Save your azz... from flooding!

[Hawaii 5.7]

Do you know how to shut off your water??? How about a few trusted neighbors???

Here's what happened... Came home after work and all seemed good. Got a few beers and headed to my neighbors house to shoot the chit for a little while. After a couple o' nice adult beverages i hear my rental tenant (back cottage) yelling out for me. Somethings going on...

Apparently my dog who was chained up at the time got his chain tangled up in the garden hose. After fussing and fighting for some time being tangled up he managed to break the actual spigot clean off so water was shooting uncontrollably in my yard flooding it out. After some time he heard the water gushing and went to look what was going on...

Needless to say, i knew where to turn the water off. Not only at the main line in but at two seperate locations one to my house and one to my cottage. So i only had to eliminate my cottage for the repair.

I know what your going to say... I should have told them about the turn-offs and that i did, but some time back. So he paniced and couldnt remember where it was. Luckily i was close to home.

So... moral of the story is review all water (and electrical shut-offs for that matter) with your family, tenants and close neighbors in case of emergency. Give everyone a reminder every year or so.

Thankfully this didnt occur in the home and hopefully it can save some major headaches for people around the home.

Tell and review shut-offs with your familly and close neighbors!!!:)

Aloha!:thumb:

[bear]

Darn good tip. Water can be extremely destructive. I know of a story in West L.A. where some folks went to Europe for two or three weeks. Some vandals broke a window and stuck a garden hose in it then turned it on. They might have well just set fire to the house. It ran for days and days destroying nearly everything in the house. It was a raised foundation and ultimately the water flowed into the crawl space and pooled up to where it was cascading out of the foundation vents which then undermined the foundation which was on a sloped lot. Finally, after a couple of days of water running down the street, the neighbors started wondering where all the water was coming from. All the carpet and sub floor was destroyed including all the furniture and contents which had been sitting in inches of waters for who knows how long. The drywall was just peeling off of the walls. The humidity in the house had reached such an extreme level that moisture was dripping from the ceilings which had started to sag a bit. All clothing in the closets were soaking wet and had started to mold. Numerous framing members had warped and even the exterior stucco was showing some damage.

The lesson for this story.... Shut off your water when leaving the house for extended periods of times.

[Deznutjob]

Great tip Joey! Crazy story too! [yike]

[5.7yotafan]

Good tip, we learned how much water can damage things quickly last winter when someone (my wife) left the sink in the bathroom running to soak something and it clogged the overflow drain and ran over an hour. Flooded the bathroom, hvac vents (pulled trunk line off so only hat heat in one room in 30deg weather) and had to replace insulation under house, bathroom floor, and drain hvac lines.

[CaseyLPC]

I did apartment maintanence for 3 years while getting my undergrad degree and those bastards would do all kinds of crap like that when they got evicted for not paying rent for months at a time. I feel for you brother!

[Hawaii 5.7]

Darn good tip. Water can be extremely destructive. I know of a story in West L.A. where some folks went to Europe for two or three weeks. Some vandals broke a window and stuck a garden hose in it then turned it on. They might have well just set fire to the house. It ran for days and days destroying nearly everything in the house. It was a raised foundation and ultimately the water flowed into the crawl space and pooled up to where it was cascading out of the foundation vents which then undermined the foundation which was on a sloped lot. Finally, after a couple of days of water running down the street, the neighbors started wondering where all the water was coming from. All the carpet and sub floor was destroyed including all the furniture and contents which had been sitting in inches of waters for who knows how long. The drywall was just peeling off of the walls. The humidity in the house had reached such an extreme level that moisture was dripping from the ceilings which had started to sag a bit. All clothing in the closets were soaking wet and had started to mold. Numerous framing members had warped and even the exterior stucco was showing some damage.

The lesson for this story.... Shut off your water when leaving the house for extended periods of times.


Ohh damn... thats just wrong.

Reminds me of the "wet bandits" from the original movie Home Alone...

They used to clog up the sink and leave the water running in all the houses they robbed. the just effed!

[crzy2bealive]

man I'm really not sure where the water shut off is in the condo we are living in!

[JPNCA]

who cares you don't own it
LOL
Its good to kinw where to shut it all utilities off