Shutting Water Off In Case of Leaks or Plumbing Fixture Repair

Are you suffering from annoying leaks in your plumbing system? Do you see the need to repair or probably replace a plumbing fixture? In these cases, you can do the repairs or replacement yourself. However, there’s one thing you need to do first: find the water shut off valve to that fixture.

In most instances, there are at least two to three places to shut off the water supply to a plumbing fixture. Listed below are your options on what to do:

1. First, you need to check the fixture. There should be shut off valves located behind the toilet or under the sink. If you think something is giving you a lot of problems or perhaps you’ve found the problem and you are trying to fix it, you first have to shut off the water in this area.

2. Supposed you’re working on a hot water line or if there is hot water leaking, good thing is there is a shut off valve just above the hot water heater. The same valve will exclusively shut off the hot water supply in the house and nothing else.

3. Next, look at the main shutoff to the house. In most instances, this is found in the front of the house, provided the meter is there too. If you live in colder areas, the main shutoff valve will likely be found in the basement instead of the outside.

4. See the water meter this time. Water meter boxes usually have two shutoff valves. There’s one on the customer side and another one on the city side of the meter.

Water Supply Shutoff

As soon as you need to shut the water supply off to the house or in the event that there is no local shutoff valve, the place to look is the water meter. The moment you find it, you will see a water supply line coming into the house from the outside. There’s a shutoff valve between it and the water meter. On the other side, there’s another shutoff valve. In order to shut off the water, all you have to do is turn off the valve located before the water meter. It means you’re going to turn it off on the supply side.

Shutoff Locally at the Sink or Toilet Area

Furthermore, there are plumbing fixtures that have local shutoff for the cold and hot water lines. In order to turn off the water supply to a plumbing fixture, you first need to find the shutoff valve. The same is usually found directly under the fixture. As soon as you find it, turn it off.

Tub or Shower

Finding water shut off valves for showers and tubs may not be as easy compared to that of sinks and toilets, but they can be found. The thing is it’s a lot more difficult because they are usually concealed or hidden. What you need to do is look around the tub and shower and find an access panel. If the valve isn’t in the access panel, it may be located under the floor in the basement or perhaps a ceiling access panel which is fund in the floor below. Once you see it, turn it off.