Chesnee sits in the northeast corner of Spartanburg County, where US 221 from Spartanburg meets SC 11, the Cherokee Foothills Scenic Highway. The town itself is small, but the area around it is wide open, with orchards, farms and homes on large lots.
Our phone is answered by a person at every hour. When you call with water on the floor or a smell of gas, we start by helping you get it under control, then tell you honestly when a plumber can reach you.
What an emergency looks like here depends on whether you live in town or out in the country. In town you are likely on Spartanburg Sanitary Sewer District sewer and near a gas main. Out on the county roads, septic tanks and propane are far more common.
Who owns what in Chesnee
Several different outfits share responsibility for the pipes that serve a Chesnee home. Here is where each one's part ends.
- Water at the meter or on the road side of it: the Liberty-Chesnee-Fingerville Water District
- An overflowing manhole or a sewer problem in the street in town: the Spartanburg Sanitary Sewer District, part of Spartanburg Water
- Natural gas smell: leave, then call 911 and Piedmont Natural Gas at 800-752-7504 from outside
- Propane smell: leave, then call your propane supplier or 911 once you are away from the house
- Everything on your side of the meter, the sewer tap or the propane regulator: Gas Guys
Frozen pipes in rural homes
Plenty of homes around Chesnee have pipes in places heat never reaches: crawlspaces with open vents, a laundry in a detached shed, a supply line run out to a barn. Those lines freeze first, and they split where the ice is trapped, often near a fitting.
The leak usually shows up when the pipe thaws, sometimes hours after the cold has passed. Find your main shutoff before the first freeze of the season, not while water is coming through the floor.
If a pipe is frozen but not leaking, open the faucet it feeds and warm the pipe slowly with a hair dryer or a space heater kept a safe distance away. Never put an open flame on a frozen pipe, especially near floor framing or insulation.
Backups in town and in the country
Inside town, a backup in your house is most often in your own building drain or the line out to the sewer tap. If the manhole in the street is full too, or neighbors have the same trouble, the public sewer is involved and SSSD needs to know.
On a septic system, the question is whether the clog is in the house or the tank has reached its limit. A sudden stop at one fixture points inside. A slow, house-wide decline with gurgling and a wet or smelly patch over the drain field points to the tank, and a septic contractor should pump it before anyone forces the line.
Propane emergencies
Propane is heavier than air, so a leak can settle in a crawlspace, a basement or a low spot instead of drifting off. If you smell it, do not flip switches, start a car in an attached garage or go looking for the leak yourself.
Once your supplier has shut the tank and made it safe, the leak is usually in the house piping, a flexible connector or an appliance valve. We locate it, repair it and pressure-test the system before gas goes back into the lines.
Burst supply lines and failing water heaters
Not every emergency is about the age of the house. A split washer hose, a braided line under a vanity or a water heater rusting through at the bottom can flood a room in any home, old or new.
For a water heater leak, close the cold valve on top of the tank and shut off its gas, propane or breaker. A heater that is only weeping into its pan can usually wait for daylight once it is shut down; a heater pouring water onto a wood floor cannot.
In Chesnee specifically
Town limits stop short
Chesnee covers little more than a square mile, so many Chesnee mailing addresses are in unincorporated Spartanburg County. That changes who permits a repair after the emergency: Cherokee County Building Safety after City of Chesnee zoning approval in town, and Spartanburg County Building Codes outside it.
Soft water from Spartanburg's lakes
The Liberty-Chesnee-Fingerville Water District buys its treated water from the Spartanburg Water System, which draws from Lake Bowen and Lake Blalock. Scale is rarely what causes an emergency here; worn hoses, old fittings and aging tanks are.
Gas main or propane tank
Piedmont mains reach parts of town and some of the main roads, while homes a short distance off them run on propane. A tank in the yard or the name on your bill settles which you have, and it decides who you call during a leak.
How an emergency call works
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You call, a person answers
Day or night, someone walks you through shutting off the water, gas or power while a plumber gets on the way.
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Stop the damage
The first job on site is to stop the water and make the house safe. A full repair sometimes waits for parts or daylight.
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Find the cause
A split pipe, a failed supply line, a blocked main or a rusted-out tank. Knowing why keeps it from happening again.
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Explain, then repair
We tell you what we found and the options before any repair beyond the emergency fix. Then we repair, restore the water and check for leaks.
The full guide to emergency plumbing, and everything else about plumbing and gas in Chesnee.