How to Shut Water Off to Your House...MUST HAVE TOOL!

Hey folks, that's fix it guy here. So today we're going to be talking about emergency water shutoff valves. Do you know where to shut your water off? To me, I think it's a very important question. It's one that I ask a lot of people when I had my plumbing business. Do you know where to shut it off and if you don't let me show you? So I would go around their house, I would find it for them, but I would also let them know about shutting it off at the water meter. And letting them know that they should have a water meter key or a curb key in their garage or somewhere accessible to be able to shut it off at a moment's notice. I can't pretend to know where your shutoff valve is in your house. I can tell you places to look. It might be underneath one of your sinks. It might be in a closet. It might be in the crawl space. It might be in your pantry. Like I've seen them so many different places. Really I can't even begin to know where to look. But the one that I do know is your water meter. There's definitely going to be, if you're on city water, there's going to be a water meter outside your house and it's going to have a shutoff valve. Because the city is going to want to shut your water off if you don't pay the bill. So today I'm going to show you where to find that, how to shut it off and the tools used to do that. I typically use a water meter key or a caressant wrench or a pipe wrench or a basin wrench, anything that you can use to actually shut your water off is going to work. But a curb key or a water meter key is going to be the best thing for that. It just allows you to do it quick and effective. So the tool that I'm talking about today is this 26 inch water meter key right here. It is, it really is just made out of rebar and flat stock. You can see right here that they've just welded this together. Just this piece of flat stock they've made into a little fencing nail shape or a little rainbow shape or maybe a hot dog skewer shape. I don't know, little flat. It's flat. You're able to just grab it. Like I said, welded just a welded piece of rebar with a tea handle on it, put a couple little fancy grippies on it. By all means, you don't have to have those. And if you didn't have one of those, you would be able to use a caressant wrench, a pair of channel locks. Any kind of tool that you can use to shut that off is going to be your best friend in a moment of need. I personally just like to have this. It's, I'm a plumber. So of course, I have one. Another nice thing about having one of these is it's 26 inches long. You actually don't have to put your hand down inside of the meter box. I know that a lot of people are afraid of spiders or slugs that they're just grossed out about having to get their hands in there, especially at night when you don't know what you're reaching into. I've seen frogs in there. I've not seen a snake in there, but Arizona scorpions. You just never know what's going to be in there. There's a lot of black widows around here, and I've seen my fair share in meter boxes around here. I like to make people aware that this tool is out there, and it will save you a lot of pain, a lot of heartache. They're not very much. You can get them at your big box store. I'll put a link in the description box below. They're really, or you know what, make one. You can make one. If you're a welder, like make one of these things. Hook it up. So in my area, if we're standing at the street, and we see these lines, if you actually just walk towards the property, then you're going to eventually run into the meter box. This is what that's saying. And butter being mine, my neighbors. So this is our water meter. It's an analog style water meter. That means it's got a dial, and it spins and counts, and right down here, that is our valve. So now that we've located the meter, you're just going to take your meter key. Remember, we have this little notch right here, and it's just going to go down right on top of that, and you're just going to give it a turn. And just go all the way until it closes. On most water meters, there's going to be this hole where the city can put a lock on it. Your water is repaired. Everything's good. You're just going to turn it back on. Go slow. You'll be able to hear it. Open up some faucets inside. Let the water run while you're doing this. And then just crack it. And let the water start streaming before you open the whole way. And if you don't have a water meter key, like we talked about, you could use a caress and wrench. You can get down there, and you'll be able to turn this, and you'll be able to do it. It's just going to be a little bit harder. My recommendation is always, if you don't have a water meter key in your garage, get one. This works, a pair of channel locks works, whatever you can do to get this shut off. But I can tell you, in a major flood scenario, you want that off as quick as you possibly can. So that's how you locate the water meter. That's how you shut your water meter off. And those are the tools that you use. I really hope this video helps. If you could please share this video, like it, subscribe to my channel. I'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you very much and have a good day.