Plumbers or homeowners turning off water at meter or always let water service provider do it? (San Jose: house)

[daluu]

In SJ, do any plumbers or homeowners themself turn off water at meter for plumbing repairs that require it or (they) always let water service provider do it? Say particularly water/meters managed by San Jose Water Company.

Just checking, as it seems to me there's overhead (especially during covid19) in scheduling plumber + water service to turn off/on the water at meter plus doing the plumbing work. In terms of getting work done and verifying the plumbing fixes are good.

Because if plumbers can/will do it, want to be sure to find one that will do it and not one that backs off/out of doing so, and getting my money wasted on calling the plumber.

[Hemlock140]

I worked at EBMUD for 17 years, and most people would turn it off themselves. In fact, many people turned off or non-pay turned it back on themselves, so we had to padlock them. In most cases the curb stop is easily closed with a crescent wrench. The exception is the larger meters on commercial/industrial accounts, or homes with a big irrigation system, like 1-1/2” or 2”, those require special tools.

[Steve19605]

No plumber will waste their time waiting for water dept. They will just do it.

[daluu]

Originally Posted by Steve19605

No plumber will waste their time waiting for water dept. They will just do it.

I once had a plumber who chose to install/replace a 2ndary shutoff valve to act as replacement for my primary shut off valve (a gate valve instead of ball valve) on my house water line, instead of shutting off at the water meter to replace the primary valve like I originally wanted, but there was space to do what he did, and it worked so at the time I just went with it. The gate valve managed to stop water from spewing out, but it still had water slowly flowing out (not that good a shutoff valve), while he reworked the pipes, to replace a leaking connection (and the 2ndary shutoff valve).

I'm not sure I want to go through with something like that again.

[daluu]

Originally Posted by Hemlock140

I worked at EBMUD for 17 years, and most people would turn it off themselves. In fact, many people turned off or non-pay turned it back on themselves, so we had to padlock them. In most cases the curb stop is easily closed with a crescent wrench. The exception is the larger meters on commercial/industrial accounts, or homes with a big irrigation system, like 1-1/2” or 2”, those require special tools.

I looked at two meter key tools from Home Depot and bought one to try, they are way too wide going over the meter shutoff valve. It seemed like a wrench gives you a better grip than the tool. Like the tool was made for bigger valves, from what you mention, sounds like maybe those were for the homes with bigger pipes or for commercial/industrial. One was a combo tool for gas shutoff + water shutoff, it too was too wide.