cut the supply line near the meter. install a shut off valve use a compression fitting. then get it fixed at curb, replace all shut offs with ball valves, remove the compression shut off.
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Glad I read the whole thread, I have used the bread thingy in the past. Can't have pressure behind it though.
eI remember a warning here from some time ago on the subject of bread: don't use nice, wholesome, whole grain bread! The seeds wiped out the guy's dishwasher. Use Wonderbread!
Ev wrote:
One trick you could try is to put a shop vac on a different run and let it suck the water down that pipe!
Wayne
jet sweater, it's a rubber plug at the end of a 12" stalk. you stick it in the pipe and turn it until the plug swells and seals, solder away then remove. Any decent plumber knows about these. it works if it's a straight shot. those gel caps aren't worth a shit! Chip
jet sweater, it's a rubber plug at the end of a 12" stalk. you stick it in the pipe and turn it until the plug swells and seals, solder away then remove. Any decent plumber knows about these. it works if it's a straight shot. those gel caps aren't worth a shit! Chip
jet sweater, it's a rubber plug at the end of a 12" stalk. you stick it in the pipe and turn it until the plug swells and seals, solder away then remove. Any decent plumber knows about these. it works if it's a straight shot. those gel caps aren't worth a shit! Chip
This is Turtle.
I think Speed Jim got it with the loosing of the union at the water meter and drain all the leakage through the water meter.
TURTLE
Forget the job let it leak and take a permanent coffee break or go on vacation
what' the joke?
get it fixed correctly. get the water company to repair it's valve at the curb. then replace all valves at the water meter or where ever at the beginning of the supply side tor your house.
if your in a rush. just after the leaky shut off. install an additional shut off valve, either use compression fittings or threaded fittings.
there is also a tool available that is on a long wire like string. at one end is a rubber ball, at the other end is a gun like handle that when squeezed cause the rubber ball end to expand. you insert this tool thru a ball valve and into the pipe . it stops slight trickles for enough time to allow sweating. a some times very useful tool. have one, forget the name.
Oil and chemical companies have a bigger problem. The've got toxic, flamable stuff inside their pipes. Perhaps it's hundreds of feet to the next valves and they have to replace a valve or section of pipe. But, what to do with the junk that will be trapped in the section to be replaced or repaired?
There are companies that provide a freezing service. Two liquid nitrogen filled jackets are placed to isolate the damaged section and minimize the free liquid trapped in the work area. The frozen plugs act as temporary valves.
Sure it's a bit of trouble, but it is much cheaper than unloading the whole section.
----------------------------------------------------------- spam: snipped-for-privacy@ftc.gov wordgame:123(abc): (Barry Mann) [sorry about the puzzle, spammers are ruining my mailbox]
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If yer talkin' about the curb stop, this is usually the responsibility of the utility company. And most utility companies frown upon home owners messing with this shutoff.
Call them and ask them to come out and replace the valve. Make sure that it won't cost you anything. In most places, its their responsibility to maintain this valve. Usually, everything on the OTHER side of the valve is the responsibility of the homeowner.
In my locale, besides the curb stop, you must have 2 shut-off valves inside the house...one on either side of the meter. Check with the water company as to their requirements. You may want to install a shutoff valve at the meter once they shut off the curb stop for you.
If you don't want to call them...and if the flow isn't very great...
You can disconnect the pipe on the house side of the meter...and install a shutoff valve between the meter and the house side. Just install a small nipple onto the meter...a valve onto that...and the other end of that valve to the existing piping. Get threaded valves/connections for as much as possible...compression for the rest.
If you don't want to do THAT...
Drill a 1/4" hole on the stand pipe...let it squirt into a bucket...do your soldering...cover the hole when done with a piece of rubber patch and a stainless steel hose clamp...or pipe repair clamp.
But...
You should ALREADY have a shutoff valve near where you want to do the soldering. If you don't, make sure you put one there.
And consider using plastic at the valve...with transitions fittings somewhere along the way if necessary.
Good luck.
Have a nice week...
Trent©
What do you call a smart blonde? A golden retriever.
Well, there are a lot of options when welding on in service lines. Stoppers with hot taps and a bypass, inflatable purge dams with inert purge, air handlers, welding it hot, ect. Freezing is probably the most infrequently used, by far.
JTMcC.
I'm not sure, but I may have actually saved a workman's life once while he was attempting this.
