You Should Never Need A Wrench To Open Your Water Valves

If you own a home, then you’re going to turn your water valves off at some point. Your faucet might fail on you, or you might want to flush your water heater. You might even want to upgrade your plumbing fixtures or toilet.

The thing is, sometimes those valves don't work. That can feel awful if your toilet is flooding all over the floor. And that's why in this article, we go over why it’s important to exercise and maintain your valves. That way they should work when you need them to.

Why Do Water Valves Stop Working?

If you don’t touch a valve for a long time, calcium and other minerals can build up on it. When that happens, the valve can get stuck and refuse to budge.

Eventually, the hard water that carries those minerals can make the valve almost impossible to turn. Valves that you should be able to turn by hand might need a wrench to twist. They might even break off when you try.

Well, What Do I Do About It?

To stop that from happening, you’ll want to open and close your valves on a regular basis. For most valves, once a year is fine, though checking your toilet more often can be a good idea.

Watch out for squeaky knobs, valves that you can’t turn by hand, or water coming out of the stem. All of these things can be signs of a problem with your valve.

Which Valves Are The Most Important To Check?

Some of the more important valves include your toilet and main water valve. Your toilet valve is a common place for a flood to start, so it’s good for that one to be working. It’s also one of the things you most want to work right because things can get nasty and dangerous if it fails.

On the other hand, If you have any major water problems, your first step is often turning off your water main. So, if your main valve freezes up, you can’t stop that water from flowing.

What Should I Watch Out For?

The most obvious thing to watch out for is whether you can turn the valve by hand. If you can’t do that, you know your valve has a problem.

After that, if you have any older valves or valves you haven’t touched in a while, those could give you trouble as well. And of course, if you go to turn a valve and it starts spraying water at you, the valve is toast.

If Your Valves Give You Any Trouble, Give Us A Call.

If you go to exercise your plumbing valves and they give you any trouble, Any Hour Services would be happy to help. One of our licensed plumbers can go over your options to get them working or replaced. You can give us a call or schedule an appointment online here.

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