What to do in a plumbing emergency
Close the internal stop tap, open the cold kitchen tap to drain the pipes, switch off electrics anywhere near the water, and switch the heating off if the leak is on the heating system. Only then start ringing round. Those four steps decide how big the repair bill is far more than how fast anybody arrives.
The first four minutes
- Shut the water off. Turn the internal stop tap clockwise until it closes. If it is seized, go to the external stop tap under the small cover near your boundary, which usually needs a long key or a piece of pipe to reach.
- Drain the system. Open the cold kitchen tap and any other cold taps. That drops the water still sitting in the pipes above the leak instead of letting it all find the ceiling.
- Kill the power near the water. If water is anywhere near lights, sockets or a consumer unit, turn the circuit off at the board. Never stand in water to reach it.
- Switch the heating off. If the leak is on a radiator or heating pipe, turn off the boiler and let the system cool before anybody touches it.
Then catch what you can. A washing-up bowl, towels and a poke through a bulging ceiling with a screwdriver in one deliberate place is better than waiting for it to come down across the whole room. Photograph everything before you clear up, because insurers ask.
Find your stop taps before you need them
In older Teesside terraces around Gresham, Newport, Grove Hill and the Hartlepool streets, the internal stop tap is usually under the kitchen sink, at the cellar head or under the stairs, and it is often the original fitting. In the interwar semis of Billingham, Norton and Acklam it tends to be under the sink or in a hall cupboard. In the newer estate housing across Ingleby Barwick, Coulby Newham, Hemlington and Wynyard it is nearly always under the kitchen sink or in the utility, and normally a modern lever valve. The external stop tap sits under a small metal or plastic cover in the path, drive or verge near your boundary. Find both today, label them, and turn each one a quarter turn twice a year so they do not seize shut.
What is an emergency and what is not
| Situation | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Burst pipe, water escaping | Emergency | Damage grows every minute |
| Cistern overflowing into a ceiling | Emergency | Continuous flow, structural risk |
| No water in freezing weather | Emergency | Likely a frozen or split pipe |
| Only toilet blocked | Same day | House is unusable without it |
| Leak caught in a bowl | Next working day | Contained, so avoid the out-of-hours rate |
| Dripping tap or cold radiator | Routine | Annoying, not urgent |
Frozen pipes on Teesside
Cold snaps here reliably produce two waves of calls: frozen pipes during the freeze, and burst pipes the day the thaw arrives, when the ice that was plugging the split melts. Vulnerable spots are lofts, unheated cellars, outbuildings, garage runs and anything on an outside wall, all common in the older housing stock. If a pipe is frozen but intact, warm it gently along its length with a hairdryer or warm cloths starting from the tap end, never with a blowtorch, and keep the tap open so meltwater has somewhere to go. If you hear water start to run and cannot see where it is going, shut the stop tap immediately.
When you make the call
Say four things and the visit goes better: what is leaking, whether the water is now isolated, what type of property it is, and your postcode. If you can add whether the leak is on the mains, the heating or a waste, the right parts get loaded. Costs for out-of-hours attendance are in the cost guide, and the emergency plumbing page sets out what a callout covers. If water is arriving from somewhere nobody can identify, that is leak detection rather than a callout.