 HawkPremium
join:2003-08-25
La Quinta, CA | reply to lutful
Re: Can't locate main water shut-off valve Give your local plumber a call and ask him. I work at a 60 year old moderate size (23 service & construction trucks) plumbing company. I ran service for 20 years here and have been the field ops supervisor for the past seven. While I'm in the office in the morning I field calls from people with questions just like this. and try to answer them. If I can't I'll check with one of the other techs who have been here longer than I. Chances are, we've worked on it or in the area. My point being, your local reputable company might be able to assist you as to where your meter/sov is and probably offer a free estimate to resolve the/any issues. I'm still paid by the hour and don't mind helping local potential customers with their questions. We enjoy helping people. It's all good!  |
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| reply to cdru
said by cdru:said by chip89:Like others have said you need to go looking for it in your yard it will look like this
I would love to see a meter box like that in a location north of the line marked 20 on this map. Our meter is outside in a hole about 3 ft deep over here in the Lafayette area. Only time I ever witnessed trouble was during the 78 blizzard when we had about 20 days below zero. most around here stuffed the meter hole with news papers and burned them to unfreeze the line. |
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HawkPremium
join:2003-08-25
La Quinta, CA
2 edits | reply to lutful
P.S. City of Ottawa guy said they could come and shut off the water when plumber is here. But we should not mess with the meter.
Good advice for everyone. The local water authorities here will charge you an arm and a leg if the homeowner or plumber damages or breaks the meter or shut off (on their side). It gets real expensive! Sorry I screwed up the quote  |
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 JonPremium
join:2001-01-20
Lisle, IL | reply to tschmidt
said by tschmidt:said by lutful: After more hunting for nails/clamps with the magnetic stud finder, I think the water supply pipe goes down along the corner into the that unusual protrusion and then outside to the meter. The meter is outside, that is a new one on me. How do they keep it from freezing? /tom When I had some plumbing done in my house in chicago, they have a tool to unscrew the cap of the Buffalo box. Then like a four foot long T-shaped pole with a key on the end to turn off the supply. So what you see above ground isn't actually the water line. It's more like a cover.
[edit]
It looks like this
They unscrew this then there's a pipe that leads down to the valve. Can't find a picture of that but it's below the frost line. |
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| reply to iLearn
said by iLearn:Not sure about NY but here in Ontario there is no code for putting shut off valves for each fixture.
in Ontario plumbing is inspected/enforced by the local municipality, not a provincial agency (to compare, electrical work is inspected by ESA, a provincial agency) ... but the rules are (generally) in Ontario Building Code section 7 - however, the municipality may choose to have stricter requirements. therefore, it is difficult to speak to requirements for all of Ontario, since they can vary from city to city. for example, in my city, fixture shutoffs are required; and one is "technically" required to have a permit/inspection for something as simple as a fixture replacement. |
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| reply to Jon
Jon, that is just the outside shutoff. Inside it usually shut off valves on both sides of the meter. That's how it was at my parents house in Chicago and my house in Hammond. |
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scross
join:2002-09-13
Cordova, TN | reply to lutful
Our inside water shutoff is in one of our hall closets - a completely unexpected place for me to have found it on move-in day 25 years ago. And of course it was completely covered with stuff, and therefore almost completely unaccessible, from that day forward. I've frequently fussed at my wife about keeping that area relatively clear so I can get to it when I need to, but she doesn't listen. |
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 AVDRespice, Adspice, ProspicePremium
join:2003-02-06
Onion, NJ
kudos:1 | reply to cdru
i've seen outdoor buried water meters in the NYC area. |
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lutful... of ideasPremium
join:2005-06-16
Ottawa, ON Reviews:
 ·TekSavvy DSL
2 edits | reply to Jon
said by Jon:They unscrew this then there's a pipe that leads down to the valve. Can't find a picture of that but it's below the frost line. We do have one of those rusted circular access points in the front yard but it is about 10ft from that basement corner and also buried under lots of snow and ice at this moment. However, they are somehow reading the meter (from the outside) even in winter.
I will open the cover of the enclosure tomorrow and post a photo of what is there - hopefully not a bunch of rats. I regret not being more curious about the plumbing and HVAC stuff all these years.
*** Found official info. Water meter is supposed to be on the front wall of basement which includes that corner enclosure. But the recently installed radio transmitter is obviously outside since nobody came into the house.
»ottawa.ca/en/residents/water-and···r-meters |
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JonPremium
join:2001-01-20
Lisle, IL | reply to goofy01
said by goofy01:Jon, that is just the outside shutoff. Inside it usually shut off valves on both sides of the meter. That's how it was at my parents house in Chicago and my house in Hammond.
