Spent 2 hours looking for a valve almost hidden behind drywall

I was trying to shut off the water to fix a leaky bathroom faucet. The shutoff valve under the sink didn't work, so I had to find the main one for that side of the house. Turns out the previous owners drywalled over it and only left a tiny circle cutout that I totally missed. Has anyone else dealt with a house that hides important stuff like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

black.oliver4d ago

Read about this exact thing in a home inspector's blog just last week. Said it's way too common with flip houses and lazy contractors who just sheetrock over everything. They even mentioned finding a gas shutoff completely buried behind a wall in one place. Worth checking if there's a tiny access panel somewhere nearby or maybe a pattern in the drywall seams.

rowan_ross3d ago

oh man, that's so frustrating... I've been there with my own house and it's like a treasure hunt nobody asked for. @black.oliver is right about flip houses cutting corners, I had a similar situation with a water heater shutoff that was behind a fake panel in a closet. what finally worked for me was getting a cheap stud finder and a flashlight and just slowly scanning the walls where the pipes should run. found a faint outline in the paint where they'd patched it over. also, try looking in the basement or crawlspace if you have one, sometimes they hide the main valve down there instead of dealing with that drywall mess.

mitchell.thomas4d ago

I read a similar story on a home repair forum where a guy found a circuit breaker panel hidden behind wallpaper and nobody could figure out why the lights kept tripping. Def sounds like the previous owners took some SHORTCUTS with that drywall.