How to shut your water off in a Las Vegas home

This is the one procedure on this site we publish in full, because knowing it prevents more damage than anything else a homeowner can do. It is also the thing almost nobody looks up until they need it.

Take five minutes and find your shutoffs today. Then show whoever else lives in the house.

Level one: the fixture stop

Most fixtures have their own shutoff, called an angle stop. Under a sink you will find one or two small valves on the supply lines. Behind or beside a toilet there is one on the wall or floor feeding the tank.

Turn it clockwise to close. Older valves are round handles that need several turns. Newer ones are often a quarter turn lever.

A warning specific to this valley: hard water scale seizes these valves, and forcing a badly seized stop can snap it and turn a drip into an open line. If it will not move with reasonable force, go to the main instead.

• Angle stops, the small shutoff valves under sinks and toilets, generally last 8 to 20 years. Hard water pushes them toward the early end because scale seizes the stem. (InterNACHI life expectancy chart)

Level two: the main shutoff

This closes water to the whole house and it is the valve that matters in an emergency. In valley homes it is usually in one of these places:

• On an exterior wall, often on the side of the house facing the street, sometimes inside a small access panel
• In the garage, on the wall where the supply enters, frequently near the water heater
• In a utility or laundry closet where the supply comes in
• Occasionally in a covered box set into the ground close to the house

How to actually turn it

A lever style ball valve turns a quarter turn, so the handle ends up across the pipe rather than along it. A round gate valve needs several full clockwise turns until it stops.

Then open the lowest tap in the house to drain the remaining pressure, which stops water continuing to run out of the break for a while after the valve is shut.

Do not force a stiff main valve hard enough to break it. If it will not close, the meter is your fallback.

Level three: the meter

The meter usually sits in a covered box near the street or the sidewalk. Lifting the lid needs care: valley meter boxes are a well known home for black widows and the occasional scorpion, so look before you reach in.

The valve on the house side of the meter can be closed, though it often needs a meter key rather than a hand. Some utilities prefer that customers do not operate the meter valve themselves, so treat this as an emergency fallback rather than the routine method.

If you cannot shut the water off at all and water is actively flooding the property, call the water utility emergency line. That is what it exists for.

Do this before anything goes wrong

• Find your main shutoff today and confirm it actually turns
• Label it, with a tag or a bit of tape, so anyone can find it
• Show everyone in the household where it is
• If it is seized, have it replaced. A main shutoff that does not work is the most important broken thing in the house
• Test your fixture stops occasionally so they do not scale solid
• Note whether you have an expansion tank and a pressure regulator, and where they are

Then use the meter to check for leaks

Once you know where the meter is, you also have the simplest leak test there is.

• The water authority test for a hidden leak is simple: shut every fixture off and watch the flow indicator on the meter. If it still moves, water is going somewhere it should not. (Southern Nevada Water Authority)
• The average American household loses nearly 9,400 gallons of water a year to household leaks, and fixing the easy ones can cut about 10 percent off a water bill. (US EPA WaterSense)