My wife and I left for a vacation last Tuesday morning, driving for 7 hours to a nice VRBO rental. We’re all settled in and having a great time. On Wednesday afternoon I checked my email and noticed a message that my water company back at home had sent me on Tuesday night. It was probably the worst message one can get from your water company in such a situation:
You may have a leak. You used 2,370 gallons of water in the last 9 hours.
Holy fucking shit. I tried to imagine what 2,370 gallons of water pouring through my house would look like and was not at all happy with the mental image. My wife and I discussed the possibilities. We were both sure that we had not left any faucet running. Could a toilet be running? Could a pipe have burst? The first case would be a minor annoyance (a somewhat higher water bill this month); the second case would be a major disaster potentially costing us tens of thousands of dollars. Would a running toilet really use that much water? Should we drive home immediately?
I contacted a neighbor who thankfully was home and went over to my house and closed the main water shut-off for my house. So whatever had happened at least wouldn’t get worse. After much agonizing, we decided to cross our fingers and continue with our vacation. I told myself that if there was indeed water damage, the bulk of the damage had already been done, and letting it sit for a few more days wouldn’t make enough difference to ruin our vacation (although honestly I was not very convincing to myself).
We drove back home four days later, and with great trepidation entered the house. No sign of any water damage, thank Neptune. I turned the house shut-off back on, and immediately heard a toilet running. Apparently my wife had used that toilet and flushed it just before leaving the house when we departed, and therefore didn’t notice that it never stopped running.
I may make a habit of turning off the house shut-off before leaving on any extended trip from now on. I had never before considered the damage that a water leak could do when left unattended for several days.
I’ve told the story before of the day we were leaving at the crack of 5:00 for vacation. We were about to depart when I decided that shutting off the main water valve would be a good idea. I ran back into the house, down to the basement, and turned the valve closed. Then: drip, drip, drip. The freaking valve decided to spring a leak because I had the nerve to disturb it. And there were six people in an idling, loaded minivan waiting for me to come start our vacation.
It’s been on my mind since to replace that gate valve with a more reliable ball valve, but that’s a big project that I have been procrastinating on.
I do have four wifi water leak sensors placed at strategic points around the house; any water detected will instantly sound an alarm on my phone. I recommend these for peace of mind.
You didn’t ask for advice, but hopefully a heads-up is OK.
Our plumber informed us our city levies very harsh fines on any citizen caught using the main valve. He explained that some non-zero percentage of the citizens manage to break the thing while attempting to figure out which way it turns. Replacing it is expensive for the city so they’ve forbidden its use by the “untrained” (only city water dept. or licensed plumbers).
I don’t know if this is common, or my town is an outlier. But the price for adding a secondary valve on our side of the meter/valve was about the same as the fine. And ours is easier to use and requires no tools.
I’ll add one more piece of advice. When you turn off the water to the house, also turn off the water heater. If for some reason there is a leak, there is a small but real possibility that the hot water tank may be emptied. You don’t want the electric heating elements (or gas burner, if a gas heater) turning on in an empty tank.
Not sure how this works with the newer heat pump water heaters, but I imagine they won’t fare well trying to heat an empty tank as well.
Thanks for the advice! I’ve not heard of such a regulation before. However the valve I’m talking about is a ball valve on the side of the house that I had a plumber put in about 20 years ago. It’s not the city’s valve that is next to the water meter.