When a faucet handle breaks off in your bathroom...

[Vitoc]

Do be calm.
Do not freak out.

Do calmly reach under the sink and close the valve.
Do not go running out of the room screaming like a little girl.

Do make sure to close the valve quickly.
Do not wait until the water shooting out becomes scalding hot.

Do understand how your faucet works and where to turn off the water lines feeding it.
Do not wait until it happens, then let water and steam fill your counter, the shelves, the bathroom floor, and the carpet outside it while you remove your pajamas, put on some pants, and run frantically over to your neighbor's house for help.

Trust me, I'm an expert on what not to do.  :(

[Morkain]

Damn, that sucks!

Nice detailed list... If only it would have been available prior to the incident eh?

If I'm ever in doubt of something like this, (hopefully before it happens) I'll definitely run it by you first.  ;D

[Vitoc]

This all happened yesterday and I'm traumatized to some extent.  The horrible sound it made shooting out of the hole where a handle used to be was bad enough; it sounded demonic, like it was mad at me, but the sound of it pounding against the light bulb and fixture above was even worse.  I was just waiting for the bulb and glass fixture to shatter.  I couldn't believe how forcefully it was shooting out, she said.  The scalding hot water made the situation all the more crazy, and that's when I started to panic.  The whole thing just completely caught me off guard, especially given the day I was already having with work.  One second I'm going to wash my hands, the next all hell breaks loose.

Turning on the knob to the shower this morning took serious willpower.

[Gardner Denver]

The sounds of Vitoc running out of the room screaming like a little girl was probably traumatic for your sink as well ;)

[DeathCow]

This happened at my house, while i was asleep.  I got a new kitchen, new carpet in the living room, new bathroom, and a new basement.  My bedroom is still the same.

[Valiant Lyta]

Pyjamas? Hmmmmmm.....interesting concept :)

[Trios]

Do be calm.
Do not freak out.

Do calmly reach under the sink and close the valve.
Do not go running out of the room screaming like a little girl.

Do make sure to close the valve quickly.
Do not wait until the water shooting out becomes scalding hot.

Do understand how your faucet works and where to turn off the water lines feeding it.
Do not wait until it happens, then let water and steam fill your counter, the shelves, the bathroom floor, and the carpet outside it while you remove your pajamas, put on some pants, and run frantically over to your neighbor's house for help.

Trust me, I'm an expert on what not to do.  :(

Couple things:

1) You're a bigger man than I am, if I had run around screaming like a girl I would certainly not have posted that fact on the forums.

2) I expected that you had more mechanical knowledge than it seems you do. Perhaps it's just because you seem to have (un)common sense and I thought that translated, but I know intellectually that it doesn't.

3) There's also a hot water shut-off on your water heater. If, for example, you can't get to the faucet shut-off due to the 180 degree water spewing forth from the sink, head to the water heater and kill that valve. If all else fails, either near the water heater (and certainly by the street, where your meter is) there's a shut-off valve for all water in the house.

4) It's always, always, always good to know where to find these valves. Go 'put your dick on it' like they say in the Navy; anywhere you put your dick you should be able to remember where it is. Kind of crude, but it works. Find these valves now, so you don't have to run screaming later.

[Vitoc]

Couple things:

1) You're a bigger man than I am, if I had run around screaming like a girl I would certainly not have posted that fact on the forums.

2) I expected that you had more mechanical knowledge than it seems you do. Perhaps it's just because you seem to have (un)common sense and I thought that translated, but I know intellectually that it doesn't.

3) There's also a hot water shut-off on your water heater. If, for example, you can't get to the faucet shut-off due to the 180 degree water spewing forth from the sink, head to the water heater and kill that valve. If all else fails, either near the water heater (and certainly by the street, where your meter is) there's a shut-off valve for all water in the house.

4) It's always, always, always good to know where to find these valves. Go 'put your dick on it' like they say in the Navy; anywhere you put your dick you should be able to remember where it is. Kind of crude, but it works. Find these valves now, so you don't have to run screaming later.

1) That was a slight exaggeration on my part in the name of humor.  Here's what really happened, maybe:

I painted my face with war-paint and let out the most manly war-cry ever.  Someone managed to snap a pic of it while it was happening.


2) I can't emphasize enough how crazy the situation was at the time and how quickly it escalated.  Imagine being in your happy place (the bathroom is a happy place after all) and then all of a sudden something horrible and completely unexpected happening.  Have you ever seen karate or other martial arts peeps get in an unplanned street fight?  They know all these moves and have all this knowledge and training that they practice in controlled environments, but when a fight breaks out in the real world out of nowhere (in most cases, not all, but most), a lot of it goes out the window and it becomes your typical fist fight or a wrestling match.  I've lived in this house and been a homeowner for all of 6 months.  I admittedly don't know everything about all the appliances, switches, valves, meters, plumbing, or wiring in the house.  I can tell you I have learned where the valves are under the sinks recently.  ;)

3) I literally just went and looked at our water heater.  I see a valve to control the gas flow and some sort of valve that looks like it could be used to drain the water from the water heater.  At the top are two copper hoses entering the water heater.  On one of those hoses there's is a turnable handle and then also from that same hose another copper hose curling upwards to some canister looking thing which I have to assume is some sort of blowoff or pressure control mechanism.  Does that handle turn the water off that's going into the water heater or the hot water running into the house?  I could write a book on good software design, database design, best practices, data patterns, and code generation, but to me a water heater has always just been something that heats water.  I never bothered learning about it, and really don't care too much about how it works inside.  Knowing how to turn off the hot water running into the house would have proved most useful, but nobody has ever shown me how to do so.  It's not something you typically care about until something goes horribly wrong.

