes may still be found in the water system, particularly on private property at homes built before 1986. The city is inventorying service lines by excavating around meters and has an address lookup. If a plumber replaces your service line, ask what material came out and keep the paperwork.

Winters are usually mild. January normal lows sit near 30 F. But the city’s own record low is minus 7 F, set in 1985, and on December 24, 2022 the National Weather Service recorded 5 F at Greensboro, the coldest reading there since January 2014. A January 2018 city release warned that very cold temperatures followed by warmer ones are one of the primary contributors to underground water main breaks, and asked residents to report unknown leaks to 336-883-3111. The same swing cracks supply lines inside houses.

Common plumbing problems in High Point

• Burst or split pipes after a cold snap. Uninsulated lines in crawlspaces, garages and attics freeze first. After a blast like December 2022, the thaw is when most of the leaks show themselves.
• Pinhole leaks and low pressure in galvanized steel. Galvanized supply pipe typically lasts 40 to 60 years, so any that survives in a pre-1960 Sherrod Park or Uptown Suburbs house is well past its design life.
• Polybutylene failures at fittings in homes built between 1978 and 1995, which covers most of the 1980s construction that makes up 11.9 percent of the city’s housing.
• Cast iron drains that crack, scale shut or collapse. Buried cast iron lasts 50 to 60 years, and the red clay subsoil of the Piedmont’s Cecil soils holds water against old joints.
• Sewer line clogs and backups from roots or grease, usually noticed first as gurgling or slow drains at the lowest fixtures in the house.
• Water heaters that leak or stop heating. A tank unit is expected to last 6 to 12 years. With no published hardness number for city water, the plumber judges sediment by draining the tank.
• Slab leaks in homes on concrete slabs, which show up as warm spots on the floor, a meter that spins with every fixture off, or a water bill that jumps.
• Meter-side leaks that turn out to be the city’s. High Point runs a routine Water Meter Change Out Program, and 336-883-3111 is the right number if the leak is at or before the meter.

What it might cost

These are national ranges from Fixr and This Old House, not local quotes. Prices in High Point vary by provider, time of day and what the plumber finds once the wall is open. The company that answers quotes the job. Profyce does not set, quote or guarantee any price.

• Plumber hourly rate: $75 to $150 per hour (Fixr).
• Emergency call-out: about $150 per hour plus a $50 to $200 trip fee, or a $200 to $300 flat call-out charge, with nights and holidays running higher (Fixr, This Old House).
• Burst pipe repair: $200 to $1,000 (Fixr).
• Water heater repair: $150 to $750. Tank replacement $600 to $2,500. Tankless replacement $2,500 to $4,500 (Fixr).
• Drain cleaning for a kitchen sink: $150 to $500 (Fixr).
• Main sewer line clog: $350 to $650. Sewer or drain line repair: $400 to $1,500 (Fixr).
• Sewer line replacement: $1,390 to $5,320 (This Old House).
• Slab leak detection: $100 to $400. Slab leak repair: $1,000 to $4,000 (Fixr).

Ask for the after-hours rate before anyone is dispatched, and ask whether the trip fee is credited toward the repair if you go ahead.

Who answers when you call

The number on this page is a tracking line. It forwards to an independent plumbing company that has agreed to take emergency calls in and around High Point. Profyce is a referral service and does not do the work, hold a plumbing license or employ the people who show up. On the call, ask for the company name and its North Carolina plumbing license number, then check it at the State Board of Examiners license search before work begins.

Common questions in High Point

Nearby and related

• Emergency plumbing across the Piedmont Triad
• Emergency plumber in Greensboro
• Emergency plumber in Thomasville
• Water damage cleanup in High Point