You should move quickly when dealing with a leak

Figure out source of the problem first before calling in the professionals

Pop quiz: You wake up, go downstairs to your kitchen and notice a fairly large water stain on the ceiling — large enough to get your attention. What do you do?

Sometimes finding a leak is a lot like being a detective — you have to find the source of the problem by looking at the evidence. Where’s the water coming from? Is it a roof problem or a plumbing problem? Who do you call to make it right?

Ideally, the first person you call is someone you know and trust to give you the right information to fix the problem. It might be a licensed contractor you trust, a home inspector, an engineer or architect — someone you can call up, maybe send them a couple of pictures and then talk about what you need to do to address the situation properly.

And if you need a roofer, they know someone; if you need a plumber, they know a profes-

sional who can come by your house that same day. Basically, this person is your go- to person whenever you have a home issue, and they can help you get the situation under control while the right professionals arrive on the scene.

The first thing we do is figure out what’s going on behind the water stain. Is there plumbing or is there attic space? If you’re not sure — maybe part of the kitchen is a bump- out with just a roof above it, while the rest of the kitchen has the second floor above — look outside.

If it was a problem with the roof, water would be coming in whenever it rained — not necessarily on a clear sunny day. In this case, the leak was getting worse by the minute, and there was absolutely no precipitation, which pointed to the leak coming from inside the house.

So we now know we need a plumber, but we don’t want the roof caving in while we wait for the right pro to arrive. If you know the leak is due to some

indoor plumbing issue, it might be best to shut off the main water supply in your home, to stop the leak from causing more damage.

Locating your home’s main water supply ( also called the main shut- off valve) is crucial information any homeowner should know in case there’s ever a leak or a burst pipe — it could save you thousands of dollars in damage.

It could be located in a number of different spots ( i. e., the basement, near the front of the house along an exterior wall; coming up through the concrete floor; near the furnace, in the mechanical room, or in the garage; it could even be outside near the street, in a box buried in the ground.)

Your shut- off valve looks like a metal pipe with a meter attached to it, and a shut- off. You turn it clockwise to shut off your water. Once you’ve done that, run the faucets in your home to empty out the water lines.

The good news is you’ve stopped the leak from getting

worse. The bad news is you have no water in the house. So your next call is to a trusted plumber. Your contractor should know of a good one; and because they want to continue to get good referrals from your contractor, a good plumber will do everything they can to fix the problem as soon as possible.

In this case, the source of the problem was a sponge gasket from the toilet in the bathroom above the kitchen. It had dried out because the bathroom hadn’t been used in the last few months, and then started to leak whenever someone flushed the toilet.

The solution? Replacing it with a proper wax gasket. ( Unless you have heated floors in your bathroom. The heat could melt the wax.)

So, it took two pros, some smart thinking and research, and opening up the ceiling to figure it out and fix the problem. Now all the homeowner has to do is find the right drywall repair pro that will make it look like it never happened.