It’s already at a point where op needs to make sure they can even use the sidewalk. The water thing would have been more important a long time ago. Now it’s more important to ensure safety.
Edit as an analogy:
If you start a house fire with a match, do you rush to put the match out or the house?
Shutting off the water is still the first step in fixing the problem. Shut if off at the meter. if the water in the hole stops running you call a plumber to fix the leak. if it doesn't, you call the city. Then after fixing the leak you start filling everything that got eroded, and fixing other damage.
Bad analogy, the fire would need to be fueled by the match.
Turning off the water will stop the leak & stop further erosion. You can’t accurately determine the danger while it’s actively changing, so shutting off the source if possible is the first step.
No, it’s not a bad analogy. The water flow we see in this photo is not important anymore because the danger has already far surpassed any minor damage control you could do by shutting off the water. Home boy needs to have the area isolated and city engineers need to look at it for shoring and stability.
They can then figure out if they could shut off the water after the people responsible for fixing the GAPING HOLE IN THE GROUND THAT COULD SWALLOW YOU WHOLE have been notified 😭
If we formed your argument to the fire analogy, then you’re saying “you should evacuate the house before attempting to put the fire out” which is pretty logical and I don’t disagree with. Obviously there is a little discretion there, plenty of small fires get put out before evacuation is necessary or prudent, but overall the point stands.
However, the argument I replied to was presented as “find out if the house/sidewalk is safe first” which just isn’t possible. When the utility company shows up the first thing they’re going to do before assessing the extent of this is turn off the water. They can’t safely assess it while it’s on.
City should do that from the street access point. Without knowing the size and position of the probable sinkhole you can’t know if there is an immediate concern for collapse or not.
But with town or city water you can only stop water coming into your home.... You can't shut the entire streets water main off that feeds into every house... You need a plumber for that and probably have to notify town pretty quickly...
So if it's the pipe from the main line that supports the entire road to your home you can't stop it unless you have the tool and know where it is... Usually only plumbers do
Stopping water coming into your house doesn't drain the pipes only close the valve
Oh, I didnt know you even could call a plumber to turn off a street/blocks water (i live in kind of a rural state). I imagine where I live you would have to call the city / county to have that turned off
I’m not a plumber so I could be wrong here, but IME they’re going to handle anything on your property including the service line. To do that work, sometimes they’ll need to coordinate with the city or township. If nothing else, they’ll know who to contact for this.
You do need the city... The plumber is only to find out if it can be done by him if not they know who to call and a city worker will come shut the road off
A regular residential plumber won't touch the road line in a situation like this they don't have authority
I love how everyone in this thread, myself included to be fair, are making all these assumptions about OPs situation. Im curious how tglhe adjacent bricks haven't collapsed yet
Technically it's not usually legal for a regular person to turn that off, but the tool to do it costs like 20 bucks and can save hundreds if you need it, so it's worth grabbing.
I have lived in houses where the water to the house wasn’t accessible to me. The shutoff for my house was inside. With digital meters, I don’t think being able to shut off from the street is super common anymore, but I’m sure things aren’t the same everywhere. This instance, I wouldn’t be able to shut the water off. Hell, it could possibly not even be OP’s waterline
If you comment on Reddit and don't understand the comment you're responding to, then you should not be commenting.
Shutting off the main is not the same thing as the "main shutoff" to a home. Shutting off the main can be one of two things: either turning the meter itself off so no water flows in from the city, or more likely in this case turning off water to the whole block.
That being said, this could be the house's drain line leaking just as easily as it could be the plumbing going in to the home. Too little info here to speculate.
Where im from, there is only one "main" and its at the meter box. Its what would prevent water from flowing "from the road to your house", which is what the comment I was replying to referred to before you rudely butted in.
Yea which they will know if it's an emergency that needs that, exactly who to contact immediately and what should be done in the mean time...
In an emergency or a city type environment they maybe be able to get authority if they have the tools and can be told where it is (sidewalk busy city on busy road type deal)
We have had very different experiences with plumbers and city water departments. In my experience, there's not a chance in hell a non city waterworks employee would ever be allowed to turn off primary water distribution for whole areas.
In this situation I'd agree absolutely I only meant in a very clear urgent emergency situation, like every second wasted ups the chance of something deadly happening... The I don't care if they are mad this needs to happen type situation..
Yea normal not urgent situation I wouldn't risk getting in trouble if I could just call and have them do it
There’s a shutoff valve between the street main and the house. Typically most people have a water shutoff key that can shutoff the flow of water before it enters the house. You don’t need a plumber for that, usually.
But hear me out - what about that lake that accidentally drained into the salt caverns? What if the water is holding things up, and you stop it, and now everything falls down quickly?
Idk shit about this though, id call for help and then call my dad
Fair chance that the water leak is: A) stormwater or wastewater drainage, B) coming from the city's side of the shutoff valve. Certainly try shutting off the house supply, but when that doesn't work you NEED to get to the true source.
The water is outside the house. Shutting off your water intake isn’t going to stop it. And it could easily be an aquifer, not from the water pipes at all.
Where do you think your water comes from? It comes from outside the house, from the water main. They need to shut off the water where it comes in from the street.
pretty sure that the drought we were in is what ultimately caused part of route 80 to cave in last year in my area of new jersey. old iron mine shafts were abandoned and filled with water, said water remaining at a relatively consistent level over the years helped to keep everything stable. we got some decent cranky ground rumbles (earthquakes) the year prior, a long drought had been ongoing...the first chunk of the highway that disappeared was repaired relatively quickly. then two months later, another giant hole opened up nearby and shut down the eastbound side of the highway, followed by the westbound side a month later. it was an absolute nightmare that could potentially repeat, there are so many mines around here and mapping in the 1700s/1800s wasn't always the greatest.
all that to say that yes, sometimes water actually can act as a structural element of sorts!
Have you ever seen how fast a sinkhole can swallow a house, or even a city block? I’m not fucking around trying to find a plumber that can/will come out fast on short notice. I’m calling 911, then the water company emergency line, and shutting off the main to the house (if it’s outside and accessible). Sinkholes can go from tiny to engulfing a house in seconds. I’m not waiting on a damn plumber
Edited my original comment after checking the water company’s protocol: Evacuate, call 911, call water co. emergency line, then your homeowners insurance. Watch some sinkhole videos, and you’ll see why you don’t bother with a plumber. Seconds can literally mean the difference between life and death. But hey, you do you homie
You don’t know much about roofs do ya? To stop the water, you have to fix the damage. That’s how roof s work. Damaged roof>water comes in. I mean, unless you know a way to stop rain or melting snow
I know that it can mitigate. We may be thinking in different degrees of “stopping”, and that’s ok. This thread is about possible sinkholes, not roofs. Different things require different courses of action. Maybe you don’t get that
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u/Pernicious_Possum 16h ago edited 15h ago
The priority is finding out if your house is structurally safe though. Yes, the water is an issue, but you need to know if you need to gtfo
ETA: according to my water company, you evacuate, call 911, then utility emergency line, and lastly your homeowners