24/7 Emergency Plumbing in Gainesville

Water is going somewhere it should not, and you need it to stop.

Rather text? Send a photo of the problem to 352-377-9447 and we’ll tell you what it sounds like.

Licensed Florida Plumbing Contractor CFC1430748

Locally owned, Hawthorne FL. After hours a real person picks up, Will or Mike, not an answering service in another state.

Emergency line answered by a plumber, not a call center

24 /7

Flat service fee to come out, waived on larger jobs

$ 69

Parts and labor warranty, plus the manufacturer warranty on top

2 yr

First Choice Plumbing answers emergency plumbing calls 24 hours a day in Gainesville, Hawthorne and across Alachua County. Burst pipes, slab leaks, sewer backups, no hot water and overflowing toilets get a licensed Florida plumber, not a call center. Call or text 352-377-9447. Flat $69 service fee, two year parts and labor warranty, and we patch every hole we cut.

What counts as a plumbing emergency?

Short answer: if water is moving and you can’t stop it, or if you can’t safely use the water in your house, that is an emergency. Everything else can usually wait for daylight, and we will tell you so on the phone instead of charging you to hear it.

Call us tonight if:

It can probably wait until morning if:

One faucet drips.
One sink drains slowly but the others are fine.
The toilet runs but you can shut it off at the wall.
There is no hot water but there is no water on the floor.
A hose bib leaks outside where nothing can be damaged.

If you are in that second list, shut the fixture off, put a towel down, and call us in the morning at a normal service rate. We would rather earn the daytime job than sell you a night call you did not need.

Not an emergency? Book a regular service visit online.

How much does an emergency plumber cost in Gainesville?

Most plumbers will not put a number on a page. We will.

It is a flat $69 service fee for us to come out, look at it, and tell you exactly what is wrong and what it costs to fix. That fee is waived on larger jobs, roughly $800 to $1,000 and up. If the job is a hidden leak we cannot see, leak detection is $375 flat, and if we do not find the leak you do not pay for the search.

Why charge anything at all? Because a real diagnosis takes real time, and a fee keeps the schedule honest for the people who actually have water on the floor. Will puts it plainly: it filters out the calls we cannot help with so we can get to the ones we can.

Beyond that, you get a written price before we start. Not a range, not an hourly meter running while you watch. If you say no, you owe the service fee and nothing else. If you say yes, the repair carries a two year parts and labor warranty, and the manufacturer warranty sits on top of that.

If the fix is bigger than tonight’s budget, we can run it through financing on jobs over about $500.

Who is actually coming to my house?

Will Harrod owns First Choice Plumbing and holds the license, CFC1430748. He still runs estimates himself, and after hours he is one of the two people the emergency line rings to. The other is Mike, who runs the service and drain calls and is background checked.

Kim answers the phone and dispatches during the day. She batches jobs by area on purpose so nobody is driving Hawthorne to Gainesville and back while you are waiting on a truck.

That is the whole shop. It is small because Will wants it that way for now, and it is why the person who shows up at your door already knows what you told the person who picked up.

What should I do before the plumber gets here?

Do these in order. This costs you nothing and it is the difference between a repair and a restoration claim.

If you smell gas, leave the house first, then call from outside.

1. Shut the water off at the main.

In most Florida homes on a slab there is no basement, so your main shutoff is in one of three places: on the exterior wall near where the water line enters the house, in the garage near the water heater, or at the meter box near the street. Turn it clockwise until it stops. If it is a lever, turn it a quarter turn so it sits across the pipe instead of along it.

2. If you can't find the main, go to the meter.

The meter box is usually a rectangular lid at the front edge of the property. There is a valve on the street side of the meter that takes a meter key or a pair of pliers. If it will not budge, do not force it and crack the meter. Call your water provider's repair line and then call us.

3. Open the lowest faucet in the house.

With the main off, opening a tub spout or an outside hose bib drains the pressure still sitting in the lines and slows whatever is leaking.

4. Kill the power to the wet area if you can do it safely.

If water is anywhere near outlets, an appliance or the panel, do not walk into it. Shut that circuit off at the breaker from a dry spot, or leave the room and tell us when we arrive.

