Where to find the water shut off valve
How To Find The Water Shut Off Valve To Your Home
[Music]
hi rick patterson with the handyman
toolbox coming to you today
to uh kind of explain
something just that's so simple to a
handyman like myself or to a general
contractor
that we assume a lot of times that
everybody else just
gets it or understands but in my
experience
um i'm finding out that that's not true
and so that's why i'm doing this video
to help you
and help other homeowners as well as to
what to do so what i've done is i've
asked where
the water heater is okay so that's a
ready supply
that water would come to okay most
generally so what i did it was down in
their basement
and i just followed the water line and i
followed the water line
to the source and it's usually going to
be towards and
most always it's going to be towards the
outside of the home
now this direction happens to be the
street
so i know that the water meters directly
outside
at the street and it's going to come
towards the house so that's where i'm
going to be looking rather than
at the back of the house or the side of
the house okay
so i followed the water lines back
to the front of the house and i
particularly
found this one right here and it led me
to
a cut off all right now there
if you look here there's a cut off here
and there's a cut off here
well what happens is from the street the
uh the water line comes in from the
street
at about my waist height here and it
branches off at this t so one goes in
one direction
and then one goes to the other but um
i don't know which one it's going to
take care of as far as the water coming
in it could go out this way and go to
the bathroom i'm working on
or come out this way to the bathroom
we're working on so
i don't know so i'm going to try both of
these all right
so we know that uh to turn
a unit on you're going to
turn it left okay so you're going to
open it
but to close it we're going to turn it
clockwise
okay so that's what i'm doing right here
now
this house is probably see this house
here was built in 1969.
i don't know when this line was but i'm
going to assume a couple of things first
off
i'm going to assume that this was the
original work
on the home and i'm going to assume that
this particular shutoff valve
was not um touched since 1969.
now if you're that old
and you haven't been touched in a long
time things are probably not going to
work
just as good as they should all right so
that's what i'm saying about this right
here
is once you turn it off it'll shut off
but be ready to do
a repair uh on a a leaky cut-off valve
because
maybe the seats and the rubber seals
around them haven't been disturbed in
that long
and they may have worn so when you turn
it back on there may be a leak
so be prepared about that and matter of
fact i'll probably do a video
on um how to uh tighten
or stop a leak in a
cutoff valve okay so that's one now the
other one here as well
so we know counterclockwise it's going
to
open it but i'm going to close it so i'm
going to turn it from left
to right and already i felt a drip
in my hand i hope it doesn't
do anything else because then we got
another little project going on
but for right now
i'm going to keep turning until it's off
now i'm going to kind of anticipate a
water leak
and that's a completely another video
hope to god it doesn't
but it's off right now now if you're
doing
a repair in the home because like this
is in the basement
i'm okay turning on a faucet
and letting the water drain out of that
because there's nothing above
in the ceiling because it's just a a one
story over a basement
now let's say that you're working uh
in a two-story house and what happens
here
is that when you're working a two-story
house all the water some of the water is
up in the pipes for the second
floor and if you're working on the main
floor then you've got all that water
steel in the pipe
that is stuck there and so it's good
at the lowest point in your home
to drain all that water out and open up
the upstairs uh bathroom or a shower
open up that faucet there
and let the water drain through uh
quicker if you will on the second floor
on the main floor
okay so these are some ideas to help you
out
when you're looking to turn off the
water
inside your home for a cut-off valve
this is rick patterson thanks for coming
to my video
see you next time by the way before you
go
i want to encourage you to check out my
other videos and you'll see a link below
click on it the 1000th person that
subscribes to thehandymantoolbox.com
gets a free tool go ahead and register
now see you there
[Music]
[Music]
you
