Stop a burst pipe fast: what to do before the plumber arrives
We got a call last winter from a CT17 terrace where a pipe had let go behind a kitchen unit overnight. By the time anyone noticed, water had been running for hours. Here is what would have limited the damage, and what to do in yours.
Find the stopcock now, not during the emergency
That property's stopcock turned out to be behind a false panel nobody had opened in years. Find yours today, before anything is wrong, wherever it turns out to be.
Turn it off, then open a tap
Turn the stopcock clockwise to shut it. Once off, open the lowest tap in the house to drain the remaining pressure out of the system.
If it is a hot water leak specifically
May need a separate isolation point on the cylinder. Shut the main stopcock anyway, then call or WhatsApp us.
What happened next
Once the water was off, the actual repair was a twenty-minute fix. The overnight flooding, not the pipe itself, was what cost real money and disruption.
Honest price from a photo
Photos, description and postcode to hello@doverplumbers.co.uk or on WhatsApp. Same-day reply on straightforward jobs.