5. Take pictures before you clean anything up.

Wide shots and close shots. If this turns into an insurance claim, those photos and our written findings are what get it paid. We write up every leak call in claim-ready language because we work with adjusters constantly.

Then move what you can off the floor and let us handle the rest.

Do not cut into drywall to chase a leak. That is our job, and we patch every hole we cut.

What do you actually come out for?

Burst pipes and active leaks.

CPVC, copper, PEX, galvanized, polybutylene, cast iron. We stop the water first, then find the failure and repair it properly instead of clamping it and leaving.

Hidden and slab leaks.

A warm spot on the floor, a pressure drop, a meter that spins with everything off, or a water bill that jumped for no reason. We locate it without tearing your house apart. $375 flat to come find it, and if we don’t find it you don’t pay.

Sewer backups and blocked drains.

If it is coming up in a tub or a floor drain, the blockage is in the main line, not the fixture. We clear it and then put a camera down to show you why it happened.

Water heater failures.

Leaking tank, no hot water, a relief valve dumping, or a tankless unit throwing a code. Tank and tankless, gas, propane and electric.

Collapsed and broken sewer lines.

Old cast iron and clay lines fail, usually at the worst possible hour. We can often line them from the inside instead of digging up your yard.

Commercial after-hours calls.

Restaurants, salons, offices and multi-story buildings. If you cannot open in the morning, that is an emergency and we treat it like one.

What we do not do, so nobody wastes a night waiting on us: no septic pump-outs (we will hand you off to the right company), no HVAC, no electrical, no tile or paint. We are plumbers, and we say so up front.

What happens if you wait until Monday?

Sometimes nothing. Sometimes a lot.

Florida works against you here. Almost every house in Alachua County is built on a slab, so your supply lines run through concrete with no basement underneath to catch anything. Water that gets loose does not pool where you can see it. It travels under tile, into the sill plate, into the cabinet toe kicks, and into the insulation. Warm, humid air does the rest. Mold does not need a week.

Then there is the meter. A hidden leak runs 24 hours a day, and you pay for every gallon of it. Homeowners routinely find out about a slab leak from a water bill that doubled, not from a puddle.

And on the claims side, insurers care about how fast you acted. A leak that got shut off, documented and repaired the same night reads very differently on a claim than one that ran for three days.

None of that means panic. It means shut the water off and call somebody tonight, even if that somebody is not us.

The difference is in the details

First Choice Plumbing	Typical 24-Hour Dispatch Service
After hours, the owner or the lead service tech answers the phone	A national answering service takes a message and pages whoever is available
Flat $69 service fee published on the website, waived on larger jobs	No price anywhere on the site; the number comes after they are standing in your kitchen
Written price before any work starts	Hourly rate plus after-hours multiplier, tallied as they go
Leak detection $375 flat, and you don't pay if we don't find it	Diagnostic billed by the hour with no guarantee attached
Every hole we cut gets patched by a professional drywall contractor	Open wall left for the homeowner to deal with
Two year parts and labor warranty on top of the manufacturer warranty	Commonly 30 days to one year on labor
Licensed Florida Certified Plumbing Contractor, CFC1430748, printed on every page	License number buried or shown only for the parent franchise
Camera and a written report so you can see why it failed	Clear the clog, collect, leave

None of that is complicated. It is just what happens when the person who answers the phone is the person whose license is on the truck.

24/7

Emergency line answered by a plumber, not a call center

$69

Flat service fee to come out, waived on larger jobs

2 Years

Parts and labor warranty, plus the manufacturer warranty on top

CFC1430748

Florida Certified Plumbing Contractor license, held by the owner

Where do you come out to after hours?

We run emergency calls across Alachua County and the edges around it: Gainesville, Hawthorne, Melrose, Micanopy, Waldo, Windsor, Alachua, Newberry, Jonesville, Archer, High Springs, Williston and Keystone Heights.

If you are out on a well and a septic system, you are exactly who we are set up for. Half the emergency calls out that direction are not city problems at all: a pressure tank that failed, a pump that will not prime, a drain field that finally gave up. Those need somebody who works on wells and septic every week, not somebody who only knows city water.

Not sure if you are in range? Call and ask. If you are outside what we can reach tonight, we will say so instead of taking the call and stringing you along.

