I had a flood from a busted supply hose in the laundry room while off on a camping trip that has resulted in my house basically being uninhabitable (flood mitigation measures disclosed other, worse issues that it would take WAY too much money to fix–money I don’t have) so yeah, if I’m gonna be gone I’ll turn all that shit off. I usually have someone house sitting though due to having several pets, one of which is a diabetic cat that needs injections twice a day so there’s usually someone here. Anyone who sits my house knows where the street key is, though, since the crapshack is old and there’s no main shutoff at the house, only at the meter.
30 years… zero issues home or not. Actually more because growing up we never turned off the water, and my grandparents never turned off their water. I have three kids living on their own and they have never turned off their water. I think it is like rolling the dice and having it balance on an edge. I can live with that risk.
While the risk of a leak may not go up, the risk of substantial restoration and repairs needed because of a leak can go up dramatically.
As a side note: even when you’re home, if there are seldom-used areas, it’s well worth checking them several times a week.
About 5 years back, we had someone come to do the annual furnace and A/C inspection. He came upstairs about 2 minutes later and said “you need to come downstairs; there’s a problem”. Turns out the water heater had failed and begin leaking. The water had seeped out and started soaking the carpet just outside the furnace room. It had probably just been leaking for a day or so given the extent (or lack) of the leakage. One might think the guy had actually sabotaged the heater in order to sell us a new one, but there hadn’t been time for that much carpet to get wet. We pretty much never went downstairs, so who knows when we’d have spotted the issue.
And I stayed overnight at a friend’s place last spring. I showered in the morning, and noticied water on the ground between the tub and the toilet. I mopped it up - and 15 minutes later there was more water. Yep, the toilet was leaking. Had I not been there, it might have been days before the mess was noticed (she doesn’t use that bathroom herself).
I’ll repost what I stated above just as a reminder:
If you are reading this - go check all the toilet hoses in your house - replace those that are bent with ones that are long enough to loop. Peace of mind does not come any cheaper and easier to do.
I don’t understand this part. The system is under the same pressure with the main on as off, right?
Is this for thermal expansion?
Thermal contraction, really. In addition to shutting off the main valve at the entrance to the house, I also turn off the water heater. My main concern is that as the water in the tank cools back down to room temperature, it contracts, and it may pull a vacuum and cause the wall of the tank to buckle a bit, which could weaken/damage it. The volume change isn’t immense - 40 gallons of water cooled from 120F down to 60F becomes 39.7 gallons - but the tank surface area is large, so it’s conceivable that the atmosphere could push it in if the pressure inside falls below atmospheric due to contraction. It’s possible that the outgassing of the hot water in the tank (mentioned in one of my posts upthread) might adequately compensate for the reduction of water volume due to thermal contraction, but not being sure, it seems safer just to crack open a faucet.
From the context I would say the advice to take away is to crack open a upper faucet, which is not necessarily a kitchen faucet for everyone. That is advice I have seen time and time again.
With the main ‘on’ it and the faucet dripping, it will allow water to move through the pipes which reduces the chance of freezing, or if it does freeze solid the pressure on one side will be relieved through the dripping and hopefully the ice expansion won’t burst the pipe. In this case the pressure is pretty constant in the piping system unless a solid ice plug forms.
With the main ‘off’ and the faucet dripping the pressure is reduced eventually to atmospheric pressure (minus elevation effects). Thus is ice does form a plug there is much reduced pressure in the system and less chance of bursting.
If I have a tankless water heater and live in a climate where it doesn’t freeze, is there any value in cracking a faucet?
And does “upper faucet” mean physically high, or farthest from the water main entry or something else?
Bumping this thread as a warning against tempting fate. Last night around 7:00 water started running into our dining room from outside the house. After determining it wasn’t rain related (it’s been raining a lot lately) we figured out that it must be a broken pipe. Water was pooling up faster than I could drain it (with a hose as a siphon) along the exterior wall. Around 9:30 I had to call the water company to send someone over to turn off our water at the street. Miraculously, someone came within about 30 minutes an shut the water off. Definitely going to get a shut off installed.
Yep, and open all the taps
Just another anecdote as to why this is important:
Once I was staying with some relatives for a large family gathering. They asked a few of us to take our showers in the vacant house next door. (My aunt was friends with the owners, who were selling the house, and she had gotten their OK for this.) So I went over there in the morning, got undressed and stepped in the tub and started running the hot water, then started turning the knob for the cold water and… the whole knob came off in my hand and water started gushing quite forcefully out of the hole where the knob had been. It was spewing out with such pressure that the stream was flying across the length of the tub, hitting the wall at the back of the tub, and much of it was splashing out onto the bathroom floor. I tried in vain to get the knob back in place, but it was no use. I realized the floor of the bathroom was already starting to flood and the water was heading for the door. I threw my towel down as a barrier and, soaking wet myself from the splashback in the tub, I threw on my pants and ran next door to inform my aunt and uncle. Fortunately they knew exactly where the cutoff was and they had the tool to turn the valve. We got it shut off pretty quickly and the cleanup wasn’t bad. Helluva way to wake up in the morning!