UTILITY SHUTOFFS - WATER

By Richard A. Acree

President, HABITEC Home and Building Inspections, LLC

It's 4 AM in January.  It's dark in the house and outside.  Outside it's windy and cold, real cold, like 10 degrees F.  You wake up to the sound of running water.  Lots of running water.  The sounds are coming from the kitchen.   Do you know where your whole-house water shutoff is located?

This scenario has played itself out many times before.  It is funny how plumbing problems like this seldom show up on a warm and sunny day.  They seem to save themselves for a time when it is cold and dark and you are asleep.  It is bad enough that you have a serious plumbing problem.  But why now?  It's not fair, but that's life.  So what are you going to do?

At this point it would really be helpful if you knew where your whole-house water shut-off is located.  The whole-house water shutoff should be a round rotary handle device or a flat quarter-turn handle in line with the main water line.  As a Home Inspector at HABITEC Home and Building Inspections, LLC, I have seen these devices located in many places.  Some locations are not too accessible.  Hopefully yours is in a location that is readily accessible.  You may have one out in the yard at the utility service shutoff but you'll need a special wrench for that.  Your home should have a shutoff valve in addition to the utility shutoff. 

The whole-house shutoff is often located in the crawl space if your house has a crawl space.  Crawl space locations can be problematic because many people are unfamiliar with their crawl space and uncomfortable going in there.  Combine this with a shutoff location that is not near the crawl space access and you have a shutoff location that is difficult to reach. 

Another common location is in the garage.  It may be located near your hot water heater.  But don't be fooled by that.  Often there are two valves, a whole-house valve and a separate valve at the hot water heater just for that appliance. 

In the scenario above the ruptured pipe was in the kitchen but the whole-house shutoff was in the garage.  Regardless where it is, you need to be know the location before it is 4 AM on a cold and dark January morning.  If you are not sure, hire a Home Inspector to locate the shutoff for you.  While he's at it, have him identify your electrical master disconnect and your gas shutoff as well.  This information is part of a Home Inspector Review that is offered by HABITEC.  Please see details at www.habitecinspections.com/HomeInspections.aspx . 

HABITEC Home and Building Inspections, LLC, is a residential (home) and commercial building inspection company serving Middle Tennessee 7 days/week.  We also offer Environmental Services for mold inspections and evaluations, radon testing and water quality analysis.   Please call us at 615-376-2753.