When you are doing some plumbing repairs at home, you need to know where the water main shutoff is. If you do not do that, you could cause some serious spill at home, which might even cause flooding.
There are so many water fixtures at home, in the kitchen and bathrooms. With time, some of them start breaking down.
As a homeowner, you need to know where to shut off the water in case there is a leakage. If you do not contain the leakage before the plumber can arrive, the problem can escalate.
Most of the problems come from faucets. If there is a leak that you cannot identify, it helps to know how you can turn off the entire water supply to the house.
Keep reading!
Finding the main water valve
There is only one main water valve to shut down the entire water supply to your house. However, it could be located in so many places. That is why finding it is such a big deal because you can prevent the escalation of a water leak emergency.
The water valve is located close to the front of the house. You should start looking for it close to the water meter. However, while the water meter is on the outside wall, the water valve is going to be on the interior wall. It should not be too hard to find.
The above guideline is for people whose houses are designed with a crawl space, for a house built on a slab, look for the main water valve close to the water heater inside the garage.
Another place where you can look at the main water valve is at a location close to the end of your property line. If this is the case, the water valve is usually located in a box, which is buried underground. This is a concrete box and you will need to buy a special key from the hardware to open it.
Turning off the main water valve
Once you have found the location of the main water valve, you have to know how to turn it off. Mostly, it comes in two designs – ball valve and gate valve design. You can tell them apart because they look different.
A ball valve has a small handle that runs along or across the pipe when you want to turn it on or off. When it is turn on, it runs parallel to the pipe. When it is turned off, its position is across the pipe.
For the other version – the gate valve, you are going to turn the wheel manually in the clockwise direction to shut the water off.
If it has been a long time since you turned off the gate or ball valve, handle it cautiously because it might be corroded. The handle can break easily.
You can also shut off the water at the meter box, but just make sure to turn off on your side only. Do not tamper with the council meter because it is illegal.
That is how you find the emergency home water shut off to stop water flow when you need to repair a faucet, burst pipe, or any other water fixture at home.