Outside water stopcock

[John_ON]

Hi,

I've just moved into a property with a water meter. The internal stopcock is seized up and I need to turn off the water in the street. When I opened the cover outside, what I take to be the water meter "head" is where I expected the normal stopcock to be. I didn't prod around too much, preferring to find out what I'm doing first but how do I turn off the water externally, please.

Thanks,
John.

 

[Reg_Prescott]

From memory ours has a plastic knob that only needs a quarter turn to turn off the water. Our old place had meter, but it had a conventional stopcock

Better grab a torch

 

[keego]

If it's a meter unit set into the ground, then it will have a 1/4 turn valve inside the unit before the meter. Trouble is, if it's one of the early meter units then it will have a T handle that is removable, if someone has had it away with it then you will have to ring your water company & try to get a new one.

 

[John_ON]

Thanks both. On closer inspection, what I thought was some sort of meter "head" turned out to be nothing more than a close-fitting polystyrene "bung" with a fancy label attached to its top. Once I'd slid it out, I could see the actual meter and a red 1/4 turn valve.

Thanks again.

 

[BoxBasher]

a close-fitting polystyrene "bung"

That'd be the insulation. Very rarely see them still in, but never come across a frozen meter...

 

[John_ON]

a close-fitting polystyrene "bung"

That'd be the insulation. Very rarely see them still in, but never come across a frozen meter...

For some reason, the metal label on the top had had a couple of 1/2" holes punched through it so I couldn't read what the label said and the chunks of polystyrene beneath the holes looked for all the world like some kind of slotted adjusting screws.

The meter down the hole (downstream of the 1/4 turn valve) is a circular glass-fronted device pretty-well impossible to read but there's a small rectangular box with an easier display attached to the house. There's what looks like 1/4" plastic pipe disappearing into the ground so I'm not sure if that is some sort of "slave" off the other meter or if it's a separate meter in its own right.

 

[keego]

The box on your house is called an outreader, it is for the householder to be able to read the meter without having to go to the main meter unit in the street.
In my experience they are very unreliable & were only fitted at the very beginning when metering became compulsory for new builds, 1990 if I remember rightly.

 

[John_ON]

In my experience they are very unreliable & were only fitted at the very beginning when metering became compulsory for new builds, 1990 if I remember rightly.

I tried to read the "proper" meter while I was there so I could compare the two readings but I gave up.

When I moved in, I gave the water authority the reading from the outreader so it'll be interesting to see my first statement.