After a Quake, the Water Does More Damage Than the Shaking

Most Los Angeles homes come through moderate shaking structurally fine and then take significant water damage from failed plumbing. That is a solvable problem and the work is measured in hours. Reach us on (213) 463-5333 if water has come in following an event.

The water heater is the classic failure

A full tank is heavy, tall, and narrow, which makes it prone to toppling. When it goes over it takes its supply and gas connections with it, releasing forty or more gallons immediately and continuing to feed from the supply line.

Strapping is required by California code and is frequently absent, incomplete, or done badly on older installations. The standard is two straps, one around the upper third and one around the lower third, anchored into structure rather than into drywall.

Flexible connectors on both water and gas allow movement without shearing. Rigid copper connected directly to a tank that shifts even slightly will break at the joint, and a rigid gas line is a considerably more serious failure.

Supply lines and joints

Shaking stresses plumbing at every rigid connection. Older galvanized systems are already corroded at the threads and fail there first; copper fails at soldered joints where movement concentrates.

The fixtures most at risk are those with rigid connectors — toilets, sinks, and appliances plumbed with hard tubing rather than braided flexible line. Replacing those is inexpensive and is worth doing throughout a house.

Pipes crossing between structures move differently and are a known weak point: a line running from the house to a detached garage or an addition on a separate foundation experiences relative movement the pipe cannot accommodate.

Knowing your shutoffs

Find the main water valve today and confirm it turns. Valves that have never been operated seize, and post-event is a bad time to discover it.

Gas shutoff too. The guidance is to shut gas off only if you smell or hear a leak, since restoring service requires the utility and takes time, and unnecessary shutoffs during a widespread event tie up crews who are needed elsewhere.

An automatic seismic gas shutoff valve is available and is required in some circumstances. It closes the supply when shaking exceeds a threshold, which removes the need for anyone to be home and thinking clearly.

What to check afterward

Walk the building looking for water before assuming there is none. Check under sinks, behind the water heater, at the washing machine connections, and along any exposed pipe in a garage or crawlspace.

Watch the meter with everything closed. A moving indicator after an event means a line has failed somewhere, possibly under the slab where nothing will be visible for days.

Damp appearing at the base of a wall or the edge of a slab in the days following is consistent with an underground break and should not be waited out.

Insurance, which surprises people

Standard homeowners policies exclude earthquake damage, and that exclusion generally extends to water damage resulting from the shaking. Earthquake coverage is a separate policy with its own deductible, typically a percentage of the dwelling value rather than a flat figure.

Whether a particular loss is treated as quake-caused or as a plumbing failure can be genuinely arguable, which makes documentation of timing and cause worth more than usual.

Check what you actually hold before an event rather than during a claim.

Fire sprinklers and pools after shaking

Buildings with sprinkler systems should have the riser checked following any significant event, since pipe joints and heads take the same stresses as domestic plumbing and a slow leak in a concealed system does damage nobody sees for weeks.

Swimming pools slosh violently during shaking and frequently lose a substantial volume over the coping in seconds. That water goes into the surrounding soil at once, and where a pool sits close to a structure it produces the same saturated-soil problem as an irrigation break.

Cracks in a pool shell are worth a professional look afterward, because a slow structural leak keeps feeding that soil indefinitely.

Putting a kit where you can reach it

A shutoff wrench attached near the meter, a flashlight, and gloves cover most of what is needed in the first ten minutes. Storing them inside the house is fine; storing them behind whatever fell over is not.

Show everyone in the household where the valves are. The person home during an event is frequently not the person who read the article.

Round-the-clock response throughout the basin and the Gateway cities — (213) 463-5333.