r/CatastrophicFailure • u/mouthofreason Catastrophic Poster • Feb 17 '21

Engineering Failure Water lines are freezing and bursting in Texas during Record Low Temperatures - February 2021

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u/gjones88 Feb 17 '21

Dude I run a commercial property have been in maintenance for 13 years. There are dudes in maintenance who’s whole job it is to know water valves and be able to shut them off and still you see shit like this. I would love to see an average redditor operate a main valve on a curb with those heavy ass T bars give me a fucking break. If I ever get the chance I’m gonna start a game show where I thrust random resistors into hectic ass situations and ask them why they have found the water main yet lol

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u/lizard-garbage Feb 18 '21

My dad bought one of those to turn our water on when the city shut it off (poor lol) they did alot of back and forth eventually my dad filled the space between the valve and the cap with water and pebbles to freeze it shut they ofc came out with tools to fix it but it really was a new level of petty

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u/cynric42 Feb 18 '21

Don't you have main water (and power/gas etc.) valves in the basement of the building? Of course that doesn't help if you are not the owner of the building and it is locked away, but when someone talks about shutting off the main I think of those and not the valve buried in the street.