I Have No Water at All. Where Do I Start?

This is one of the few plumbing problems where a homeowner can often find the cause without tools. The trick is checking in an order that eliminates whole categories at once, instead of starting at the most alarming possibility.

Step 1: how much of the house is affected

Step 2: the valves, which is where this usually ends

Before assuming anything expensive, look at your main shutoff. Valves get closed by accident more often than anyone expects: a contractor working on something unrelated, a water heater replacement, a landscaper, or a family member who shut it for a repair and forgot to say. A valve that looks open can also be partially closed. Here is where to find your main shutoff.

• Check that the main shutoff is fully open. A round handle should turn counterclockwise until it stops. A lever should sit in line with the pipe, not across it.
• If you have a pressure regulator, usually a bell-shaped brass fitting near where the line enters the house, note it. A failed regulator can cut flow to almost nothing or shut it off entirely.
• Check any whole-house filter or softener. A clogged filter cartridge can choke supply down to a trickle, and a softener stuck mid-cycle can block it. Many have a bypass: putting it in bypass tells you in one move whether the unit is the problem.

Step 3: your side or the district

If neighbors have water, go look at your meter. If the leak indicator is spinning with every fixture in the house closed, water is moving somewhere it should not be, which can mean a major break in the service line between the meter and the house. A line that has failed badly enough can lose so much pressure that nothing reaches the fixtures.

Look around the yard and along the path between the meter and the house for wet ground, a soft patch, or water surfacing at the curb, though in gravel landscaping there is often nothing to see. Here is how a service line leak is confirmed, and whose responsibility it is.

Other causes worth knowing about

• A burst or split line. Less common here than in cold climates, but the valley does get freezing nights, and an unprotected line in a garage, an attic, or an exterior wall can split. The giveaway is water appearing somewhere it should not be at the same time the taps go dry.
• Scheduled or emergency district work. Worth checking the water district before anything else if a whole street is affected.
• A closed account or a service shutoff, which is unwelcome but easy to confirm with a phone call and cheaper to find out than a service visit.
• Severe corrosion in old galvanized supply lines, which narrows the pipe over decades. This usually arrives as flow getting worse for years rather than stopping overnight.

What not to do

Do not keep opening fixtures to test, then walk away. If the water comes back on while taps are open, you can flood a room. Close what you opened. And if your water was off for any length of time, expect air in the lines when it returns: open one cold tap at the lowest point in the house and let it run until it stops spitting, then work upward. Sputtering taps after a restoration are air, not damage.

Talk to a licensed Las Vegas plumber

If the valves are open, the neighbors have water, and the meter says something is wrong, that is the point to call. Kingdom Plumbing is family-owned, licensed, bonded and insured (NV Contractors License #0085422), available 24/7 with a real person answering and an upfront flat-rate quote you approve first. Call (702) 840-5037 or see emergency plumbing.