Exercise your water shutoff valves
Annual · typically March
Why it matters
Every valve in your plumbing has one job: close when you need it to. And every valve that sits untouched for years is quietly corroding itself into a decoration. Exercising them — closing and reopening each one, once a year — keeps them honest. Older houses tend to carry original gate valves — the round-wheel kind, the ones that snap stems or refuse to seat after decades untouched. Finding one or two that need replacing is this task working, not failing. In your freeze climate this doubles as knowing your battle stations: a burst pipe in January gives you minutes, and the difference between "I know exactly where the main is and it turns" and anything else is measured in drywall. The main shutoff is the one that matters most. If you learn one thing from this task, it's where that valve is and that it works.
What skipping it costs
$250–$5,000
Valves seize in the position they live in — open. The night a supply line bursts, a seized main shutoff means water runs while you hunt for the curb stop in the dark. One real story from the field: a homeowner paid a plumber $250 in emergency rates mostly to shut the water off at the street, because the curb stop was the only valve on the property that still turned. Then came the $5,000 of drywall and flooring the extra half hour of flow bought.
Two ways to get it done
Do it yourself
You'll need: Flashlight, Rag, Painter's tape and a marker for labeling.
- Find the main shutoff: usually where the water line enters — basement front wall, crawlspace, garage, or a ground box near the street. Label it with tape and marker. Tell everyone in the house where it is.
- Close it fully, then open a faucet: flow should die to nothing within seconds. A trickle that never stops means the valve isn't holding — that's a plumber visit worth scheduling.
- Reopen it all the way, then back a quarter turn (gate valves bind less when not hard-open). Quarter-turn ball valves (lever handles) just go fully open.
- Now the rest, same drill — close, open: under every sink, behind every toilet, the washing machine pair, the water heater's cold inlet, and exterior faucet shutoffs if you have them.
- Be gentle with stiff ones. Firm hand pressure, a rag for grip, and that's it — a stem that snaps under a wrench becomes an emergency you created. Stiff-but-moving is fine; stuck-solid goes on the replace list.
- Anything that weeps from the stem after exercising usually just needs its packing nut snugged an eighth turn. Still weeping? List it.
Hire it out
$150–$350National fair range — local labor moves this number.
A plumber's valve-audit visit runs $150–$350, and the highest-value version bundles your replace list into one trip: each seized stop swapped to a quarter-turn ball valve, and — worth every dollar — a main shutoff that's verified to hold. If your main is a corroded original, replacing it (~$300–600) is some of the best plumbing money you'll ever spend.
While any plumber is in the house, ask question three: where's your curb stop and what opens it. It's the shutoff of last resort at the street, some need a special key, and knowing yours is free at that moment. The $250 midnight lesson above is the alternative pricing.
Ask the tech
- Which valves are original gate valves, and which would you prioritize swapping to quarter-turn ball valves?
- Does my main shutoff actually hold? Can you verify downstream pressure drops to zero?
- While you're here — where's the curb stop, and what tool opens it?
Red flags you're being upsold
- 'Let's just repipe the whole house' as the answer to a few stiff valves. Valve swaps are $150–300 each; repipes are five figures.
- A whole-home leak-detection system pitched during a valve visit. Some are genuinely good products — but they're a considered purchase, not a truck-slot add-on.
- Replacing valves that work fine because they're 'old.' Old and holding beats new and unnecessary.
Second opinion time: Any repipe recommendation, and any main-shutoff replacement quote over $600 — that job is common, priced competitively, and worth two calls.
The call
DIY, absolutely — this is literally turning handles. The day you need these valves is the worst possible day to learn they don't work.