Question about main water valve

[YellowMoogle]

I live in a two story house where the main shut off valve is outside the house. There's also a valve in a concrete box that can also shut off the water to the house, but that belongs to the water district people.

I was told that I can shut off the water by turning the valve outside my house and I should allow the water time to drain. I turned it off but and turned on the faucets upstairs, downstairs, and the water faucet in the backyard. After about 20 minutes or so, the upstairs faucets had no more water coming out. The downstairs kitchen sink had no more water but the one of the bathrooms downstairs still had a trickle. The backyard faucet had noticeable less water coming out, but still had a fairly steady stream. After about another 10-15 minutes, the water still did not turn off all the way so I tried to tighten the shutoff valve a bit more. This seems to have increased the water coming out of the backyard faucet for some reason. So at this point I closed all the faucets and decided to go back to square one to figure out what was going on.

1. How long is it suppose to take for all the water to drain out? I did turn off the water to the water heater as I read the water from the water heater might've been draining out. Another thing is that if I had shut off the water knob in the concrete box, the water turns off in a few minutes.
2. Is turning off the valve near my house similar to turning the knob in the concrete box? I would expect similar results since I would assume both would stop the flow of water going into my house but that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

[phishfood]

The valve just ouitside of your house is probably defective, and not completely shutting off the flow of water through it.

 

[frodo]

i do not know what kind of valve you have, no picture with post


turn the valve at meter off..

 

[YellowMoogle]

Here's a picture of the valve outside the house and the street knob.

So turning the knob usually turns off the water in a few minutes of turning on the faucet. So the valve should've been the same then?

 

[HarrySeward]

Use the valve at the meter. While everything is off, it's probably a good time to rebuild or replace the valve at the back of the house.

 

[Chris]

Your water should trickle to a stop within 30 seconds or so.

 

[YellowMoogle]

Hrm, okay. Sounds like it's unfortunately broken then. Thanks for the input!