Turning Your Water Off in an Emergency

The most common locations: • Under the kitchen sink — by far the most likely spot. Look at the back of the cupboard for a valve on the pipe coming up through the floor. • Airing cupboard — especially in flats or houses with a cylinder. • Under the bathroom or hall sink — common in flats. • Under the stairs — in some older terraced houses. It will either have a round wheel handle (turn clockwise/right to close) or a flat lever (turn 90° so it's across the pipe to close).

Every property has an external stopcock owned by the water company. It's usually in a small metal cover in the pavement or front garden — look for a square or round plate marked "Water." You need a long-handled stopcock key (about £10) to operate it, or your water supplier can turn it off for you in an emergency.

Combi boiler or unvented (pressurised) system: The flow will stop almost immediately once the stopcock is closed. The system holds mains pressure — there's no stored cold water tank feeding it. Traditional system (gravity-fed, with a cold water tank in the loft): Closing the stopcock stops the tank refilling, but there is still a large volume of stored cold water in the loft tank — and stored hot water in the cylinder — that will continue to flow until those empty. The simplest and safest thing to do is open all the hot and cold taps in the house to drain everything down as fast as possible. Do not try to find valves inside the system — just drain it out through the taps.