Most good bathtub repair will recommend replacing a gate valve regardless of its condition. The time to discover if it will work is not during a flood in your bathroom. If you have it replaced with a ball valve then check your water heater and laundry valves, too. Have them replaced at the same time with premium ball valves. Ball valve laundry bibbs make it easy to shut off the water to the washer after each use which may help to prevent floods in the future.
When you get to the house stand if front of the toilet and locate the water shut off valve. Should be down below the toilet on the wall. Just turn it off (righty-tighty) completely and flush the toilet. All the water should have left the tank, well at least most of it. If there is remaining water line repair get it out with paper towels or a rag. The important thing is that no more water came in. If it did then your valve is not shut all the way or not working and you need additional help.
There may be more pipes in your home than you think. Your home gets all the water it needs, either from a municipal water connection or from a well, through one central pipe, which branches out and distributes water to all the other places in your home that need it. These pipes run under your floors and sometimes through your walls. Most of the time, they take care of themselves and you never need to think about them.
Once you have disconnected the tank remove it from your work space. Do a thorough measurement of the remaining pipe for reference when you go to the hardware store. I will be honest with you, you might need to make a few trips back to the store. Once you get the new tank, slide it into place to line up the plumbing.
The first step in the replacement project is to turn off the water line repair to the toilet and flush any water that may be in the tank. If you forget this step, you will have a giant mess to clean up! You should now disconnect that water line.
The key to finding local businesses when doing an online search is to include your zip code in the query, such as, "plumber 72764". This will tell Google or bing that you want results from that geographic location!
In short, the emergency plumber you hire should be from a reputable company. If you think that you can rely on him then you should look for another one. An emergency plumber should be skilled and should be able to deliver quality services to everyone.