Water main break down the street today. When the water came back I flushed out my plumbing from an outside hosebib. There was a crazy amount of air and sediment coming out. At times there was just air coming thru the line for about 3 minutes. Then off and on violently with sediment until it finally ran clear.

The main shutoff is in the street about 150' away from my meter. ANd the break was about a block away.

Did I just flush out from the shutoff 150' away to my home or did I just flush the entire system for all my neighbors?



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i'll answer your question like this.

twice a year in my little town they flush the watermains on the street. the amount of rusty water that comes into the houses is quite a bit.
I always wait as long as I can before using the water.
I hope your neighbors think kind thoughts about you for doing them a favor.BTW, you were wise to send the rusty water out the hose faucet.

I was afraid you were going to say that. So basically I fouled up my softener and water heater in the process.

I was running water in the house prior to going outside but did not see the air and sediment from the fixtures that I saw outside when I opened the hosebid full blast.

The outside hosebibs are not softened, does that mean when I was doing the serious flushing outside, water wasnt flowing thru my softener or heater?

Yes, it was NOT flowing through your softener. As a practical matter, the main is probably about 6" i.d. and you water line is 1" i.d. That means the main is about 36 times bigger than your pipe, so your flushing did not do much to clear it.

You can change out your hose bib to a nipple and Ball valve for a much better flush, IMHO