Burst Pipe: What to Do in the First Hour While You Wait

The first hour in order

A burst pipe feels like one big problem. It is really a short list of small jobs, and the order matters more than speed. Each step below exists to do one of three things: cut the amount of water that can escape, keep you away from the dangerous parts, or leave a clear record for the engineer. Do them in sequence and stop at any step that would put you in standing water or near a wet fitting.

The times in the table are a guide to pace, not a deadline. If the water is pouring through a ceiling you will spend longer on the early steps, and that is correct. The one thing that should never wait is the first step, because every minute the supply stays open adds to the volume that has to be dried out later.

Close the stop tap first

The stop tap isolates the water supply to your home. Closing it is the single action that decides whether you are mopping up a spill or fighting a flood. Turn it clockwise, firmly and steadily, until it stops. Most are quarter-turn or multi-turn designs, and a quarter-turn lever is closed when it sits across the pipe.

Homes put the stop tap in different places. In houses it is often under the kitchen sink or near where the supply pipe comes up through the floor. In flats it may be in a cupboard, a utility space or a riser cupboard in the communal hall. In some properties there is a second valve outside, in a small chamber under a cover near the boundary, which usually needs a special key. If you do not already know where yours is, finding it now, with water on the floor, is the worst time to learn. A short look around the property when everything is calm is worth ten minutes, and the page on whether a burst pipe is an emergency covers what to do if it cannot be reached.

If the tap is stiff, apply steady pressure with your hand. Do not hit it, do not use a pipe wrench or a long lever, and do not force it. An old tap that snaps under force leaves you with a second leak at the one place you needed to hold.

If you cannot find or turn the stop tap

A lot of people reach this step and stall, so it deserves its own plan. If the stop tap is missing, seized or stuck open, the aim shifts from stopping the supply to reducing it and getting help quickly. This is a call-now situation, and the water still has to be managed while you ring.

• Look for a smaller isolation valve closer to the break. Many sinks, toilets, washing machines and dishwashers have their own small valve, with a slot for a screwdriver or a short lever. Closing the one on the leaking branch can stop the escape completely.
• In a flat or a shared building, the supply may come from a communal pipe with its own valve. Ring the building manager, the landlord or the managing agent, and ask whether someone can close the building valve. Put it in writing afterwards with the time.
• Open every cold tap you can reach, upstairs first, to relieve pressure. Water will take the easiest path, and an open tap gives it a path that is not your ceiling.
• Do not climb into a loft to close valves on the cold water tank unless you already know exactly what you are doing and the floor is dry. A loft hatch under a leaking pipe is a poor place to stand.

Drain the pipes and think about the heating

With the stop tap closed, there is still water in the pipes, and it will keep leaking from the break until the pipes are empty. Open the cold taps, starting with the highest one in the building and working down, and leave them running until they stop. Upstairs first matters, because it lets the water above the break drain back through the system rather than out of the hole.

Hot water needs more care. A burst on a hot pipe can scald, and the cylinder behind it holds water that stays hot for a long time. Switch off the immersion heater at its own switch if you can reach it dry, and turn the heating off at the programmer so the system is not asking for water it cannot hold. Leave the boiler itself alone and do not try to drain a heating system tonight. That is a job for the person who attends.

Electrics: what to do and what to leave

Water and mains electricity make a dangerous pair, and a burst pipe often puts them together. Water runs along cables, drops into light fittings from the ceiling above and collects in the back boxes of sockets. A fitting that looks dry can be wet inside.

The rule has two halves. If you can reach the consumer unit without crossing wet floor or standing in water, switching off the electricity there is sensible. If you cannot reach it dry, leave it alone and keep everyone out of the room. A wet floor, an outstretched arm and a metal switch plate is exactly the situation to avoid. The fuller version, with the reasoning, is in the page on keeping a leaking room safe until we arrive.

Do not unplug anything while standing in water, and do not touch an appliance that is wet. Do not switch a light on and off in a room where water is coming through the ceiling: use a torch. If a light fitting is dripping, treat it as live until someone has proved otherwise, and see the page on water through a light fitting.

