About 20 years ago, I noticed that the main water cutoff valve in my house was almost too stiff to turn, which I decided was dangerous and called my plumber. He explained that in order to do it, the pipe from the water main to the house would have to have its valve turned off and he was not allowed to touch it but would have to get the town to do it, but he would arrange it all. So one morning at 10, he showed up and said the man from the town engineering department was supposed to arrive also at 10. Well he and his assistant twiddled their thumbs until 10:30 when the guy from engineering (I will call him gfe or Jiffy) finally showed up and started searching my lawn for the location of the valve. But I knew the number 26 was painted on the wall of the house maybe a foot above the ground and I went to it and paced off an estimated 26’ and told Jiffy to look there. He looked at me like I was nuts, but did bring his metal detector over and it started buzzing within a foot of where I estimated. He dug down, found the valve, turned it off and the replacement of the inside valve was carried out smoothly.
Now I don’t recall when I learned about those numbers painted on the house wall but it would have been in Philly where I grew up and this incident was in Montreal so the practice must have been widespread, but, bizarrely, Jiffy didn’t know it (although I thought it would have part of his job to) and neither did the plumber. I am going to try to make a poll out of this, but if I don’t succeed, please say if you would have known and what your age is. I am 87 BTW. Although this happened more than 20 years ago (after the '97 ice storm), I was just telling my son about it a few weeks ago, which is why I just thought about it.
But in what direction? Perpendicular to the house? Toward the road? In California, they are almost always next to the sidewalk or curb but not always perpendicular to the house. Sometimes, the meters for several addresses are in the same vault a few doors down the street.
Yes of course, perpendicular to the house wall. In newer neighborhoods, there is a small cap in the sidewalk labeled water/eau, but that house was built in 1942.
The location of septic tanks can be marked on walls, inside or outside. An arrow and a number on one, the rest had a right angle drawn with numbers on each leg. My water valve is on the street. The town had a map to locate it.
In the Salt lake City house I grew up in, they have rather large water meter covers and the shutoff valve is in there. It was in the part of the lawn we called the “parking strip” which is the land between the curb and the sidewalk (then our property? I don’t remember if our property inclulded the sidewalk or not).
German sign:
Left:
Distance from the sign to the left to the underground hydrant
Right, from top to bottom:
Hydrant number (is not always indicated)
Nominal diameter of the water pipe in millimetres
Perpendicular distance from the sign to the underground hydrant
At my parents’ house in Connecticut, there is (or was, no idea if it’s still there) a piece of paper taped to an inside closet door with instructions on where to dig to access the wellhead, for their submersible pump. I think we made that after having to hunt around for it a few decades back.
I work for a water utility, and have never heard of this practice of writing the distance to the curb stop on a house wall (presumably the foundation wall?). If I think about it I’ll ask one of our water meter techs if they’ve ever heard of this practice.
By the way, the water shutoff valve for a customer is called a curb stop. This valve has an operator and a cover that is supposed to be at ground surface, not buried. In practice they sometimes get buried by a bit of soil, especially if they are in a lawn. My utility has cards for every one of our customers that has a sketch on how to locate the water service and curb stop. We also have detection equipment.
We also don’t typically operate curb stops unless we are shutting someone’s water off, or replacing the water main and water services. Most of these valves are decades old, and there’s about a 50% chance a given valve is actually operable. (At which point we have to replace it.)
Finally, the reason it’s called a curb stop is because it’s typically located near the curb of the street. But in actuality, it’s usually right on or very near the property line.
Many years ago, when I was a physics Teaching Assistant in University, I was introducing the students to the French Curve. The German student looked at it, and said, “Yes, this looks like something a Frenchman would design…”
The water meters for my utility are traditionally located inside the house or building in the basement. So the curb stop is on the property line and the water meter is inside the building. This makes it difficult to read or service the meter, so we are now actually engaged in a multiyear process of installing meter pits outside near the curb stops and relocating customers’ water meters from inside the building to outside.
All new water services are also getting meter pits and water meters outside as well.
Incidentally, we call the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the curb the “snow shelf” or “grass strip.” Wikipedia calls it a road verge, which is not a term I’ve ever heard of.
Finally, property lines are typically right behind the sidewalk, so the sidewalk is part of the public right-of-way, not on private property.
This is actually for a fire hydrant, not a domestic water service.
To elaborate, water utilities have three types of services:
Domestic water service which is metered and supplies potable water. The diameter of the service ranges from 1-2” for a house to 4-6” for a large building.
Fire service for a building. This supplies a sprinkler system and/or internal hose reels. The diameter ranges from 4-6” and it may or may not be metered (traditionally not, but this is changing)
Fire hydrant service. This is usually 6” in diameter, connects to a fire hydrant, and is never metered.
Yellow “H” hydrant signs indicate the location of the hydrants. Mounted on a small post or nearby wall etc., the two numbers indicate the size of the water main (top number) and the distance from the sign (lower number). Modern signs show these measurements in millimetres and metres, whereas older signs use inches and feet. Because the orders of magnitude are so different (6 inches versus 150 mm) there is no ambiguity whichever measuring system is used.’
Shortly after buying my house I discovered a leak in my (in the house) shut-off valve. To fix it, the plumber had to find the outside shut-off valve. Unfortunately it was winter, and the outside valve is near my driveway so he had to dig through ~3 feet of snow and ~6 inches of dirt to get to it. IIRC he did extend the outside valve shaft (or at least the cover) so it was not so far underground. Not far enough because I can no longer see it I should try to locate it again. Guess I could call 811 and at least get the water line highlighted.
Sure, but like steam engines in Ancient Greece and wheels on Aztec toys, they were just an intellectual curiosity. Practical application awaited a culture that exhibited anything other than 90^\circ angles.
Here in Mesa, AZ, the water shutoff and meter are in a little box by the curb. And you don’t need the city to come turn the water off. You can do it with pliers, but the right tool makes it easy.
I used to be in the lawn sprinkler business. So I have one of those long ‘Stop and Waste’ keys. The valve was called a Stop and Waste as when you turned it off, it also drained the line on the house side.
These valves where in meter pits, with the 8" iron cover that some have shared above.
