PSA: Turnoff water AND depressurize

[bigadventure]

Yeah, the water shutoff is usually a gate valve. Good for allowing max flow, but not so good a seal.

Yeah, shut off the water and crack a cold and hot water valve anywhere, zero pressure.

Most home valves are globe valves. A gate valve would be very unusual.

 

[lakehawk]

Turnoff water AND depressurize

Aside from a fire, water will do the most damage.

We always shut the water off when gone more than a couple of days. It is easy, just close the valve (city water), turn off hot water heater (if electric just throw the breaker), and shut off the icemaker. We also open a faucet or flush a toilet to release the pressure. Never had a problem yet.

Any water under pressure can spring a leak including the icemaker hookup, dishwasher, washing machine, etc.. Better safe than sorry.

 

[MuirWannabe]

As I consider doing this in the future, it occurs to me that I often leave the sprinkler system on to both water the yard as necessary and to refill pool water. These things are needed in Texas summers when gone for a week or longer. So, that makes me think turning water off at the street is not a viable option. Does anyone else deal with this or have a good workaround?

 

[BasketCase24]

TB001, Not dumb questions! When you re-pressurize your water system, you may shake loose all kinds of stuff. Remove your strainers on your faucets wherever possible. Open a cold water faucet without a strainer closest to your shutoff. Purge as much air as possible (to avoid later water hammer) - be patient and slowly open the shutoff until you get pretty good flow with no air (you may have to throttle the cold water faucet to control splashes). Close that faucet, then move to next closest faucet, repeat until furthest cold water faucet is thoroughly vented. (Include tub faucets, by the way!) Go to hot water faucet closest to the HOT WATER heater and follow the same process. After thorough venting of both hot and cold, reinstall your strainers, shower heads etc.

It is also good maintenance to REPLACE perfectly good hoses for dishwashers, washing machines and ice makers BEFORE they go bad. Based on the type of hose and your normal household water pressure, they have a life span of 5-10 years. Preventive maintenance rather than run to failure!

 

[BradC]

Now I'm thinking of water alarms wherever there is a potential leak (bathrooms, under dishwasher, by water heater, under kitchen sink).

I've had really good luck with the Orbit B-Hyve flood sensors. The sensors are really small, the alerts go to my phone, and it can also be set to alert for temperature extremes.

 

[marko]

Talk about luck: I was at mom's (age 91) when all of a sudden I heard a noise. The town was doing some work down the street and did something so that the toilet on the third floor started overflowing. No real idea how that happened...it shouldn't have but it did.

I was able to shut off the water within a minute so the damage was minimal. If I hadn't been there, this could've run for hours before mom noticed.

This also happened to her neighbor who was away. Their daughter came home after 3 days. They had to live in a hotel for 6 months while they took the entire house down to the studs as part of the cleanup.

 

[maestro]

I agree, if you shutoff the main and open a faucet to relieve the pressure then you would not have had an issue... the water would have just sat in the pipes. If there is pressure in the piping system then it tries to find a way to get out... in this case a leaky dishwasher valve.

+1. Just went through this today as part of plumber during kitchen remodel. We knew valves underneath sink were leaking (30 years old, so they did their time). Turned water off at main at curb, I went upstairs to open a few faucets, and the water flowed out where he already cut old copper by valve, and system depressured, gracefully. In your case, without depressurization, the water needed some where else to squeeze through, i.e. your old valves.

 

[RetiredAt55.5]

It is also good maintenance to REPLACE perfectly good hoses for dishwashers, washing machines and ice makers BEFORE they go bad. Based on the type of hose and your normal household water pressure, they have a life span of 5-10 years. Preventive maintenance rather than run to failure!

The metal braided cold water supply hose to my hot water heater started leaking near the connection. It was a steady stream coming out, not a pinhole leak. So, lesson learned for me, even the metal braided hoses can go bad.

Fortunately, my wife was home at the time and noticed the accumulating water in the basement.

 

[tb001]

TB001, Not dumb questions! When you re-pressurize your water system, you may shake loose all kinds of stuff. Remove your strainers on your faucets wherever possible. Open a cold water faucet without a strainer closest to your shutoff. Purge as much air as possible (to avoid later water hammer) - be patient and slowly open the shutoff until you get pretty good flow with no air (you may have to throttle the cold water faucet to control splashes). Close that faucet, then move to next closest faucet, repeat until furthest cold water faucet is thoroughly vented. (Include tub faucets, by the way!) Go to hot water faucet closest to the HOT WATER heater and follow the same process. After thorough venting of both hot and cold, reinstall your strainers, shower heads etc.

It is also good maintenance to REPLACE perfectly good hoses for dishwashers, washing machines and ice makers BEFORE they go bad. Based on the type of hose and your normal household water pressure, they have a life span of 5-10 years. Preventive maintenance rather than run to failure!

Thank you for this!!! I may try draining everything and restarting to see if I can get the air knock out myself.

And a big YES to replacing the hoses. When we had a new D/W installed, the big box store guys doing the install just used the hose that was there. Likely 18 yrs old. The new dishwasher had a money saving feature to enable running it during the lowest $ period for electricity, so we ran it for weeks in the middle of the night while it was dumping water all over the wood floors. An expensive lesson for the subs who installed it.

 

[ncbill]

The metal braided cold water supply hose to my hot water heater started leaking near the connection. It was a steady stream coming out, not a pinhole leak. So, lesson learned for me, even the metal braided hoses can go bad.

Fortunately, my wife was home at the time and noticed the accumulating water in the basement.

When I installed my HE washer it said to only use the hoses that came with it.

They've been there a decade now & I have no plans to replace them until the washer is replaced...when that happens hot & cold shutoffs will be converted to ball valves with levers so I can easily cut off both.

 

[marko]

Ok. You guys got me freaked out.

We just moved into a brand new house and I'm fine with turning off the water from the main and draining BUT how do I deal with 1) the ice maker in the fridge and 2) the tankless hot water heater?

We go away all winter and in our old house never turned off the water because it was needed for the steam heat and we knew it's peculiarities. I would like to turn off the water in the new house when we're gone for several weeks at a time and I don't know quite yet what to worry about like I did in the old house.

 

[Walt34]

As far as the ice maker goes, just turn off the water supply to it (there should be a valve in the supply line to do that) and then turn off the ice maker so it doesn't continue to cycle looking for water.

I know nothing of tankless water heaters so will let others comment on those.

 

[audreyh1]

As I consider doing this in the future, it occurs to me that I often leave the sprinkler system on to both water the yard as necessary and to refill pool water. These things are needed in Texas summers when gone for a week or longer. So, that makes me think turning water off at the street is not a viable option. Does anyone else deal with this or have a good workaround?

We have a valve at the water entry to the house. This is separate from the yard watering system.

 

[audreyh1]

Ok. You guys got me freaked out.

We just moved into a brand new house and I'm fine with turning off the water from the main and draining BUT how do I deal with 1) the ice maker in the fridge and 2) the tankless hot water heater?

We go away all winter and in our old house never turned off the water because it was needed for the steam heat and we knew it's peculiarities. I would like to turn off the water in the new house when we're gone for several weeks at a time and I don't know quite yet what to worry about like I did in the old house.

We turn our tankless hot water heater off, and our fridge ice maker off.

We don’t drain the pipes.