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Shutoff Valley is a reading site about tap water, filters, old pipes, water heaters and quake-ready plumbing for homeowners in the San Fernando Valley.
What this site covers
Shutoff Valley writes for people who own or rent homes in the Valley's Los Angeles neighborhoods, served by LADWP, and in Burbank, Glendale and the City of San Fernando. Pages are grouped into five folders: water, filters and softeners, pipes and leaks, water heaters and quake readiness. Each one tries to answer a single question a homeowner actually asks, with the local numbers that apply.
What this site is not
This site is not a plumbing company, a contractor, a water utility or a public agency. It does not install, repair or inspect anything, and it does not list, rank or recommend plumbers or companies. It is not connected to LADWP, Burbank Water and Power, Glendale Water & Power or the City of San Fernando, and nothing here speaks for them. When a page quotes a utility, a code or an agency, it says so by name and links the source so you can read it yourself.
The site does share owners with two water-treatment shops. The ownership page explains which pages link them and how their product claims are handled.
How a page gets made
Every page starts from primary sources: the suppliers' water quality reports (the 2026 editions, covering 2025), the California Plumbing Code and Health and Safety Code, city codes, federal and state agency pages, and makers' manuals. Each figure on a page is tied to a named source and the year of its data, and each page ends with a short note on what it is based on and what was left out because no primary source could be found.
Pages avoid guesses. Where a source could not be read, or two sources disagree, the page says so rather than picking a number. Claims a shop makes about its own products are labeled as the shop's claims, and certifications are checked against the certifier's own listing.
Corrections
The site has no contact form and no email address. Pages are reviewed against their sources from time to time, and errors found then are fixed, with the page's date updated. If a rule, rebate or price on a page matters to a decision, check it with the agency, utility or seller named on that page before you act; the fine print says more about using what you read here.