Interestingly, when it did first happen I did shut off one of the valves that I was told (during the home inspection) would shut off the water entering the house.  However, that did not stop the hot water coming from the water heater or the geyser coming from the hole where a handle used to be. 

4) Yeah.  But who knows everything they should know about everything in their life?  There's usually a catalyst that triggers you to learn something you don't already know.  The great flood of 2009 was my catalyst. ;)

Btw, just an fyi, a "couple" is two.  I would have thought someone with as much (un)common sense as you would have know that.  :P

[Trios]

1) That was a slight exaggeration on my part in the name of humor.  Here's what really happened, maybe:

I painted my face with war-paint and let out the most manly war-cry ever.  Someone managed to snap a pic of it while it was happening.

I assumed as much, but I had to poke fun anyway.

2) I can't emphasize enough how crazy the situation was at the time and how quickly it escalated.  Imagine being in your happy place (the bathroom is a happy place after all) and then all of a sudden something horrible and completely unexpected happening.  Have you ever seen karate or other martial arts peeps get in an unplanned street fight?  They know all these moves and have all this knowledge and training that they practice in controlled environments, but when a fight breaks out in the real world out of nowhere (in most cases, not all, but most), a lot of it goes out the window and it becomes your typical fist fight or a wrestling match.  I've lived in this house and been a homeowner for all of 6 months.  I admittedly don't know everything about all the appliances, switches, valves, meters, plumbing, or wiring in the house.  I can tell you I have learned where the valves are under the sinks recently.  ;)

Never seen a karate master get in a street right, no. I can tell you I've had something similar happen in my house (been a homeowner for all of 2 months hehe) and I didn't freak, I just shut the water off to the damn dishwasher and got a new one.

3) I literally just went and looked at our water heater.  I see a valve to control the gas flow and some sort of valve that looks like it could be used to drain the water from the water heater.  At the top are two copper hoses entering the water heater.  On one of those hoses there's is a turnable handle...

That's your hot-water shut-off

and then also from that same hose another copper hose curling upwards to some canister looking thing which I have to assume is some sort of blowoff or pressure control mechanism.

It's an expansion tank, basically just what you said, it also keeps steam out of the hot water pipes if the gas regulater were to stick open.

Does that handle turn the water off that's going into the water heater or the hot water running into the house?

Generally, it's on the 'outlet' side of the water heater. The reason for this is that, especially with electric heaters, you don't want to shut off the inlet side and then empty the water heater unless you're removing it; having those heating coils energized without water on them = bad day for water heater and maybe the house.

I could write a book on good software design, database design, best practices, data patterns, and code generation, but to me a water heater has always just been something that heats water.  I never bothered learning about it, and really don't care too much about how it works inside.  Knowing how to turn off the hot water running into the house would have proved most useful, but nobody has ever shown me how to do so.  It's not something you typically care about until something goes horribly wrong.

Yeah, I can relate. I don't know much about software design, but I can code PHP and a little C++, I think I'm a pretty damn good PC troubleshooter, and I can turn a wrench too. Mechanical systems are really very, very simple in comparison to a complex computer program; you just have to have the interest to learn how they work and what they do.

Interestingly, when it did first happen I did shut off one of the valves that I was told (during the home inspection) would shut off the water entering the house.  However, that did not stop the hot water coming from the water heater or the geyser coming from the hole where a handle used to be. 

Hah, simlar story here. I was told where the supposed water shut-off for the house was, but when I needed to turn it, it would not budge. I don't know what the peice of steel re-bar sticking out of the ground is for, but I don't think it's a water valve. Either way, I don't know what to tell you on your water not stopping.

4) Yeah.  But who knows everything they should know about everything in their life?  There's usually a catalyst that triggers you to learn something you don't already know.  The great flood of 2009 was my catalyst. ;)

I know everything. Really.

Btw, just an fyi, a "couple" is two.  I would have thought someone with as much (un)common sense as you would have know that.  :P

You've obviously never seen my wife and I and (insert one or two female names here) after a party....

[Gardner Denver]

2) I can't emphasize enough how crazy the situation was at the time and how quickly it escalated.  Imagine being in your happy place (the bathroom is a happy place after all) and then all of a sudden something horrible and completely unexpected happening. 

Fear prevented me from reading any further than this statement.

[Vitoc]

Fear prevented me from reading any further than this statement.

I think that's probably because your happy place is also a very, very dirty place.

[MudHunter]

I dunno what YOU do in yer bathroojm, but my bathroom is a very unhappy place. Do you know what I DO in there??!?

[Vitoc]

[Valiant Lyta]

ROLFMAO......you guys are all nuts! I'm in agony here, laughing at the images I'm getting from the preceding posts  ;D

[Feetprints]

In the interest of being the friendly and helpful sort of person I am (and for the lulz), I'm just gonna bump this up with a few words of advice-
Know where the shut off valve is to your toilet, and how to use it.
Learn to how to remove and replace a toilet, and don't forget the wax ring.
Do not allow small children with tiny rubber ducks near the toilet EVER.
In fact, just pick up a few books on things like plumbing and general home repairs. It'll save you TONS of money.