How the library is arranged
The guides fall into three shelves. The first is for the bad hour: floods, frozen pipes, finding the main valve. The second is routine care that most owners can manage with a few tools, from flushing a water heater to re-caulking a tub. The third is for decisions, such as whether a tankless heater suits your household, or what to look at in the plumbing of a house you are thinking of buying.
Every guide closes with the point at which a householder should stop and telephone, because knowing that point is as useful as knowing the steps.
Where to begin
Read closing the main water valve first. Five minutes spent finding that valve now turns many future emergencies into minor repairs.
A word on local conditions
The Region of Peel draws our supply from Lake Ontario and it carries a moderate mineral load; our winters bring long spells below freezing, and our summers bring sudden downpours. Those three facts explain why so many of these guides concern scale, frost and basements.