Preparing for a Water Emergency

preparing for a water emergencyHave you ever heard of a water meter key? You might want to read the rest of this post and find out what it is. My suggestion to homeowners with Fairfax homes for sale: buy one before you need it.

Oh, no! It’s 3 o’clock in the morning and a pipe just burst. Water is all over the floor and getting worse. You may have cut-off valves under your sinks.  However, if the leak is somewhere else you could be in big trouble. Further, there may be a master cut-off valve in the home, but do you even know where it is located?

Let’s say the water is rising, you are worried about damage, there is no time to call an expensive plumber and you can’t run to the hardware store.  Now what?

Solution to a home water leak

As a solution to a home water leak, you can cut off all water to the home at the meter.  Most often you will need a water meter key to get inside the meter box.

Handling emergencies is a bit easier if you have planned for them and practiced the scenarios. We all hope we won’t need to put our knowledge to actual use, but things do happen.

Suggestions to using a water meter key.

  1. Take a look at your meter. Decide on what type of key opens the meter.
  2. Make a trip to your local hardware or home improvement store and buy one.
  3. Practice makes perfect – so work at being able to open the meter quickly and easily.
  4. If the meter key you bought doesn’t have a wrench end, you need to bring a wrench with you to turn the valve.
  5. See how the meter works and feels by practicing turning it off.
  6. Make an obvious and conspicuous place in your home or garage for the key. Maybe next to your fire extinguisher.
  7. Just in case, have the phone number of an emergency plumber handy.

During your planning, make sure someone else in your family knows where the key is kept, the reasons to use it and how it is used.  You will be happy you bought one!