Meeting the master of plumb-fu

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Add plumbers to the list of People I Will Look Out For In The Apocalypse.

Horrible plumbing story follows:

In every house (usually) there is a shutoff valve for turning off the flow of water into the house from the water main in the street. Additionally, at the curb in front of your house, there is a valve that the water company uses to shut off water to the house in case you don’t pay your bills or youre doing some sort of massive plumbing undertaking, etc. (Obviously, if youre not on city water this won’t apply to you.)

So, a few years back, the extremely ancient shutoff valve in the basement succumbed to age and would not close. Thus, the only way to turn off the water to the house to allow for work to be done would be to shut the valve off at the curb. All you had to do was have the water company come by, turn off the valve at the curb, and then you could replace your shutoff valve in the basement. Easy peasy Japanesey.

Problem: shutoff valve at the curb is also not working and will not close.

Result: there is literally no way to turn off the flow of water to the house.

This means that if you have a pipe break or something, you literally can do nothing except stick your finger in the broken pipe and hope for the best. The solution is to have the water company come by, turn off the water to the street (thereby turning off water to your neighbors) and coordinating with an excavating company to tear up the sidewalk, dig six feet down, replace the valve, fill the hole, replace the sidewalk. On my dime.

So…I just crossed my fingers that there’d be no pipe issues until such time as I could afford to have this excavation done. My hundred year old house had other plans.

Had a problem with the bathtub faucets that required them to be replaced. This was something that, no two ways about it, needed the water turned off. Hmmm.

So I went to the basement and figured it had been about ten years since I tried the valve, lemme try it again. Surprise..the water turned off. Hmmmm. So, my thinking was this: the valve is on its way out. If I can turn it off and on just one more time, I can shut off the water, install a ball valve right above it, open it back up, and leave it open forever and just use the ball valve above it as my shutoff. And thats what I did. And all was fine.

For a few days.

I went into the basement and I smelled water. I looked, and there was a steady drip coming from the stem of the old valve. Working it had shaken loose whatever packing was left in it and it was now leaking. It needed to be replaced. It could no longer be avoided. I contacted an excavating outfit and told them to write me up a bid. Then I went to the plumber HQ and asked if they had any suggestions.

“Well, just replace the shutoff valve.”, they said.
“Can’t. The valve at the curb doesn’t work. No way to turn off the water.”
“Oh. Yeah. Well, Nick can probably do that. He changes shutoff valves on live water and gas pipes all the time.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He can do it live.”
“Sign me up.”

And thus, I met the Chuck Norris of plumbers. This Nick guy must have been trained by Shaolin plumbers in a monastery in New Jersey or something because, indeed, his plumb-fu was strong.

So Nick comes in, cranks, the valve shut (although the valve stem is leaking like a ten dollar hooker during Fleet Week), and readys his gear. He pulls out a new ball valve, goops it up with whatever that stuff is plumbers slather on it, loosens the old valve, and goes to work. He puts a five-gallon bucket over the pipe, reaches under with one hand, undoes the old valve, water starts shootting up into the bucket and cascading to the floor, he takes his other hand with the new valve, reaches under the bucket, threads on the new valve, and the water stops flowing. He literally did it in less time than it took to read this paragraph.

Out with the (very) old….

…in with the new.

Amount of water on my floor? A couple gallons, max. Easily remedied with some old towels and an electric fan. More importantly, there is now a working shutoff valve for the house, which means I can turn off the water if I need to…which means I can buy time on getting the valve at the curb replaced.

Soup to nuts, it was a sub-$200 job. I couldn’t hand the money over fast enough. For the last few days I’ve been having to empty a bucket under that valve twice a day and all I could think about was ‘what if…’… like what if the thing suddenly crapped out completely and water is spewing into my basement and I have literally no way to turn it off? So, yeah, the peace of mind I have now is much better.

If I ‘d known they could ‘do it live’ I’d have had this done a long time ago.

I knew a guy in high school who is now a master plumber in NYC…. I shoulda flown him out here and given him a Montana vacation in exchange for doing some work.

16 thoughts on “Meeting the master of plumb-fu”

  1. You can get a kit to freeze the pipe so it can be worked on, never needed it my self but people I know who have used it say it works well.

    • Too risky. Pipe cracks or splits then youre really up the creek. We discussed it. “Doing it live” was less risk.

      • Dig up the pipe in the yard, fill hole with dry ice.

        If it goes south, call the water department/company and say the yard just started spraying water. Deny everything, “it was like that when I got here,’ etc.

  2. Regarding the failed shutoff valve at the street, I was reminded of how my former landlord (“Pat”) dealt with that issue at his place, without having to pay full pop for the new valve install. Here’s how the scenario played out:

    Water Department (WD): Your shutoff valve at the street has frozen open and needs to be replaced.
    Pat: OK, fine go ahead and replace it.
    WD: We will schedule that and the cost will appear on your next water bill.
    Pat: MY cost? Why do I have to pay to replace your valve?
    WD: It’s on your side of the meter so it’s your responsibility. You agreed to that when you signed our contract for water service from the city.
    Pat: I see. So how much is this going to run me?
    WD: About two thousand dollars.
    Pat: WHAT?!?!?!?
    WD: Well, it’s a very involved job. We have to tear out the sidewalk, dig a big, deep hole around the valve pit by hand, replace the valve, fill the hole, and replace the sidewalk. That’s a lot of work and it’s not cheap.
    Pat: I see…hmmm…you know what? I just decided I don’t want your water service any more. Please cancel it. I’ll buy bottled water for drinking and cooking, and I’ll take showers and use the bathroom at the 24-hour gym down the street where I have a membership.
    WD: Umm…we can’t do that.
    Pat: Why not?
    WD: Because when we cancel your service we have to come out and shut off your water. We can’t do that because the valve is stuck open.
    Pat: Not my problem. Cancel my service.
    WD: Ummm….OK…
    Pat: Feel free to come out and replace the valve so you can shut off the water. I wouldn’t want to be using your water without paying for it, right?
    WD: Ummm…yeah…right, OK…

    A few days later ta crew comes out and digs up the area to replace the valve, which they then shut off. They refill the hole and re-pour the sidewalk.

