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Guide

How to turn your water off at the meter

Two minutes now saves a ceiling later.
Find it, test it, and show whoever else lives there.

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When a pipe lets go, the damage is measured in minutes. A burst flexi hose under a vanity puts out roughly thirty litres a minute at mains pressure. The difference between a mop and a new floor is usually whoever gets to the meter first, and most people have never looked for it.

Do it now

Finding and turning off your water

  1. 1 Go to the front boundaryOn a house, the meter is almost always at the front of the property near the footpath, in a rectangular box set into the ground. The lid is usually green or black plastic, sometimes concrete on older places. If there is no box, look for a tap sticking out of the ground near the front fence.
  2. 2 Open the lid and find the tapInside you will see the meter itself, which is the dial, and a tap on the pipe beside it. That tap is yours. If there are two, yours is the one on the house side, which is the one furthest from the street.
  3. 3 Turn it offIf it is a lever, turn it a quarter turn so the handle sits across the pipe rather than along it. If it is a round wheel or a T-shaped handle, turn it clockwise until it stops. Do not force it.
  4. 4 Check it workedGo inside and open a tap. It should run for a second or two and stop. If water keeps coming, the tap you turned is not the right one, or it has not closed fully.
  5. 5 Turn it back on slowlyWhen you reopen it, do it gradually. Snapping a mains valve open sends a pressure surge through the house that can finish off whatever was already weak.

Not a house

Units, townhouses and apartments

If you are not in a freestanding house, there may be no meter you can reach. There is almost always something you can turn off.

A valve inside your unitOften in the laundry, under the kitchen sink, or in a cupboard near the hot water system. It shuts off your lot without affecting anyone else, which makes it the one you want.
Isolating valves at each fixtureSmall taps on the pipes behind a toilet, under a basin or behind the washing machine. If the leak is at that fixture, this is faster than anything else.
A bank of metersLarger blocks have all the lot meters together, often in a cupboard in the car park or near the entry. Yours will be numbered to match your lot.
The building isolation valveShuts off the whole block. Not yours to touch unless it is an emergency and nothing else has worked. Tell the strata manager afterwards.
Find it before you need itTen minutes on a Saturday, once. At 2am in the dark with water coming through a ceiling, you will not find it.
Tell everyone in the houseThe person home when it happens may not be you. A photo on the fridge is not a silly idea.

When it goes wrong

If the tap will not turn

Old gate valves seize. They sit untouched for twenty years and then refuse on the one night you need them. This is extremely common and it is not your fault.

Worth trying

  • Use both hands and steady pressure rather than a jerk
  • If it is a wheel, try closing and opening it slightly to free it
  • Clear dirt and spiders out of the box so you can actually grip it
  • Check you are turning the right way. Clockwise closes
  • Try the isolating valve at the leaking fixture instead

Stop

  • Do not put a wrench or a bar on it. A snapped valve floods worse than the leak did
  • Do not force a seized gate valve. The spindle shears inside
  • Do not touch the meter itself. That is Sydney Water’s
  • Do not keep trying while water is running into the house. Ring

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Afterwards

The thing to do this weekend

Go and find yours now, while nothing is wrong. Open the box, look at the tap, and turn it off and on once. That single test tells you three things: where it is, which way it turns, and whether it actually works.

If it is stiff, seized, buried under dirt, or you cannot find it at all, that is worth fixing on an ordinary Tuesday for very little money. A plumber can replace a seized gate valve with a quarter-turn ball valve in under an hour, and you will never wrestle with it again.

While you are there, look at the flexi hoses under your sinks and vanities. Braided hoses have a service life of about five years and they fail by bursting, which is exactly the scenario this guide is about. If nobody has replaced yours and the house is more than five or six years old, they are overdue.

And tell whoever else lives there. The person home when a pipe goes is often not the person who read this.

Which tap in the meter box is yours A water meter box at the front boundary, lid open. Water runs from the street through the meter to the house. The tap on the house side is the one to turn off. Street side House side lid, lift it off meter Turn this one the tap furthest from the street Sydney Water

Questions

Questions people ask about this

Which way do I turn the water meter tap?

Clockwise to close, the same as any tap. A modern quarter turn ball valve moves ninety degrees and then stops. An older screw down tap takes several full turns before the water actually stops, so keep going until it is firm.

Where is the water meter on a Sydney house?

Almost always at the front boundary near the footpath, in a rectangular box set into the ground with a lift off lid. On a terrace it is often on the street side of the front fence. In a unit block there is usually one common meter plus an isolation valve inside your own place.

Does turning the water off at the meter stop a hot water leak?

It stops the unit refilling, but a storage unit still holds everything that is already in it and will keep emptying. Close the cold water valve on the inlet of the unit as well, which is usually a small tap on the pipe going in.

Should I turn the water off when I go away?

For anything longer than a weekend it is worth it. A flexi hose that lets go in an empty house runs at mains pressure until somebody notices, and that is where the worst water damage jobs come from.

Can I do this myself or do I need a plumber?

Do it yourself. It is a tap. The only thing to avoid is forcing one that will not move, because a seized meter tap can snap and turn a problem into a flood. If it will not budge, leave it and ring us.

While we are there

Other things we get called for

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