24 hour emergency call-out, seven days. Call 0415 611 356. If your tank is leaking, turn off its water supply first. If you can smell gas, get clear and call from outside.
This page is short on purpose. If your hot water has failed, calling is faster than reading.
RCM runs a 24 hour emergency call-out, seven days across the Sunshine Coast, on the same number as everything else. There is no separate after-hours line to find.
What follows is what to isolate before we arrive and what we will ask you, so the call is quick and the visit is useful.
Do this first
Water escaping from the tank body: turn off the water supply to the system. There is usually an isolation valve on the cold inlet at the tank. This is the single most useful thing you can do, because a failed cylinder keeps refilling and keeps leaking.
A smell of gas: do not touch switches or the appliance. Leave the area, ventilate it if you can do that safely on your way out, and call from outside.
Repeated tripping at the switchboard: leave that circuit off. The safety switch is doing its job, and resetting it repeatedly defeats the protection.
Beyond isolating, leave the system alone. Hot water systems hold water under pressure and involve gas or mains electricity, and both are licensed work for good reasons.
What the system is doing, in your own words. Whether water is escaping and from where. Whether you can smell gas. Whether the power has tripped.
The brand and model from the data plate, if you can safely read it, and roughly how old the system is. Your suburb, so we can be straight with you about getting there.
A photo of the system and its data plate, sent through, is worth several minutes of description and often tells us whether a part is likely to be available.
How to tell an emergency from something that can wait until morning
Not every hot water failure is urgent, and treating them all as urgent is how people end up paying after-hours rates for something that would have been the same job at nine the next morning. Three things genuinely cannot wait.
Water escaping. A leaking cylinder does not stay the same size. It keeps refilling from the mains and keeps leaking, and a tank inside a cupboard, in a roof space or against a wall cavity can do serious damage to plaster, flooring and framing in a few hours. Even a slow drip from the tank body rather than the relief valve is a corroded cylinder telling you what is coming.
Gas. Any smell of gas near the appliance is a leave-and-call-from-outside situation, not a wait-and-see one.
Electrical. A system that trips the safety switch every time it is reset is not a nuisance trip. The switch is detecting current going somewhere it should not, usually a failed element letting water and electricity meet.
Everything else, including no hot water at all, is uncomfortable rather than dangerous. A cold shower is unpleasant and it is not an emergency in the sense that costs more to fix at ten at night.
The relief valve, and the one leak that usually is not urgent
The most common call about a leaking hot water system is not a leaking hot water system. It is the temperature and pressure relief valve doing exactly what it is for.
That valve sits near the top of the tank with a pipe running from it, and it is designed to release water. Hot water expands, and the valve lets that expansion out rather than letting pressure build inside the cylinder. A regular drip while the system heats, and a more noticeable discharge occasionally, is normal behaviour.
What is not normal is constant discharge that does not stop, or a valve that has started running far more than it used to. That usually means the valve itself has failed or the mains pressure into the property has risen, and both are worth attending to because a valve that stays open wastes a great deal of hot water and a valve that has seized shut is the genuinely dangerous version of the same fault.
The useful distinction over the phone is where the water is coming from. Out of the pipe from the valve is one conversation. Out of the tank body, from a seam, or pooling under the unit with no obvious pipe involved is a different one, and it is the urgent one.
What happens next
We work out whether this is a repair that restores hot water today or a failure that needs replacing, and we tell you which before doing anything.
A component fault on a sound tank is usually repairable, sometimes on the same visit. A cylinder that has corroded through is a replacement, and no amount of wanting it to be otherwise changes that.
If it is a replacement and it is urgent, that narrows the choice to what can actually be obtained, which is worth knowing before you start comparing system types.
Hours, and what we will not put a number on
The call-out runs 24 hour emergency call-out, seven days, on 0415 611 356. That is the same number as the one on every other page: there is no separate after-hours line, and no answering service between you and the person who does the work.
What you will not find here is a response time. Not because we are being cagey, but because the honest answer depends on where you are, what else is running that night, and whether the part your system needs is on the van. A page that promises sixty minutes to every address on the coast is making a promise to the page, not to you.
Ask when you call and you will get a straight answer for your address, today, including if that answer is that first thing tomorrow is more realistic than midnight tonight.
Urgent and out-of-hours work generally costs more than scheduled work. Ask what applies before we come out rather than after, particularly if waiting until morning would be cheaper and the situation can safely wait.
Cannot fault the service Richard provided, even when we threw him a few curve balls. Communication was excellent. Highly recommend RCM Hot Water Services.
These are reproduced from RCM’s Google reviews with the names as published. This is a selection rather than the full set. Read them all on Google
Water escaping from the tank body rather than dripping from a valve. Any smell of gas near the system. A system repeatedly tripping the switchboard. And no hot water at all where that genuinely cannot wait, such as a household with a baby, someone unwell, or a business that cannot trade without it.
What should I do before you arrive?
If water is escaping, turn off the water supply to the system. If you can smell gas, leave it alone, ventilate the area if you can do that safely, and get clear. If it is tripping the power, leave that circuit off. Beyond isolating, do not open panels or attempt anything on the gas or electrical side.
Can you get hot water back the same day?
Sometimes, and it depends on the fault and on parts. A failed element or thermocouple is often same-day if the part is on hand. A failed cylinder means a replacement, which depends on what is available. Call and describe it, and we will tell you honestly what is realistic rather than what sounds reassuring.
Is a leaking tank an emergency?
If water is coming from the cylinder itself, treat it as one. A failed tank can put a great deal of water into a wall cavity, a ceiling or under a slab in a few hours, and the damage often costs more than the system. Turn off the water supply to it and call. A drip from the relief valve during heating is normal.
Do you answer the phone at night and on weekends?
Yes. RCM runs a 24 hour emergency call-out, seven days, and it is the same number as every other page on this site. What we will not do is put a response time on it: how quickly someone reaches you depends on your address, what else is running, and whether the part is on the van. Call and you will get a straight answer for tonight rather than a number written months ago.
Do you charge more for urgent work?
Urgent and out-of-hours work generally costs more than scheduled work, for the obvious reasons. Ask when you call and we will tell you what applies before we come out, rather than after. We would rather you knew up front, particularly if the alternative is waiting until tomorrow for a lower price.
Can I get temporary hot water while it is sorted?
Ask when you call. It depends on the fault and on what the property already has. Sometimes an isolated part of the system can be brought back while a replacement is arranged, and sometimes it cannot. It is worth raising early rather than assuming either way.
RCM works across Sunshine Coast and the hinterland. See the full Sunshine Coast service area for where we work regularly and where we travel on different terms.
