I got to my client’s house this afternoon, and when I turned on the kitchen tap to do some dishes, nothing came out. There is nothing coming from her kitchen sink or bathtub faucet, either. Another person in the house told me that it was working earlier today.
I know I went down to pay her bill (she’s an invalid) on time, same as always. A phone call to the water company’s emergency line confirmed the following:
a) there is no construction anywhere near her house that might have interrupted service, and
b) the guys who turn service off for non-payment aren’t even working today, and there’s no way they could have done that.
We went out to the street and looked at the main valve – water is turned on to the house, and also the neighbors say they have water.
My client lives in an upstairs unit. This is in California, where the temperature is currently 55 degrees. Although it has been getting close to freezing at night, the water was working earlier today, so the pipes can’t be frozen.
What on earth else could it be? I am stumped. How could the water pipe coming IN suddenly get blocked? Doesn’t seem very likely. And if it were broken, wouldn’t there be a massive leak that the downstairs neighbors would surely notice?
Water department has nobody to even dispatch a crew today, being a day when nearly everybody is off work. I am completely mystified; not sure how I’m even going to feed her without water. I guess I’ll have to go get something ready-made.
If there’s an accessible water meter and it’s showing usage, you might have a leak inside a wall somewhere, or even in the ground (if your meter is under a cover in the ground, where the water company’s pipe connects up to the one that runs to your house). In that case, shutting off the water might prevent further damage, and limit any huge bills.
See how close to the sub-basement (where the shUt-off is located) - if you can get to it, somebody else may have been playing with valves.
What I don’t understand: if this was built as a single family residence, why would it have a “sub-basement”?
The term suggests that there are TWO basements, one below the other.
That is VERY uncommon in SFD construction.
If someone went to all that trouble, they may well have added individual shut-offs for each of the 3 units.
Otherwise: depending on age of house, it may be that one of the downstairs units contained the original kitchen (which had water when built) and the upstairs had the original Bath (also with water).
Who knows how the plumbing was butchered during conversion to apartments.
There may have been an old line downstream from an ancient valve - and that line is now the source.
First: Call landlord. Repeat until fixed.
While waiting for landlord, ask around if anyone has seen an old valve - and did they do anything with it?
I think you may have a winner here. When I remodeled my kitchen I added valves to the kitchen to the existing plumbing. Then I ran the new lines to the kitchen. When everything was done I turned on the valves.
There may be some valves in one of the other units that were added in the remodeling.