When something starts leaking, sparking, or beeping in the kitchen, it can spell disaster for your plans for the day!
After all, the kitchen is a pretty unsafe room even when everything is in working order. When something breaks down and starts misbehaving, it becomes a real hazard zone!
And that’s why it’s important to act fast and know what to do. If your kitchen appliances, sink, garbage disposal, etc., have suffered a fault or breakage, these are the next steps to go through.
Safety First!
Forever and always! If something has broken down within the kitchen, you need to make the room as safe as it can be while you work out what to do about the problem.
And even if you’re not sure there’s any danger, we urge you to do these two things:
Turn off the supply
If it’s something that needs to be plugged in to work, make sure you turn off the socket and unplug it. You don’t want it to stay plugged in, where a power surge could either break it further, or something within the machine itself could cause a spark.
If your water is connected up as well, try to sever this supply at the machine first, but don’t be afraid to also turn your water off at the tank or heater either.
Soak up any water
If there’s been a leak, once the water has been turned off, you’ll want to stop any spills from spreading.
Put towels down, if the water is still coming out. If not, move as much clutter as you can so it doesn’t soak up any excess either, and double check how far the water has really spread. You can then dry it up.
Time for Repairs!
Once you’ve made your kitchen a little bit safer, you’ll want to investigate the cause behind the breakage, as well as check if you can get a repair done.
And there are two ways to go about this:
Can you DIY it?
If it’s a small issue, such as a missing washer from a pipe connector, or you need to unscrew the sink u-bend to unblock it, go ahead and get the job done yourself. If you can’t quite diagnose the issue – or electricity is involved – you’ll want to avoid doing any DIY altogether.
Call a handyman
If you can’t DIY a fix yourself, you’ll want to call in a pro. And before you call the number on the washing machine or dishwasher itself, you might just get away with calling in your local repair team to fix it up for you. If an appliance breaks down, Huntington Handyman could be there to help within the hour, and at a much cheaper rate too!
If something breaks in the kitchen, try not to panic about it! Make sure things are turned off, any water has been soaked up and isn’t left to stand, and call in a handyman to double check what’s really going on.