Emergency guide
How to Shut Off Your Water in an Emergency
If water is coming in right now, stop reading after step one and go do it. Everything else can wait two minutes.
Do this first
Shut the main valve off now
Your main water shut-off valve is almost always in the basement, on the wall that faces the street, within a few feet of the water meter. Turn it clockwise, to the right, until it stops. If it is a lever rather than a wheel, turn it a quarter turn so the lever sits across the pipe instead of along it.
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Find the main valve
Basement, front wall, near the water meter. In a home on a slab or with no basement, check the utility room, a crawlspace hatch, or the wall behind the washing machine. There is usually a valve on each side of the meter. The one on the street side is the one you want, but either will stop water reaching the leak.
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Work out which kind of valve you have
A round wheel is a gate valve. It takes several full turns clockwise to close, and it will feel like nothing is happening for the first turn or two. A lever is a ball valve. It closes in a single quarter turn, and it is shut when the lever sits at right angles to the pipe.
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Do not force a stiff valve
Gate valves in older homes seize up, and the stem can snap off in your hand. That turns a leak into a leak you can no longer stop. If it will not move with firm steady pressure, leave it and go to step four instead.
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If the main valve will not close
Every property also has a curb stop, a shut-off buried under a small metal cap in the lawn or boulevard near the street. It needs a long key and it is the municipality that operates it. Call your city water department and tell them you have an active leak and a failed interior valve. Then call us, because that valve needs replacing before anything else can be fixed.
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Shut off the water heater
Once the water is off, kill the heater. Electric: switch off the breaker labelled for the hot water tank. Gas: turn the control dial to Off. A tank that keeps heating with no water flowing into it can be damaged, and on a gas unit that is a safety problem rather than just an expensive one.
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Open the lowest tap in the house
A basement laundry tub or an outside hose bib is ideal. This drains the pipes and takes the pressure off, so whatever is leaking slows to a trickle instead of continuing to spray. Open a tap upstairs too, to let air in behind it.
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Only need to stop one fixture?
You do not always need the main. Under every sink and behind every toilet there is a small shut-off, either an oval handle you turn clockwise or a quarter turn lever. Close that and the rest of the house keeps its water while you wait for us.
Before you go near standing water
- If water has reached outlets, a furnace, or the electrical panel, do not wade in. Water and live circuits do not give you a second chance.
- Only switch off the breaker panel if you can reach it standing on a dry floor. If you cannot, call your electricity utility and have them cut power at the meter.
- If you smell gas, leave the building first and call the gas emergency line from outside. Do not touch switches on the way out.
- Ceiling bulging with trapped water is heavier than it looks. Stay out from under it.
Once the water is off
- Photograph everything before you move or mop anything. Wide shots of the room, close shots of the source. Your insurer will ask, and the claim goes better when the damage is documented from the start.
- Move what you can lift clear of the wet area, and get air moving with fans and open windows.
- Call your insurer and open a claim, even if it turns out to be small. Reporting late is what causes trouble, not reporting something minor.
- Do not turn the water back on to test it. If the leak is still open you will simply do the damage twice.
If it is a frozen pipe
- Leave the tap open. As the ice melts, running water helps clear the rest of the blockage.
- Warm the pipe with a hair dryer or a heat gun on low, working from the tap end back toward the frozen section.
- Never use a blowtorch or any open flame. It is the most common cause of house fires during a cold snap, and it can boil water trapped in the pipe and burst it.
- A pipe that has frozen once will freeze again in the same spot. Worth insulating or rerouting before next winter.
Water off, problem still there?
Shutting the water off buys you time, it does not fix the pipe. Call and we will tell you honestly when we can be there, or send a photo through the form and we will come back to you with what is involved.