Do you turn off the water to your house when you leave for an extended time (i.e., vacation)..

Just curious, and now it has me thinking that we will. And do you know where your house water main shut off valve is??

Background...

Came home Thursday after working. It was just about 3 p.m. and I had been gone since 9 a.m. I hear the water running in the house, almost like someone is in the back bedroom in the bathroom taking a shower. Freaked me out! After some searching, I see that the shower tub in our main hall bathroom has the water running in it. I figure I must not have shut it all the way off after I showered that morning before leaving for work. I take the faucet handle to make sure it's off and it is. Totally down and off. The water was still running out of the faucet (not full blast, but certainly more than just dripping).

I call DH and he says a washer must have gone bad in the faucet mechanism. He tells me to turn off the main water to the house because we have no idea how long the water had been running like that (6 hours at the most since I was only gone for a bit) and we have cesspools that were probably filling up! I had to ask him where the water main was So I get it off and we've had the water shut off the the house since then - we do turn it back on when we need to use it, but can't obviously leave the shower running and filling the cesspools. I've had plumbers here all day fixing the lines and faucets!

And it reminded me of the time my neighbor was away for the day and the other neighbor went in to let his dog out and called us in a panic because a line running to his toilet had burst and the house was filling with water! DH ran over to shut the water off for them.

Soo, now I'm thinking we were very lucky the water faucet line that broke was in our shower. Supposed it had been some where else and we were gone a week!? Yikes! Something so simple to do before we leave, I will be doing it from now on when we are gone more than a day!

And after having been without water for 3 days and electricity for 3 days after Hurricane Irene, I definitely prefer to have water!!

Message edited 10/30/2011 5:57:30 PM.

Re: Do you turn off the water to your house when you leave for an extended time (i.e., vacation)..

They say it's a good idea to. I don't know where mine is but I'm sure DH does....

Re: Do you turn off the water to your house when you leave for an extended time (i.e., vacation)..

Don't turn off your water if you have an oil burner and have baseboard heat that runs on water. Your boiler will run dry since the water's not on to refill it. It could cause serious damage.

Re: Do you turn off the water to your house when you leave for an extended time (i.e., vacation)..

Yes, I know where the main shut off is. We turn off the water to the washing machine whenever we are not using it. We never shut the water in the whole house off, would only do so in an emergency. Don't wanna mess with the heat!

Re: Do you turn off the water to your house when you leave for an extended time (i.e., vacation)..

I dont do that but I do turn the hoses off to my washing machine after each use. Previous owner used to do that, told us her hose broke once and it was a mess. So our inspector suggested we do that, so now we do.

Re: Do you turn off the water to your house when you leave for an extended time (i.e., vacation)..

Re: Do you turn off the water to your house when you leave for an extended time (i.e., vacation)..

Yes. If I'm going to be away from the house for a week or more I always turn off the water.

Re: Do you turn off the water to your house when you leave for an extended time (i.e., vacation)..

my DH turns off the toilets

Re: Do you turn off the water to your house when you leave for an extended time (i.e., vacation)..

We usually just turn off the washer, that is most likely to break. We also turn off our oil burner so we dont heat hot water we aren't going to need.