Just when you think you know it all

Today some guys came out to put tile in my bathrooms. The previous owners had carpet in both, why I could not tell you. The installers were going to take up the toilets but the valve in the main bathroom did not turn the water off completely and allowed it to drip. At the installers request I needed to go shut the water off at the main. Let me first throw out a caveat in this, I work on computers not homes or cars or whatever else. Anyway, I walked around the house trying to find the water meter so I could shut the main valve off. The second time around I saw the only thing that could be the water main because the other box protruding from the house was the electric meter and knowing a little about electricity, I knew what that looked like.

By process of elimination I decided which one it was and took a wrench and turned the water off. I went inside and told them the water was off and when they unscrewed the toilet from the water pipe, water was still dripping. I could not figure out for the life of me how in the world the water main valve was shut off and we were still getting water to that pipe. I thought I would put my trouble shooting skills to work and turned on the faucet in the sink in the kitchen and to my surprise; water flowed out of it like the falls at Niagara. I quickly decided to go back outside and give the water main another brute force turn of the wrench since I figured I had not completely shut it off. After another full turn or two I went back inside to make sure it was off this time.

I turned the faucet back on and I think the water pressure flowing out of the faucet was even more intense. I saw my friend Bo across the street at my neighbor’s house and yelled for him to come over. When he came over and I explained my unique situation to him, he had me lead him to the water meter where I shut it off and to my surprise he advised me what I shut off was not the water but the natural gas line to the house. When he helped me locate the water shut off valve where my water heater and furnace are, I shut it off and he pointed out that the pilot lights for the water tank and furnace were probably out. He looked and sure enough, they were both out. He tried to light it but was unable to get either of them started. I then went out to the gas meter and gave it a few more turns to try and get it going again but no use.

I called the furnace guy to come out and try to get it working again and also called the gas company to have them come out and check the valve that I turned more than the recommended 1/4 turn. After the price of the two started to weigh on my mind, I called my father-in-law who used to work for the gas company and asked him to come out. He did something and was able to get both of them lit and everything works fine now and the tile is installed and looks great!

Furnace service call = $65.00

Gas Company service call = $125.00

Not knowing the difference between a water meter and gas meter = PRICELESS