On Wednesday, May 22, 2019 at 3:06:45 PM UTC-4, micky wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Wed, 22 May 2019 09:08:48 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

On Wednesday, May 22, 2019 at 11:15:39 AM UTC-4, micky wrote:
I just got back from a trip. Had turned off the water and drained the
pipes so no chance of pipes freezing. I've done this at least twice
before, but this time, when I turned the main house valve on, water
dripped from the valve. Quite a bit.

Is there any way out of this other than having the city turn off the
water to the house so a plumber can replace the valve?

Like putting bread or cheerios in the water pipes, or leeches, or at
least maybe temporarily there's something I can wrap around the stem and
where it comes out of the valve. House built in 1979,

I just got back and other things have piled up. Not a good time to hire
a plumber.

Valve is in the basement, behind a warddrobe full of stuff with stuff
piled on top of it with a heavy box of medium length pieces of wood,
metal, etc. in front of that.

If it's just stem packing, can I replace it myself, with something that
will work better than this did? Will the city turn the water off for
me, or will they insist that a plumber call?

Why are you asking us instead of calling the water company and asking
them?

Because I know that turning off the water is the least of it. I'm
trying to see if I can avoid hiring a plumber too.

And because calling any agency can take 10 to 20 to 40 minutes. Here
it takes me 2 minutes to ask a question and then read answers a few
hours later.

So, it's better to get a lame guess here as to what YOUR water company does
instead of a call to the water company and to get the correct answer
to your question? And IDK how screwed up
MD is but around here a call like that usually takes just a few minutes.
Or go to their website, it may have the answer right there.




I'm 99.99% sure if you're the home owner they will shut it off
for you, no plumber call needed. They may charge a fee though. And it
sounds like it just needs some new packing.

If it were any other valve, I could repack it, turn the water back on,
test it, turn the water off again if I did a bad job, and repeat. But I
can't expect the city to wait while I test it, or to come back over and
over.

As someone else pointed out, you should be able to replace the stem
packing in a gate valve without turning off the water. You may get
some leakage, but it should be able to be done.



OTOH, maybe they would come back soon. The electric company has guys
with a geographic region and if you don't pay your bill enough, they
disconnect you. But they'll come within 2 hours, certainly before the
end of the day to reconnect you. I know the electric guy just works in
this area. I don't know how the city water guy works.

Neither do we.