What happens when we get there?

We stop the water.

Before anything else. If it is still running when we pull up, that is the first move, and it takes minutes.

We find it and price it in writing.

Camera, listening gear or pressure testing, whatever the job needs. Then you get one written number for the repair and a straight answer on what caused it. You decide from there.

We fix it and put your house back.

Two year parts and labor warranty. Every hole we cut gets patched by a professional drywall contractor, because leaving an open wall behind is not a repair.

If it turns out the right answer is a smaller fix than you expected, that is what we will quote you. We would rather have the next ten years of your plumbing than one oversized invoice tonight.

What it looks like when it goes right

The water is off within ten minutes of us walking in. You know what failed, why it failed and what it costs, before anybody picks up a tool. The repair is done tonight or the line is safely capped so you can shower in the morning.

A few days later a drywall contractor patches the hole we cut and you cannot tell we were there. You have photos, a written report and a paid invoice with a warranty on it, which is exactly what an adjuster wants to see.

And the next time something goes sideways, you already know who to call and roughly what it will cost. That is the part most people are really buying.

Frequently asked questions

Do you really answer the phone at 2 a.m.?

Yes. After hours the emergency line rings to Will or Mike directly. You are not leaving a message with a national dispatch center and hoping somebody calls back. If we cannot get to you tonight, we will tell you that on the phone instead of letting you wait.

How much does an emergency plumber cost in Gainesville?

Our service fee is a flat $69 to come out and diagnose it, and it is waived on larger jobs of roughly $800 to $1,000 and up. Leak detection is $375 flat with a find-it-or-you-don't-pay guarantee. The repair itself gets priced in writing before any work starts.

How do I shut off the water in my house?

Look for the main shutoff on the exterior wall where the water line enters, in the garage near the water heater, or at the meter box near the street. Turn a round handle clockwise until it stops, or turn a lever a quarter turn so it sits across the pipe. Then open the lowest faucet in the house to drain the pressure.

Is a leaking water heater an emergency?

If the leak is coming from the tank itself, yes, because tanks do not heal and they usually fail the rest of the way without warning. If it is dripping from a fitting or the relief valve, shut the cold inlet off above the heater and call us in the morning. Water heater repair

Sewage came up in my shower. What does that mean?

It means the blockage is in the main line, not in that fixture, because water is taking the lowest opening it can find. Stop running water anywhere in the house, including the washer and dishwasher, and call. We clear it and then camera the line so you know whether it was roots, grease, or a broken pipe. Sewer camera inspection

Will my insurance cover a burst pipe?

Often yes for the resulting water damage, and often no for the failed pipe itself, but it depends on your policy and on how fast you acted. We write our findings up in claim-ready language and we work with adjusters regularly, so ask us for the documentation before you file.

Do you come out to Hawthorne, Melrose and Windsor at night?

Yes. We are based in Hawthorne, so the east side of the county is home for us, not a long haul. We also handle well systems and septic-related emergencies out that way, which most Gainesville shops do not touch. Hawthorne plumber

Can you fix it tonight or will you have to come back?

Most emergency calls get resolved the same visit. Some, like a collapsed sewer line or a full repipe, get made safe tonight and scheduled properly for daylight. We will tell you which one you have before you agree to anything. Whole house repipe

Shut the water off, then call us.

A licensed plumber picks up, day or night. Flat $69 to come out, a written price before we start, and a two year warranty on the fix. No pressure and no meter running while you decide.

Text us what is happening | See current offers | Ask about the maintenance plan

First Choice Plumbing | 6940 SE 221st St, Hawthorne, FL 32640 | 352-377-9447 | Florida Certified Plumbing Contractor CFC1430748. Leaks don’t stand a chance.

Tell us what's going on and we'll take it from there

You get a real person, a $69 visit, a flat price before we start, and a company that patches what it cuts and answers the phone when you call back. If a smaller fix is the right call, we’ll tell you that too.

First Choice Plumbing is a locally owned, owner led plumbing company working Gainesville, Hawthorne and Greater Alachua County. Leak detection, repipes, water heaters, drains, trenchless lining, well water filtration and septic. We find it, we fix it, we guarantee it.

Florida Certified Plumbing Contractor CFC1430748

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