We reach Richmond in 90 minutes from our downtown Vancouver base, 24 hours a day, every day.
Richmond's emergencies are different from the rest of our service area, and the reason is under your feet. The city sits at or near sea level on the Fraser delta with a water table close to the surface, which means water arrives from below as often as it comes from a pipe.
A failed sump pump during an atmospheric river isn't an inconvenience here. It's a flooded crawlspace or basement within hours, and it's the single most common emergency call we take in this city.
Why this is different here
If water is coming in right now
From a pipe — shut the water off first. In most Richmond homes the main valve is in the garage or a utility room, on the wall facing the street. Turn it clockwise until it stops.
From the ground — a flooding crawlspace or basement — shutting the water off won't help, because it isn't your water. Move what you can off the floor, stay out of standing water near electrical outlets or the panel, and call us. If you have a sump pump, check whether it's running; if it's silent, check the breaker before assuming it's dead.
Then call 604-865-7979. We answer any hour and we'll give you an arrival window on the call.
Why Richmond floods differently
In a Vancouver or Burnaby house with a basement, water that gets in has somewhere to go and a sump pump is a useful extra. In much of Richmond, the sump pump is the only thing keeping groundwater out, and it runs through most of the wet season doing it.
That produces three failure patterns we see constantly here:
The pump fails during the storm that needed it. Usually a power cut, occasionally a seized motor or a stuck float. If a flooded crawlspace would be expensive, a battery or water-powered backup is the single most worthwhile plumbing upgrade in a Richmond home.
The discharge line fails or freezes. A pump that runs perfectly but discharges into a blocked line, or next to the foundation, achieves nothing.
The perimeter drain silts up. Water arrives at the pump faster than it should, or doesn't reach it at all, and finds the crawlspace instead.
The other Richmond emergencies
Backed-up drains. Richmond's flat topography and settling delta soil produce sagged sewer laterals that hold standing water and block repeatedly. If more than one fixture is backing up, stop using water in the house and call us — that's a main-line problem.
Burst pipes in Poly-B homes. Richmond has the heaviest concentration of grey Poly-B piping we encounter. It fails at the fittings, without warning, usually behind drywall. A burst here is often the first of several.
No hot water and heating failures, particularly in the older Broadmoor and Shellmont stock where equipment is on its second or third cycle.
Steveston, and the older stock
Steveston's heritage housing near the village brings its own emergencies — older galvanized supply lines, cast iron waste, and buildings close enough to the water that the drainage margin is thin. The newer development around it behaves like the rest of Richmond.
What it costs at 3am, which is the same as at 3pm
You hear the number on the phone before we dispatch. Nobody should be making a financial decision at 2am without knowing it.
