What To Do When You’ve Got A Leak

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As an experienced and reputable plumber in Braintree, we’ve been involved in a huge array of different projects.

From large scale, renovation projects through to general repairs and maintenance work, we always do what we can to ensure the service delivered is the best we can provide.

Whilst we love working on all types of plumbing work – and we genuinely do, as there’s nothing better for an organisation to see the satisfaction on a customer’s face when they realise the final product meets their expectations perfectly – we also feel it’s important that every homeowner knows how to respond in certain household situations.

And when it comes to plumbing, there aren’t many more situations where it’s more vital to understand what to do than when you have a leak.

The unfortunate truth is most of us have to deal with a leak at some point. The good news is in many instances, it’s a small leak that’s more of an annoyance – a tap that won’t stop dripping a little water, for example.

For many others, however, it’s an unexpected leak that if left unattended, could result in particularly costly repair bills.

So when you’ve discovered a leak, what should you do?

The first and most important thing – and if you don’t do anything else, the only thing you should – is to go to your stopcock and turn it off. If you don’t know what this does, simply put, it restricts the entire water flow to your house.

Although you may have your taps turned off, there’s still water running through the pipes (which is why the water’s instantly there when you turn your taps on). Therefore, you’ve effectively got a house with water running – ideally safely – right through it.

When something goes wrong and you get an unexpected leak, you need to do as much as you possibly can to stop the water affecting more than it already is. In theory, you could repair the leak temporarily immediately, even just by placing your finger over the hole where the water’s coming out – but what if you can’t find the hole?

Plus, it’s not really a great response. It might be your initial reaction if you can see where the water is escaping from, but then what do you do? You can’t stand with your finger over the hole until someone comes to phone a plumber!

It’s because of this why the best course of action is always to stop the water running through the pipes as quickly as you possibly can. This way, after what’s likely to just be a couple of seconds, whilst you won’t have any water to wash your hands with, for instance, you won’t have water leaking – or pouring – out of the broken pipe, giving you time to either repair it yourself (if you know what you’re doing!) or call a professional to do it for you.

What’s useful to also know is that after you’ve turned your stopcock off, the water won’t stop immediately, as whatever’s in the pipes needs to leave the system. If you can therefore provide it with more ways to leave – such as by turning on your cold taps – it will do so quicker.

And just in case the water doesn’t stop a couple of seconds after you’ve turned your stopcock, head outside and look for an external one, which is usually under some type of cover – some properties have two stopcocks and although the internal one stops the majority of water, it’s the external one that ensures no water enters the system at all.

At Aquatech, we’re happy to help in any way we can as a specialist in plumbing, heating and renewable energy, but sometimes it’s just good – for your own peace-of-mind – to know as a homeowner what to do in certain situations.