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A realtor called us today to troubleshoot a plumbing problem. They represented a bank and turned the water on to the house, but water was not flowing into the house. I suspected that the shutoff valve in the garage was not functioning.
It's pretty common when you shut off the water to a house with an old gate valve, the gate that controls the flow of water will drop down and stop the water from flowing into the house. As long as the water is on and the pressure is maintained, the gate will typically stay in place.
To get the water flowing again, you will need to replace the valve, or at least pull the broken gate out of the valve. The quick fix is to pull the broken gate out of the valve. This means that in the future, in order to shut off the water to the house, instead of turning it off at the gate valve, you will need to turn it off at the street. That probably isn't a big deal to most people.
So turn the water off at the street and put a wrench on the top half of the gate valve. The top will come off in one piece. Then reach down into the lower half of the valve and pull the broken gate out. Put everything back together and turn the water back on at the street.
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