By the Templateez Team · July 2026

Plumbing Intake Forms: Triage the Job Before You Roll a Truck

A homeowner calls and says they have a small leak under the kitchen sink. Your tech shows up expecting a dripping P-trap — a 20-minute fix. Instead, they find water coming up through the slab. The "small leak" is a broken supply line under the foundation. Now your tech is on site with the wrong equipment, no camera, and a job that's ten times bigger than what was described. The rest of the day's schedule is shot.

This is the kind of thing that a good intake form can catch — or at least flag — before you dispatch anyone. It won't always prevent surprises, because plumbing problems are often hidden until you start opening things up. But it can get you a lot closer to understanding the scope of a job before your truck is already in the driveway.

Property Details That Actually Matter

For plumbing work, the property details you need go well beyond square footage and number of rooms. You need to know the age of the house, because a home built in 1960 probably has galvanized steel pipes that are corroding from the inside out, while a home built in 2010 has PEX or copper. You need to know the foundation type: slab, crawl space, or basement. This directly affects how accessible the plumbing is and what kind of repairs are possible. A slab leak is a fundamentally different job than a crawl space leak.

Water source matters: municipal water or well? This affects pressure, quality, and the type of equipment in the home. Sewer connection matters too: is the house on municipal sewer or septic? If it's septic, when was the tank last pumped? How many bathrooms are in the house? Is there a utility sink, laundry hookup, outdoor irrigation, or a pool? Each of these is a potential service point and a potential problem source.

Service Type: What Kind of Job Is This?

Plumbing covers a huge range of work, and your intake form should categorize it. Common categories include: drain cleaning, leak repair, fixture installation, water heater (repair or replacement), toilet repair or replacement, faucet replacement, repiping, gas line work, sewer line repair, water treatment or filtration, and sump pump installation or repair.

These categories determine who you send and what they bring. A drain cleaning tech carries different equipment than a repipe crew. A gas line job requires a tech with specific certification. If you're dispatching based on a vague description of "plumbing problem," you're going to send the wrong person with the wrong tools more often than you should.

Problem Description: Getting Useful Information

The biggest challenge in plumbing intake is getting homeowners to describe their problem in a way that's diagnostically useful. Most people don't know plumbing terminology, and most people understate the severity of the problem — either because they genuinely don't realize how bad it is, or because they're hoping it's cheaper than they fear.

Structure your symptom section with direct questions. Where is the problem — which room, which fixture? When did it start? Is it constant or intermittent? Is the water clean, cloudy, or discolored? Is there any sewage smell? Has the problem gotten worse over time? Has anyone already tried to fix it? Are multiple fixtures affected, or just one?

That last question is a big one. If only one faucet has low pressure, it's probably a local issue — a clogged aerator or a failing supply valve. If every fixture in the house has low pressure, it could be a main line problem, a pressure regulator failure, or a municipal supply issue. If only the hot water has low pressure, the water heater is probably the culprit. A single well-structured question on the intake form can dramatically narrow the diagnosis.

Emergency vs. Scheduled: Pricing and Dispatch

Your intake form needs to clearly distinguish emergency calls from scheduled work. Emergencies in plumbing are real: burst pipes, sewage backup into the house, gas leaks, no water at all, flooding. These get dispatched immediately and carry a premium rate. Scheduled work — a dripping faucet, a running toilet, a water heater that's getting old — goes into the regular calendar.

The intake form helps your office staff make the right call. If someone checks "sewage backing up into the house," that's an emergency regardless of how the customer describes it on the phone. If someone checks "slow drain in bathroom sink," that's scheduled. Having checkboxes and structured questions makes the triage decision consistent, which keeps your scheduling fair and your emergency response fast.

Access Requirements and Utility Locations

Plumbing access is a constant issue. Your tech needs to know: where is the main water shutoff? Is there a cleanout, and where is it? Is there crawl space access, and is the crawl space actually accessible (not blocked by a deck, not flooded, not infested)? For water heater work, where is the heater — in the garage, in a closet, in the attic? Attic water heaters are a special kind of headache, and your tech should know about it before they arrive.

For sewer line work, is there a sewer cleanout in the yard? Has the line ever been scoped? If there's a septic system, where is the tank and when was it last serviced? These aren't questions that homeowners always think to volunteer, but they're the difference between a smooth job and one where your tech spends the first hour just figuring out the layout.

Prior Work and Water Quality

Ask whether the home has had any prior plumbing work done, and by whom. This is especially important for older homes where previous owners may have done DIY repairs that are — to put it politely — non-standard. Your tech finding a rubber hose and duct tape holding a copper fitting together is a lot less surprising if the intake form already noted "prior homeowner did some of their own plumbing."

Water quality questions round out the intake. Does the homeowner notice any taste, smell, or discoloration in the water? Is there a water softener or filtration system installed? Are there hard water deposits on fixtures? These might not be related to the service call, but they give your tech a fuller picture of the plumbing system and can lead to upsell opportunities for water treatment services.

Authorization and Estimates

Like auto repair, plumbing work should have a clear authorization process. The intake form should document the customer's authorization for the initial visit and diagnostic, with a separate authorization required for any repairs. Most plumbing companies give an estimate after the diagnostic and require approval before starting work. Your intake form should state your diagnostic fee, your estimate process, and get the customer's signature acknowledging both.

This protects you from the customer who says "I never approved that repair" after you've already done the work. It also protects the customer from surprises. A documented process is better for everyone.

Our Plumbing intake set puts all of this in a structured, fillable PDF. Check out our related HVAC, plumbing, and electrical forms page or read our guide to HVAC intake forms for another trade that shares a lot of the same intake challenges.