Not every project goes as well as planned. We would be happy to spend a few minutes answering your questions.
Current Articles | RSS Feed
A friend called me last night saying he had turned off a gate valve and when he turned it back on it didn’t work. This was the gate valve to the water heater and now the handle just spun around and he didn’t have hot water anywhere. Hint: it’s probably not a good idea to start a plumbing job 8pm if you can get away with it.
So he is panicky and doesn’t have any hot water. This is a classic reason to use a ball valve rather than a gate valve. These valves don’t get touched for years and when you finally need to work on a plumbing issue, you touch it and the gate shears off of the handle’s shaft. The gate won’t lift out and the water is blocked from flowing.
There is a way to get the water flowing again without replacing the valve. With the water off to the entire house, remove the top of the gate valve. This is often easier said than done, as the valve can get awfully crusty. Use a couple of large wrenches and while holding the bottom of the valve still, remove the top half of the valve. Once you have the top removed, reach in and remove the broken gate. Then reassemble the valve and turn the water back on.
The good news is that your water will start flowing again. The bad news is that if you need to do plumbing work at this location again, you will need to turn the water off to the entire house rather than at the isolation valve.
Allowed tags: <a> link, <b> bold, <i> italics
