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MiddletownPlumbing

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Shutting Off The Water

The most basic skill every person in your home should know (not just Mom and Dad) is how to shut the water off at its source. If your pipes break and water is flooding into your home, you’ve got seconds to shut it off before you have an even bigger disaster on your hands.
Every home’s shutoff valve is located in a different place. You need to know two things:
Where the shutoff valve is
How to operate it (and where the tools to operate it are, if needed)
It’s so simple even a child could (and should) know how to do it.
Here’s a useful tip: write out (or print out) the instructions for how to turn off the water in your home and place it somewhere anyone could find it (like inside the panel for your fuse box).

Fixing Leaky Faucets

Even if you’re not in a post-collapse situation, a leaky faucet can be a huge pain!
Fortunately, they’re really easy to fix. This Old House has a great article on how to stop faucet drips in your home (and it takes less time than you’d think).
http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/article/0,,193895,00.html

Clearing A Toilet

Look, we’re not going to go into detail about why you would need to clear waste back down a toilet in a prepper scenario (we’ll leave that up to your imagination). But basic plunger skills are a must.
This video can show you a technique that can clear just about any clog:
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ut7NGnZBdw[/ame]
If you want another way to clear a toilet, you can always use warm water and dishwasher soap.

Replacing Broken Pipes


Do you know how to replace sections of broken piping? It’s not as hard as you might think, but it’s always better to know how to do it beforehand.
Here’s a video showing how to replace a broken section of pipe:
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVHkr27kfr0[/ame]
Make sure you have the right tools for your home with your emergency storage! (You might also want to include lengths of pipes and a threader if you’ve got the extra cash and room.)
 
Worth noting that you should know how to shut off the supply valve to the fixtures and know where and how to shut your main water supply off for your whole house. I make sure sure everyone in the house knows where the main shut off is. My house is a bit odd but im on a gravity spring so I have 4 points I can close to shut the water off.
 
Worth noting that you should know how to shut off the supply valve to the fixtures and know where and how to shut your main water supply off for your whole house. I make sure sure everyone in the house knows where the main shut off is. My house is a bit odd but im on a gravity spring so I have 4 points I can close to shut the water off.

You're absolutely right knowing where the main water supply is key. Can't tell you how many times I've been to jobs and the home owner doesn't know where their main water supply line is
 
I came in to an emergency call on the second floor of an appartment. It was seven am and when I walked in the water was over the top of my boot. The ocupant said there was something wrong with the toilet. I asked him why he didnt shut it off. He said he didnt know how. I took him into the bath room with me and the toilet was spraying out of the supply. I showed him where it was and turned it off. He said man that was easy. He had went to bed around midnight the night before. The water had broken some time after that. When he got up and steppped in water he called me. So that appartment was flooded but the tenant down stairs who wasnt home had the apppartment destroyed. That was a long drawn out mess and it was really bad for the tenant on the bottom floor.
 
That's not really the right way to use an auger unless you like to leave battle wounds all over the bowl, but hey...maybe somebody will solve the problem anyways and be happy the clog is gone. The other tips are quite nice for home owners to try before calling a plumber.
 
Thanks for sharing..
Its really a useful information for home owners to know these basic tricks.
 
The most basic thing is to know how to shut of the main supply valve. These are really good tips, everyone in home should know this for emergency situation.
 
Glad people are harping on the source of the main water supply, absolutely need to know where that is. Brings to mind more than a few unpleasant experiences from the past with a handful of homeowners.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
To show a video of how to fix a pipe I think it is in the best interest to do it right.
1 you don't sand cloth the pipe it creates air pockets
2 you must champer ends of pipe so glue pushes up over pipe the bull nose pushes all the glue to back of fitting
3 primer and glue must cause a chemical weld. By letting primer dry it is not doing its job with the glue. Primer needs to start getting just a little tacky then you apply glue to cause the weld process
 

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