Plumbing Priorities Before Your Trips

What to Do: Shut Down your Hot Water Heater

If you have a traditional tank water heater that runs on electricity or natural gas, it’s likely to be among the highest energy consuming appliances in your home. By turning this off you can save on your energy bills. If there’s no risk of freezing, there’s nothing wrong with shutting off your water heater for a few days.

How:

You can either use the main shutoff handle on your water heater itself, or shut it off at your main circuit panel if that’s more accessible. Some water heaters have a “vacation” setting on the temperature control dial. Alternatively, you can just turn the temperature dial to its lowest setting.

Note: Make sure you turn it back on first thing when you get home! They can take a while to heat up.

What to Do: Shut Off Your Water Supply

When it comes to home repair headaches, broken plumbing pipes are especially costly because of the huge mess they create. If you’re not home to notice the deluge and act, you might suffer catastrophic property damage. But if you completely shut off the water supply to your home, you can prevent plumbing-related water damage altogether.

How:

If you don’t know exactly where your main shut-off valve is, you should locate it today. Because even if a pipe breaks while you’re at home, the best way to minimize damage is to go directly to the valve and shut off the flow of water at the source.

The main shut-off valve is near the water meter in most homes. Sometimes it will be a hand-crank knob or handle on a large pipe in the basement. In warm climates, it’s often located outside the home, sometimes below ground and covered by a grate. These valves may require a long-handled tool called a valve key. If you can’t find your shut-off valve, your local plumber can show you and make sure it’s working properly.

If you shut off your water supply before vacation, open a faucet on the other end of the house to drain what water remains in the lines. When you return, reopen the main valve slowly to minimize surging pressure on your pipes and fixtures.

Note: If you use the water for your sprinkler system you may not be able to turn off all your water. But you can still prevent isolated leaks in other areas of the home by shutting off individual valves on lines leading to toilets, sinks, dishwashers, refrigerators and washing machines. Just look for a handle located along the water line leading from the wall.

Customer Reviews

It was during a big storm and Harry Clark was slammed. A huge tree had fallen and broken a water pipe and was flooding underneath the house. Electricity was out, tree was covering the valve to turn off water and East Bay Mud evaluated and could do nothing until the tree was removed. This could be days. Bradley managed to gather a crew with a generator and pump and was at the site within 30 minutes of the call. The guy pumped all the water out from under the house and with unbelievable ingenuity managed to get access to the water source and identify the broken pipe and clamped it down stopping all the water from rushing under house. It was a Superman moment!!! Thank you Harry Clark for responding to a 911 situation with all that was going on and being better than anyone expected!!!

I have had great results with Harry Clark Plumbing. They did such a great job from the 2000's until present day (yesterday- my old sump pump finally gave out) The sump pump well they installed has gotten compliments from drainage consultant to electrician working in that area of the crawl space- anyone who happens to be working in that area of my house has commented that "they did a very nice job on that pump well". Yes, it's true I'm sump pump proud. Thank you Harry Clark! On time, responsive, communicative, dependable, great work!

The entire company from the people that helped schedule the jobs to the service professionals that came out to our home were fantastic. We had a 100+ year old home in Oakland that had a gas line that was leaking in the kitchen and they were able to immediately identify the leak and replace the valve. They also hooked up our new gas range and did all the appropriate tests to confirm proper function and no additional gas leaks in the home. Separately we had them come out to install a new toilet in our downstairs half bath. Within an hour the new toilet was installed and running better than we could have hoped saving us water. Fast, efficient and fair priced for each service. Communication was outstanding We could not be happier and highly recommend.

Positive: Professionalism, Quality, Responsiveness

I had to have lateral sewer system replaced as it was shot. Everyone from office staff, workers on site, and owner was very professional, efficient, neat and friendly. While that was happening the supervisor on the job noticed a constant flow of water from the house and notified me, and Harry Clark got a plumber out right away and got that fixed too! Thank you to everyone at Harry Clark!

Services: Outdoor plumbing system repair, Toilet repair

Positive: Professionalism, Punctuality, Quality, Responsiveness, Value

This review is long overdue-- for a number of years I have used Harry Clark for any plumbing or heating problem in my home or four plex. They communicate clearly, arrive when promised, work with my or tenant's schedules, fix the problem and give information about cause and prevention. Their pricing is fair and reasonable. The phones are always answered during business hours. After using different plumbers from time to time, it's come down to this one company I can depend on. If you are looking for one company to handle plumbing and heating issues, I recommend Harry Clark.