First Step: Shut the water off at the sink. Chod climbed under and mumbled the the valves were bent, and something about this being when water starts shooting out and ARS gets called. I told him not to worry about it and that we could just ask Geoff (our neighbor across the street, who happens to be a plumber) to take care of it.
But, Chod was pretty sure he could handle the task and continued on. He managed to get one valve shut off and the next almost shut off, but not all the way. We were going to have to replace the shutoff valves at the sink. So he went down to shut off the main water line. But instead of closing, it just spun around and around.
So now we had no water at the sink, twisted shutoff valves at the sink that needed replaced, and a broken main shutoff valve.
Chod got a hold of Geoff who came over after work to inspect, and the next day returned with most of the parts he'd need to fix it.
After checking things out, he spent a little time knocking on a wall and asking how I felt about it. I told him I wasn't too attached and he replied, "Good, cause we're going to need to cut a new access point so I can knock those suckers loose." A hole was cut and he switched out our valves and pressure reducer valve.
He sent Chod out to turn the water coming into the house back on, and a minute later Lincoln came running downstairs, "GEOFF, GEOFF, there's water shooting up!"
When Chod didn't hear water flowing on the first valve he dropped the key down to the next thinking that might be the right one. But instead it knocked a 40 year old seal loose and luckily, the leak it created was much, much less than what Lincoln had described. It was more like a pin hole in a water balloon sized leak, instead of the geyser I was imagining.
And that is how a new faucet led to our front yard being dug up.
