General Chat

... there was water dripping through the bathroom ceiling. I found a tiny leak from the feed to the header tank. On trying to isolate the flow, I broke the stopcock, and made the leak into a full flow. Just as our visitors arrived from Yorkshire.. We managed to get the plumber who we always use, and he couldn't turn the water off either. We between us made things a lot worse, with water dripping through the kitchen ceiling by now. Then Thames Water arrived, and had the problem sorted in about two hours. Helpful, friendly blokes who we can't praise highly enough. Fortunately we can laugh now, but not a day we wish to repeat. And surprisingly, very little damage done. This happened to friends a couple of years ago while they were abroad, and it took well over a year before they were back in their home.

Gosh you were so lucky the ceiling didn't come down and what with your visitors too....luck was shining on you :-D

Florence in the hebrides

This is one of the reasons I like being a housing association tenant.

Well, as a Council house tenant, when I had a leak from my hot water tank, I was 'told' over the phone it was the boiler.
Three boiler men water gushing down the wall, then the ceiling, and 2 weeks later, it was finally identified as the hot water tank.
A week waiting for a new tank, and the ceiling under the airing cupboard came down.
It took them 3 months from mis-identifying the leak to repairing the ceiling and re-painting part of my stairwell (leaving me with a 'tidemark' of paint on the wall :-|).
Not all white paints are the same :-P

Just as all blacks are not the same!

Or all Muslim's, or Japanese, or Koreans or ....................

A friend had the same problem, luckily they had a housesitter. They still took a year to rebuild their basement :-(

I remember buying some white paint from one of the cheap DIY chains that went under and it was practically see-through. I go so fed up with putting on coats that I went and bought some Dulux.

This is a product which is highly effective in dealing with sudden leaks prior to a permanent repair.

http://kiboshpiperepair.com/

There should be 1. stop cock for main water supply - for those who have a metered supply there may also be a stop cock near the meter.
2. stop cock on supply for each room with a water supply , usually kitchen and each wc/bathroom.

There is a type of stop cock which is operated just by pressing a blue button for on/off. Housing associations will fit these free for the disabled and usually for single older women as well, if they ask.

There are also various self adhesive tape products for dealing with even high pressure leaks which will allow a few hours of respite.

All very well - but turning off the water to the hot water tank also entails turning off ALL water.
Also, if it's do bl**ding logical, in my case:
1) Why did some (male) pr*tt insist my boiler and hot water tank 'couldn't be in the same cupboard - despite my insisting I had the cupboard door open, and could see both?
2) Why did none of the 3 boiler 'engineers' notice it wasn't the boiler that was leaking?
3) If turning off stopcocks is so logical, why did absolutely NO 'tradesman' - even when they realised it was the hot water tank, turn off the stopcock?

Probably because it was a rupture in the actual tank.

Oh - and you forgot to mention valves on inlet pipes of taps that can be turned off.
THIS I have done when changing taps (yes I can do that), or when a seal has broken on the pipe (I called a plumber for that).

I don't know whether you guys can rent steam carpet shampooers from a local supermarket or DIY store, but my daughter and her almost-fiancee (now husband) came up with a brilliant idea one time

They were staying in our house while we were away, had been out but daughter came home while he went on to somewhere else.

She went down into the basement to find that the older half with concrete floor was under water ...... it turned out that the bottom of the hot water tank had split.

That was in the laundry area with washing machine and storage area. The other half of the area also had a concrete floor, the gas furnace, all OH's tools, work bench, etc.

It wasn't bad when she found it, so she tried mopping it up, but it was much worse by the time her guy got back,

One of them had an idea, they drove down to the local supermarket and rented a carpet shampooer, which has a cycle for sucking up water after shampooing. They set it to the "suck up" cycle, and it cleared the water very quickly.

Their presence in the house, daughter's headache that brought her back early, and quick thinking prevented the water from seeping under the door and into the slightly lower carpeted area, where had computer, furniture, books etc.

We got back the next day to no hot water, but no serious damage.


I add the hot water tank was less than 3 years old, but out of warranty.

It is good practce to occasionally turn any valves/stop cocks etc. off and on occasionally as they are prone to seizing up if left unused and then won't shift when you need them in a hurry.

Brian,
it would be lovely if I could get near the stop cock.Have to try and shift electric cooker and then washer to get near it.Only trouble is my kitchen is only 6ft with a bit of luck by 4ft.

Brian,
it would be lovely if I could get near the stop cock.Have to try and shift electric cooker and then washer to get near it.Only trouble is my kitchen is only 6ft with a bit of luck by 4ft.

I don't know about flats, but houses usually, by law, have an external stopcock somewhere near the boundary (maybe as Rollo says, near a meter if you have one).

It will be buried in the ground with a small access trap above and not easy to reach down to so a key (just like a forked stick) on a rod with a T bar on top makes it much easier to turn, otherwise you have to lay flat on the ground and reach down with your arm. Not good if it's raining!!

If you have a flat the external stopcock may be outside in the communal hallway.

There was a stopcock outside, old fashioned type, about three feet deep and the access narrow and full of s**t. I scratched my arm to bu****y trying to clear it, and the plumber couldn't budge it as it had probably not been used since the house was built 80 years ago. Anyway, all done now, and I have had a splendid weekend in Devon at a re-union of my old regiment.