Burst pipe in Preston? What to do in the first ten minutes

Turn the water off at the stopcock. That is the answer, and everything else on this page comes second. Every minute a burst pipe runs it is soaking joists, plaster and anything electrical underneath it, and none of that damage stops until the water does. Once it is off, you have time to think, and you can ring me on 07949 353536 for an emergency plumber in Preston who answers his own phone.

Step 1: find the stopcock

The stopcock is the tap that shuts off the mains water coming into the house. Turn it clockwise until it stops. Where it lives depends a lot on the age of the house, and across Preston I see all sorts.

• Newer houses: usually under the kitchen sink, behind the bottles of washing up liquid.
• Older terraces: often under the stairs, in a cellar, or under a floorboard just inside the front door.
• Flats: sometimes in a cupboard in the flat, sometimes in a shared riser or on the landing. Worth finding out before you need it.
• Cannot find it, or it will not turn? There is usually an outside stop tap under a small cover in the pavement or front garden. It needs a long key, so it is a last resort rather than a first one.

If the stopcock is seized, do not force it with a wrench until something snaps. Ring me and say so. A stopcock that will not turn is worth replacing anyway once the emergency is over.

Step 2: drain what is left in the pipes

Turning the stopcock off stops new water arriving, but the pipes are still full. Open all the cold taps and flush the toilets to empty them. If you have a cold water tank in the loft, the stopcock will not stop that, so the pipes it feeds can keep running for a while. Opening the taps drains it down faster.

Switch the boiler off too, and the immersion heater if you have one. Heating a system that is losing water is how small leaks become damaged boilers.

Step 3: keep water away from the electrics

If water is coming through near a light fitting, a socket or the fuse box, switch the power off at the consumer unit, but only if you can reach it without standing in water. If you cannot, leave it and keep everyone out of that room. Do not stand under a ceiling that is bulging or sagging. Put a bucket under the drip from the side, and wait.

Step 4: ring me, and take some photos

When you ring, tell me your postcode, where the water is coming from if you can see it, and whether you managed to get the stopcock off. That tells me how urgent it is and what to bring. Take a few photos of the damage while you wait. If you end up making an insurance claim, photos from the night are far more use than a description a week later.

Why pipes burst in a cold snap

Water expands as it freezes. In a pipe with nowhere to go, the ice splits the pipe or pushes a joint apart. The odd thing is that you often do not see it until the thaw, when the ice melts and water starts running out of a split that has been there since the night before. So the first mild morning after a hard frost is when a lot of these calls come in.

The pipes that go are nearly always the exposed ones: in the loft, in a garage, along an outside wall, or feeding an outside tap.

If a pipe is frozen but has not burst

• Turn the water off at the stopcock first, so that if there is a split, it does not flood when the ice melts.
• Thaw it gently from the tap end back, with a hairdryer on a low setting, a hot water bottle or towels soaked in warm water.
• Never use a blowtorch or any naked flame, especially in a loft full of timber and insulation.
• If your boiler has stopped on a freezing morning and is showing a fault, check the condensate pipe outside. There is a step by step guide to a frozen condensate pipe for that one.

Stopping it happening this winter

• Lag the pipes in the loft and the garage. Foam lagging is cheap and quick to fit.
• Turn off and drain the outside tap before the first frost. Many have an isolating valve inside, often under the kitchen sink.
• If you are going away in a cold spell, leave the heating on low rather than off.
• Know where your stopcock is, and check it turns, before you need it.

If the water is off but you cannot see where it was coming from, that is where leak detection in Preston comes in, and my guide on how to find a water leak covers the checks you can do first. I am based in Preston, so for most of the city the drive is short. For anything else plumbing, see my main page for a plumber in Preston.