When temperatures drop, a frozen pipe can leave you without water — or, worse, split and flood your home once it thaws. Here’s how to spot one, thaw it safely, and avoid a repeat.
Two controls can stop an emergency from becoming a disaster: the water stopcock and the gas emergency control valve. Knowing where they are and how to use them — before you ever need to — is well worth five minutes.
A burst pipe is alarming, but what you do in the first few minutes makes the biggest difference to how much damage you’re left with. Work through these steps in order.
No water at the taps is unsettling, but it’s usually one of a few causes — and a couple of quick checks will tell you which, and whether it’s something you can sort or something to call about.
When something goes wrong with the plumbing, it’s not always obvious whether to ring straight away or wait for morning. Here’s a straightforward way to tell — and what to do in the meantime.
That constant trickle or the cistern refilling every few minutes isn’t just annoying — on a water meter it’s money down the pan, literally. The cause is nearly always one of two valves inside the cistern.
Not every leak announces itself with a puddle. Some run quietly behind a wall or under the floor for weeks, and by the time you spot the damage the repair is far bigger than it needed to be. Here’s how to catch one early.
Weak flow from a single tap usually means a problem at that tap. But when the pressure is low everywhere — kitchen, bathroom, upstairs and down — the cause sits further back, and it’s worth knowing where to look before you call anyone out.
A dripping tap is one of those small annoyances that’s easy to ignore — until you’re lying awake listening to it. It’s rarely serious, but it does waste water and money, and the fix depends on the type of tap you have.
Of all the plumbing know-how worth having, this is the one that saves the most damage: being able to stop the water fast. When a pipe bursts, the minutes spent hunting for the stopcock are the minutes your floors and ceilings are getting soaked.