Yeah that's what I meant. Main shut off I guess. We didn't have an inside shut off or at least that's what the plumber said. He used those tools I described above.
One of these »www.wagerco.com/trumbull/page9&1···&10.html
He also added a shut off where supply came into the house while he was at it. |
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 cdruGo ColtsPremium,MVM
join:2003-05-14
Fort Wayne, IN
kudos:7 | reply to lutful
said by lutful:*** Found official info. Water meter is supposed to be on the front wall of basement which includes that corner enclosure. But the recently installed radio transmitter is obviously outside since nobody came into the house. The have a "remote reader" installed on the outside of your house. A remote reader is attached electronically to your indoor meter. This allows the water utility to install/repair/replace your transmitter as needed. The down side to this type of installation is that it's dependent on the connection to the meter to work. My parents had a basic non-RF remote reader (looked like an odometer) that didn't work accurately for 2 years before the water company sent a letter asking if the home was occupied. The actual meter indoors still was operating, but the connection was bad resulting in severely underreporting water consumption for those 2 years when the reader read the remote unit.
The other style of meter for RF reporting has the transmitter at the meter itself. It has a long-life battery (10+ years IIRC). It can easily be read by a passing vehicle collecting usage data and no chance of the unit having a bad connection not reporting data. However it required someone to be home for about a 1/2 hour to replace the old meter and install the new one. Plus someone to stop by once a decade to replace the battery. But that's still better then someone stopping by once a month like they use to for houses that didn't have a remote reader installed. |
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 CylonRedPremium,MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County
1 edit | reply to Bubba
said by Bubba:I digress then.... many areas south of mason dixon is out by street 
Nope - in the ground in Ohio... There are some pretty old houses in Dayton that have meters in the basement but in many areas it is in eeh ground.
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Brian
"It drops into your stomach like a Abrams's tank.... driven by Rosanne Barr..." A. Bourdain |
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| reply to lutful
Here in southwestern Ohio they are mostly at the curb. When house shopping I have seen a few with the meters in the basement, but is not the norm. |
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lutful... of ideasPremium
join:2005-06-16
Ottawa, ON Reviews:
·TekSavvy DSL
| reply to lutful
OK, the water meter is indeed located inside that enclosure. I also see the external meter reading cable and electrical ground. There is only one shut-off valve which I am guessing is on the utility side of the pipe which has lots of copper sulphate build up.
Some other mysterious access points and covers and most probably some rat droppings.  |
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 DKSDamn Kidney StonesPremium,ExMod 2002
join:2001-03-22
Owen Sound, ON
kudos:2
·Bell Sympatico
| said by lutful:Some other mysterious access points and covers and most probably some rat droppings.
Sewer and drain access and mouse turds. You have a mouse problem.
--
Need-based health care not greed-based health care. |
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 Subaru1-3-2-4Premium
join:2001-05-31
Greenwich, CT | reply to patcat88
said by patcat88:said by cdru:Every water meter I've ever seen in my area is indoors. It's never been outdoors. Then again, we have a 36" frost line so it would make things a little hard to look at on a monthly basis in the pre-RF days.
There is one sidewalk meter on my block in NYC, but overall its very rare. In the pre-RF days, the meters had a cable going to an electrical connector on the outside of the building. For the sidewalk meters there was a plastic black contactless knob on the manhole cover. I assume the meter reader put a gadget over it to read it. Here they put it above the basement door, but I see where the meter is in the basement, in the south in NC I think they just lift the cover as I've never seen any non-contact reader on the box and it's in front of the house on the other side of the driveway.
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It's NOT Ni-kon It's NE-KON!
LG is NOT Lifes Good It's Lucky Goldstar!
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 chip89
join:2012-07-05
Independence, OH | reply to cdru
Here a lot of the water shut off valves are in a box outside. |
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cdruGo ColtsPremium,MVM
join:2003-05-14
Fort Wayne, IN
kudos:7 | said by chip89:Here a lot of the water shut off valves are in a box outside. I didn't say that they aren't. I said I'd love to see a meter box that the one you posted in a northern climate that has a frost line > 20 inches.
You're picture is not just a shutoff valve. It's the shutoff valve and a meter. It also is a foot or so below the surface from the appearance of that. I don't have the link to it right off hand, but I believe curb stops and meters in the Cleveland area are typically 4-5'. They can be higher than that, but typically you don't want an inch or two water line to go into the frost line unless it's only for seasonal use and gets drained in cold weather. |
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 alkizmo
join:2007-06-25
Pierrefonds, QC
kudos:1 | reply to lutful
Be happy you didn't find a rat nest or worse, a rat corpse. |
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HawkPremium
join:2003-08-25
La Quinta, CA
1 edit | ... or rattlesnake, scorpion or BBR moderator!  jk |
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