How to Shut Off Your Water in a Plumbing Emergency

The single most useful thing a homeowner in this region can do is know where the main water shutoff is before a line lets go. When a supply line fails, the damage is measured in minutes.

Where the main shutoff usually is

On a municipal connection, look for a valve where the supply enters the house — commonly on an exterior wall on the street side, often near a hose bibb, sometimes inside a garage or utility closet. There is also a curb stop at the meter box near the property line; that one usually needs a meter key.

If the home is on a private well, the shutoff is typically at the pressure tank, along with the pump breaker. Closing the valve and killing the pump breaker are both worth knowing.

Practice it once, in daylight

Find the valve, turn it fully closed, then open a faucet inside to confirm the flow stops. Older gate valves seize shut or fail to close completely — better to discover that on a calm Saturday than during a failure. If yours will not close, that is a small, inexpensive repair to schedule.

Fixture shutoffs buy you time too

Every toilet and sink should have its own angle stop. If the leak is at a fixture, closing that one stop keeps the rest of the house in water. These stops corrode in Florida's humidity and are often the reason a small repair becomes a whole-house shutdown, so replacing a seized stop during any other visit is money well spent.

What to do in the first five minutes

• Close the main shutoff.
• Kill power to the water heater if the failure is at or near the tank.
• Open a low faucet to drain pressure out of the system.
• Move what you can off wet flooring, then photograph everything before cleanup.

Then call. Knowing which valve you closed and what you saw first tells a plumber a great deal before the truck arrives.