He was working alone, preparing to replace a main sprinkler system shutoff valve. The pipe was maybe 4" diameter. He had some sort of compressed CO2 tank that he was attempting to freeze the pipe with. This sounded pretty iffy to me but I figured he knew what he was doing.
A bit later I happened to go down to the basement to get something. As I opened the door at the bottom of the stairs I felt like I couldn't breathe. I called out to the workman, who was about twenty feet away and around a corner. I got a very weak response.
I ran in and saw that he looked pretty woozy. I took his arm and led him outside the building where he sat for a good long while.
The next week he had a crew dig up the street to close the city valve rather than try the freezing technique again.
Greg Guarino
I've never heard of using compressed CO2 to freeze a pipe that big. There are electric pipe freezers that have a little refrigeration unit in them for freezing pipes. That's what the plumber used when he replaced the main shutoff valve at my water meter. (The street valve was buried and the ground was frozen.)
Dry ice should work OK if you make a little wooden or styrofoam box to insulate it, but I'd still call a plumber for a job like this -- there's too much to go wrong if the ice plug breaks loose while you have the pipe open and you can't get to a shutoff.
Bob
Another person asked what would happen if you had a real leak. The house could be flooded before the city or a plumber get to shut off the street valve.
It seems that the priority here is to arrange for the city to fix the street valve first and do it before winter. While they are doing that you should get a inside house shut off valve installed. That will solve a lot of your problems.
I did plumbing for many years. I once got an emergency call, saying the basement was flooding. I went to the job as fast as I could. When I got there, the basement was filled with 2 1/2 feet of water. I put on my boots and waded thru it, to shut off the street main. I shut off the valve, but the water kept gushing out of a broken pipe. The valve was useless.
I made several attempts to slip a piece of hose over the broken pipe, since I always carried hose to fit 1/2" and 3/4" pipes. The other end of the hose had a pipe nipple and valve attached with a hose clamp. I hoped to clamp the hose to the pipe, but the pressure was so great that I could not get the hose on the pipe. I always carried a sidewalk or curb shutoff tool, but when I went outside, I could not find anything even resembling the shutoff marker cap.
I finally called the city water dept. It took them over an hour to arrive, and when they got there, they used a metal detector to find the valve, only to discover that the thing was buried under the lawn, and filled with dirt. It took several more hours to get a special truck there to blow out the valve (with highly compressed air). By the time they got the water shut off, the basement was nearly completely filled with water, and everything down there was ruined.
I later explained to the owners that their main valve was bad. They told me that several plumbers in the past had told them to replace it. I also told them their basement floor drain was plugged. They told me that they knew it was. Well, they paid the price for not fixing things properly, when it was needed. Not only did they have to pay me many more dollars than they would if I had been able to shut off the water, but had to pay me to pump out the basement, lost all the stuff they had stored in the basement, including washer, dryer, furnace, and water heater. They had to pay an electrician to inspect and repair the electrical panel (Yes, I pulled the electric meter, and shut off the natural gas while the basement was flooding). Had to pay me to replace the water heater and furnace, and had to pay to have the basement walls inspected for structural damage, and more.... I can imagine what their water bill was that month too, and I am not sure if the water dept. charged them for an emergency call. All this because of a defective $5 valve.
REPLACE THAT VALVE NOW !!!
Nice story.
How long did it take you to make it up?
You need to do more research before you fabricate things like this...or at least get a little more experience first.
Have a nice week...
Trent©
What do you call a smart blonde? A golden retriever.
Bullshit. If the valve on the end of the short hose was open, the water pressure would not prevent you from getting the hose on the pipe (unless you just didn't want to get it on the pipe.) Actually, if you could get to a threaded end of the pipe you could easily screw an open gate valve on and then close the valve.
What was this, a 3/4" pipe? how many gallons per minute do you think a
3/4" pipe is capable of delivering? How many cubic feet is a basement? Let's be generous and say it can deliver 15 gallons per minute, which is about 2 cubic feet. If the basement was 20x30x8 feet, it would take about 40 hours to fill it at that rate, not 5 or 6 hours.It's a good story, but it doesn't hold water. ;-)
Best regards, Bob
What makes you so sure that it is made up. I accompanied my father on a nearly identical service call when I was a lad in Dedham, Massachusetts low these many years ago. What was different about that service call was that though the curb valve was working just fine it took hours to find it beneath two feet of snow in the dark.
-- Tom H
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