Two questions about a valve you will use once
Every property with gas has an isolation valve at the meter. Turning it shuts the gas off to the whole place. It is the thing you reach for if you ever smell gas and can safely get to it, and for most households that is a once-in-a-lifetime event.
Which is precisely the problem. Something you use once every twenty years is something nobody checks, and there are two questions worth answering long before that night arrives.
The first is where it is, and it is worth walking out and looking. Not roughly, not the meter box in general, but which handle. It is a two minute exercise and it removes the worst part of a bad situation, which is standing in the dark trying to work out what you are looking at.
The second is whether it will move. A valve that has sat untouched for two decades can be stiff or seized, and finding that out under pressure is not the moment for it. Do not force it yourself, because a valve that fails while being forced is a worse problem than a stiff one. Ask somebody to check it, and if we are already at the property for anything else, it costs you nothing.
- Know which handleNot roughly, specifically. Two minutes
- Know it will moveChecked rather than forced
- Included with other gas workAsk while we are already there
- Licensed gas fitterNSW Licence 368473C, fully insured