    As the supervisor for the job is watching everything being finished up, Pat walks out to speak with him.

    Supervisor. OK, your water is shut off and your service is cancelled.
    Pat: Thanks! (evil grin)
    Supervisor: (realizes what Pat has just done)…Um…I guess you want to restart your service and have us turn your water back on, right?
    Pat: Sure, that would be great…and could you do that now? I have to take a shower, my date will be here in an hour…

  4. I replaced a 14,000 volt fuse holder on the local Air Force Base powerline a few years back. Pretty routine job for a utility lineman, especially out of a bucket truck, took about 20 minutes in rubber gloves. The airmen looked at me like I had just split the atom. They said it would have taken them four hours and they would have had half the base out of power.

    When the SHTF specialty skills will be paramount. Dentist, gunsmith, doctor (what if I need my appendix out?) car mechanic, welder, carpenter, etc. will be worth their weight in gold.

  5. I’m glad it all worked out for you and there wasn’t a time to build an ark moment. I know what it feels like to have gone through what happened to you. One of my two brothers-in-law is a licensed HVAC/steam fitter/plumbing guy. Last year I had one of those “now what am I gonna do”, moments. I gave him a text and after work he came over. He took a look at the issue and I watched him perform his plumb-fu magic. The issue that had me stymied took him around ten minutes to correct.

  7. Good morning! In the water district I work in, and the surrounding areas, the home owner is only responsible for the ‘backside’ of the meter. They must really be sticking it to you guys where you live.
    M 7, that’s right on the money. You have to zig and zag with municipal guys.

  8. If your city service has a “meter pit” installed in the yard between the curb and the home, you have another option. Look for a 12″ or so round lid with a pentagonal- headed bolt head. the bolt actually is a locking device, and should yield to vice grips. Inside, under a plastic lid and some foam type insulation, is your water meter with the RFD module the water company reads from the truck. On each side of the meter are brass valves, which can be turned 90 degrees to shut off the water. Just don’t drop the pliers you use, because the tube the meter sits in is about eight feet deep (the water line comes in, goes up to and through the meter, and back down and out. This creates a “frost free” service.)

  9. I’ve been a medic, an RN in ICU and ER, and am a PA. I’ve quoted Ragnar Benson multiple, multiple times: Plumbers have saved more lives than all the doctors ever born.

    Think about infant mortality in third world….places (called stool-holes, accurately and unironically). And the sorts of diseases that cause that mortality.

    Plumbing saves lives.

    • Funny. I have a similar saying about how the average paramedic has brought more people back from the dead than Jesus ever did.

  10. That large nut on the valve is called a gland or packing nut . Its purpose is to adjust the pressure on the packing around the shaft. Normally, you just crank down on it a bit until it stops leaking, then make sure the valve still turns. It’s unusual to be unable to stop it leaking. (Have you done a pressure check? If the regulator gets wonky, you can get pressure spikes reaching the house, which can be hard on various bits and pieces.)
    The problem with those old valves is they tend to be gate valves, which is a sliding plate. If the city sends rusty/dirty water, the grooves can fill up with debris that keeps the gate from reaching the shutoff position. The newer ball valves are a safer deal for this purpose, since they typically can’t be kept from fully closing.

    NEVER remove the handle from these valves, since there is no industry standard shaft fit, and you will play hell trying to find or make a replacement after you lose it. REALLY good chance you will damage the shaft fit if you attempt to turn it with pliers or visegrips, rendering the valve inoperable.

    Normally, the street shutoff valve is on the inlet side of the meter, not the house side. That’s so the meter can be serviced or replaced if necessary. If it’s on the house side, they screwed up.

    When you say the valve isn’t working, do you mean it doesn’t turn, or it turns but does’t shut off the water? What I’ve encountered is street valves that have no fixed stopping point. You have to move it some, and check for water flow at the house, and keep repeating until you hit the correct spot. MAJOR pain in the butt. Helps to have two people, otherwise it can take 30-60 minutes or more to play around with the damn things. They have pointers or arrows, and they mean little for actual orientation. Just a reference point for how far you have moved it. (It’s supposed to indicate full flow orientation.) That valve looks like it would be a 1/4 turn, but it typically is 180*-360*, but might be anywhere from 90-360. Sort of depends on where the last person left it. Check for maximum flow when you turn it back on.
    Are the pipes to the house plastic or metal? Hint: what you see at the house shutoff doesn’t tell you what is buried in the yard, and going to the meter.

  11. I’m not a plumber and I have replaced a few valves ‘live’ on copper lines. My dad was a plumber and he showed me how to do it using a new valve with a compression fitting end.

    Pre-clean the pipe, cut off the old valve, slip the new valve on, open so it won’t get forced off by water pressure before you can tighten it, tighten it, close the valve, mop up the mess.

  12. If you have copper or plastic pipes, a “sharkbite” fitting with a valve is a wonderful thing.

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