Any plumbers in the house?

[Steve]

Anyone here a plumber, or know much about plumbing? Reason I ask is I have to put a new faucet in the utility room for my tanks and I have a question about the water shut off so figured I'd see if anyone here could maybe answer it before I did a bunch of googling on the subject.

[Marty]

I'm not a pro, but I've done some plumbing work.  What's your question?

[Steve]

Hey Marty, pulling some access panels off looking for the shut off for the house I find this. I'm guessing this should be the shut off for the whole house mostly likely? There's two facets inline one on each side of the meter/value, do both these need to be closed? Wondering if this is the proper thing to shut off and why there would be two valves like that on it?

[Marty]

The one coming out of the floor or the one just past the meter will shut off everything.  They put two shutoffs where they did so the meter could be swapped out without all the water in the pipes draining out.

[Steve]

Ahhhh okay, that makes sense then. thanks

[Matt1628]

What Marty said but if you go to turn those valves do so gently.  They have not been turned in a very long time.  You might have to use channel locks on the handles to gently bust them free. You have to be careful not to break the valve stem when turning them.  If there is a shut off for the utility sink I would use those valves instead.  Also the packing might start leaking on the old valves, if so when you're done open the valves up all the way then try snugging up the packing nut till it stops leaking.

[Steve]

Yeah I'm figuring it's going to have to be done pretty gently. All the pipes are the old original galvanized pipe. Sink is the old steel cast iron sink with the cast facet that sits right on top of it and no shut offs between the utility sink except for the main shut off in the pic. I've been putting off doing this for over a year now just because of how old the plumbing is. It's gonna be a pain, but the leak has gotten worse lately so gonna have to tackle it in the next week now

[Matt1628]

Might want to call the water department tomorrow to see if the shut off outside works before trying it just in case the worse case scenario happens.

[danielratti]

There will be always one outside of the house.  Just had this happen at work actually shut off whatever one looks the newest is what we learned.  If the city has to come out to shut the water off it will be like 150 bucks.  Is there not shutoff under the sink you are working on?

[Steve]

I know where the cap is out by the sidewalk for the outside shut off, but I'm hoping to avoid having to resort to having the water dept come out and shut that off   No shut off under the sink, no plumbing under the sink actually except for the drain. The sink is the utility room wash tub and the plumbing comes into the old faucet from above since the water lines are tucked up in the rafters. The hot water can be shut off by the gate valve that comes off the hot water tank before the sink, but the cold water has a Tee that goes off the Tee ahead of the hot water tank and right into the sink. So only way to shut the cold water off is with the main in the access panel.

Just thinking about this stresses me out lol

[Marty]

Have you tried closing them by hand yet?  Try soaking the valve stem with wd40 on the one furthest from the street and then let it sit for a bit.  It won't help if anything inside the pipe is worn/broken, but it may make it easier to close.

[danielratti]

Are you replacing the whole sink or just the faucet?  Cause you should be able to use those two ball valves as shutoff then take the faucet off where the unions connect to the faucet.

[Steve]

Marty- I tried it by hand today just to see how it felt and it seemed pretty tight. Didn't really put much muscle into it though since I didn't want to create any major problems for myself today (gotta be free to watch the NEW X-Files tonight  ) I was thinking about hitting it with some wd40 over the next few days like you mentioned.

Dan- I'm just replacing the faucet. The ball valves are off the tee on the faucet though and they go to the washing machine. Shutting those off just shuts the side flow of water to the washing machine off, but doesn't shut the water to the faucet off since they are off the tee and the main flow still bypasses them.

[Matt1628]

Home depot and Lowes sells shut off keys now for the outside. Just an FYI. Not sure what their return policy is if its "used" 

[Steve]

Not sure what their return policy is if its "used"

LOL