Hi, if you turn off the water supply to your house do you have to relieve the pressure before you turn the water back on, and if you don't could that hurt your pipes?

You may get a water hammer if the pipes have been drained. An easy thing to do is to open a bathtub faucet, turn the water on and then close the faucet.

Hi, thanks. What happened was we had a leak under our sink, the plumber came out to fix the leak under the sink, latter that night our hot water heater started to leak, I am just wondering if he might have done something to the pipes if he turned the water off to fix the leaking sink.

If it did leak, the tank was probably ready to go. However, that is one reason I always open a faucet and then turn on the water. Where was it leaking tank or PRV?

Leaking tank, I am just worried if the pipes might have been damaged, we have a old house, do you always have to open the faucet before you turn back on the water? Is this something all plumbers should do? The reason I am worried is because after I took a shower today there was some water on the floor by the wall, I guess if could have just leak out from the shower door but I don't know.

The pipes have NOT been damaged by a plumber working on them... not unless he was a clod!

Are you sure it is the tank? Could it be the temperature and pressure (T&P) relief valve (usually has a pipe coming out of it and terminating about 6-12" off the floor)...be sure to check this? If it is not the T&P valve then there is very little a plumber could do to cause a tank to leak.

Further, you are now worried about the water by the shower? I don't know...is it possible that you are only now seeing these things for the first time, but they have been there for a long time?

In my 35+ years of experience, I have seen many people observe issues with plumbing only after the plumber left because they are thinking and observing plumbing at the moment...seems very reasonable to me that this may be the case here, especially as you have stated that you "have a old house" and old plumbing just works that way sometimes... can be after a plumber works on things, but does that make the leak his fault or is just that the plumber did his/her job and the old plumbing was old and leaked as a result of the work being done? Most likely, that is the case here!

If in doubt, call another plumber or plumbing company in, but if you liked the first plumber and his/her prices were fair do not lose this person 'cause of the doubts... sounds like old plumbing to me is all!

Back to you...

Mark

Hi, what I left out and why I don't trust this plumber is when he first came it was for a leak under the sink, after he left the sink was still leaking, he forgot to tighten the pipe. Then when he installed the hot water heater and left, it didn't work. We had to have another plumber come out, turns out he hot fired the hot water heater. That is why now I am questioning everything he did. I should not have let him install the hot water heater but it was leaking all over the garage and we couldn't get any one else. Our house was built in 72 that's old to me but some house are much older. I guess what I should do is call another plumber and have him check the pipes. It was the tank on the old hot water heater that was leaking, I asked another plumber about it and he said turning back on the water could have caused the leak. That's why I am wondering when the water to a house is turned off does anything else have to be done before you turn it back on, if this plumber made such careless mistakes I wouldn't be surprised if he did something else.