Do You Know Where Your Water Shut Off Valves Are?

Do your kids know?  What about visitors?  What if you were not at your house but friends were or relatives?  Would they know where to shut off your water?

This is what we awoke to this morning at 4am. A huge flood on the first and second floors.

The hose popped off the filter that runs to the fridge.

Water had been gushing out for probably about 1/2 an hour or so but by then the cabinets were filled with water, the hardwood floor was soaked all the way to the deck and past the dining room table. 

Downstairs was a complete mess.  All the light fixtures in the downstairs living area, office and hall were gushing water.  The office and kitchen were completely drenched.  We fumbled around turning off the valves under the sink.  We had forgotten the valve that was behind mountains of pots and pans on the waterfilter.

When water is shooting out of your cabinets you aren't thinking clearly either.

If you were in my house would you know which of these was the main valve?

Do you know that even if you do get it shut off, if you have  a pressure tank that that has to empty before the water completely shuts off?

Or, how about this valve tucked behind the water heater?

Would you know that my washer shut off valves were behind this shelf?

  Is there so much crap under your sinks that you would have  a hard time getting to them?

The cleanup continues.  It's really great to have one of these wet dry shop vacs around. They are not that expensive and are really handy in a water cleanup.

We were able to suck up many gallons of water in a short amount of time.

Now we have the fans going, extra heaters on and the floor heat cranked up so we can get it completely dry under the floors.

Learn from us, look around to see where your valves are.  Can you even get to them?

I have started making signs that I will laminate and post in the appropriate places.

Perhaps a family meeting is in order so everyone knows where they are.

The bright side?  You know there has to be one.  Well, the floors got a good cleaning and I needed to organize those cabinets anyway.

Comments

[John]

What happened to you is why I hate water/ice maker lines on fridges. My mom had one when I was growing up and it broke in the middle of the night. Twice. Fortunately, we had crappy vinyl flooring so no real damage was done, but a house full of water is never good.

Good luck on the clean up.

[Victoria]

Your post reminded me of the time the hubby and I went to VA for a weekend, leaving our at the time 17 yr old son home alone. Very responsible boy...he just had no idea what a shut off valve was or where one could be located. We never dreamed he'd ever need that knowledge. Somehow he managed to stop up the toilet and in trying to unstop it, it began to overflow and flow and flow and flow.

He tried for half an hour to get i to stop and then gave up. He found the list of emergency #'s we left him and he started at the top of the list calling my mother in law, neighbor #1, neighbor #2, grandmother and then finally my mother and my sister who live out of town. He also tried us but our cell had died and we were unreachable. He called those on the list over and over for an hour. Meanwhile the water continued to flow out of the toilet and down through the floor. He finally reached my mother...who lived 1 hour away. She grabbed their wet/dry vac and headed to our home after spending 15 mins trying to help him locate the main shut off over the phone. By the time they arrived the water had been flowing out of our toilet for 2 hours and 50 minutes! We ended up losing the floor to that bathroom and the flooring in the hallway and part of one bedroom. The ceiling to the bathroom underneath that and the flooring for that bathroom were lost. The ceiling to the bedroom next to that downstairs bath fell in as well as the television that was on top of the dresser in that bedroom, the dresser that turned to mush and the waterbed heater that shorted out when the bed got covered in water. What a frickin' mess and thank the Lord for insurance.

We did have a family mtg. to show all the kids where the shut offs were and we also installed shut offs on all toilets and sinks that didn't have them. Your signs are a wonderful idea...but I'd also make it a point to show the people who might be contacted incase of emergency.

Good luck drying out.

[Egret's Nest]

Been there, done that. I know where the outside valve is and barring that where the main one from the water company is and would run for them in an emergency. I have had the water line for the icemaker break before. The worst was when my husband fixed something on the washing machine, forgot to tell me and also forgot to hook the drain line back into the drain! I'm leaving for work and walk out of my bedroom to see a growing pool of water coming down the hall to meet me . . . on my unfinished hardwood floors. AHHHHHHHH! Yea, I was late to work that day!

[Daniel @ Melinda Mikulas]

know the feeling 3 pipes busted at work during the last ice storm in Neosho.