Move belongings and contain the water

Once the supply is off and the electrics are dealt with, protect what can still be saved. Move things in a sensible order: anything electrical or valuable first, then documents and paper, then soft furnishings, then rugs and small furniture. Lift things up onto a bed or a table rather than carrying them across a wet floor, and wear shoes with a grip.

Containing water is about directing it, not fighting it. Put a bucket or a bowl under a steady drip, and a towel or a folded blanket around it to stop splash. Lay towels in a line where water is running across a floor so it stops at the line rather than reaching the skirting and the next room. Empty containers before they are full, and carry them in two hands, half full, rather than risk a slip with a heavy one.

If the water is coming through a ceiling, move everything out from under the wet patch and keep people out of that area. A ceiling that is holding water can fail without warning, and plaster is heavy. Do not poke a bulge unless there is no other option, and then only from the side, into a bucket, and never near a light fitting.

Photograph, note the times, then ring

Photographs are quick and they are worth taking before you move anything you do not have to. Take one wide shot of the room, one close shot of the damage with a coin beside it for scale, one of the stop tap and one of the water meter if you have one. Stand where it is dry. No picture is worth standing in water for. The full list, in the order an engineer reads a scene, is on the leak photo checklist, and the page on what to record before the engineer arrives explains why each one helps.

Write the times on a scrap of paper or in your phone: when you first noticed the water, when you closed the stop tap, and when you rang. Keep a pencil mark on the edge of any damp patch with the time beside it.

Then make the call. Say where the water is coming from if you know, whether the stop tap is closed, whether anything electrical is wet, how many floors it has reached and whether you are in a flat or a house. If you cannot say where the water is coming from, say that. A clear description saves the first ten minutes of the visit.

Call now, or can it wait

After the first hour you will know which of two situations you are in. If the water has stopped, nothing electrical is wet, the damp has not spread and a bowl is catching the last of it, the leak can often wait until morning. If any of those is not true, call now. The four-question checker walks through this in order, and the page on whether a leak can wait until morning gives the full decision.

What happens once you have rung

Tell the person you ring what you have already done. It lets them plan the visit around what is left. When the engineer attends, the job is the same whatever the hour: find where the water is coming from, stop it, and then either fix a small thing on the spot or stop the leak and give you a written quote for the larger repair. A small fix, such as tightening a fitting or changing a small part, is done on the spot once the leak is found. For a longer repair the leak is stopped first, and the repair is quoted in writing after that.

Emergency attendance is from £220 an hour, charged for the time worked. A fixed hourly rate quoted before we attend and never exceeded, and no call-out fee and no travel charge: the rate starts when work starts. No VAT is charged. Where a repair is needed, repair work runs at the same hourly rate as detection, with parts and materials costed on top and agreed before we start. If the damage needs making good afterwards, making good, such as walls, ceilings and decorating, is quoted per job by a partner team. The full picture is on the pricing page, and the page on what the engineer does on arrival describes the visit step by step.

What not to do in the first hour

Most of the harm in a burst pipe comes from the decisions made in a panic. These are the ones to resist.

• Do not force a stiff stop tap with a wrench or a long lever. A snapped valve turns a drip into a flood.
• Do not wrap tape around the break and assume it is fixed. Tape slows a leak for a while and then fails, often at night when no one is watching.
• Do not stand in water to reach a switch, a socket or the consumer unit.
• Do not use a mains wet vacuum or any plug-in appliance near standing water.
• Do not wipe, paint or dry the damage before you have photographed it.
• Do not pierce a bulging ceiling or wall unless you have no other choice, and never near a light fitting.
• Do not light a naked flame to see in the dark. If you can smell gas at any point, leave the property and ring the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999. A gas smell comes before any water problem.
• Do not assume the break is where the water appears. Water travels along pipes, joists and boards, and the visible stain is often some distance from the source.

A worked example: a split hose under the kitchen sink

It is half past ten at night. You hear water running and find the cupboard under the sink full and the floor wet to the doorway. The flexible hose to the kitchen tap has split.

You kneel on a dry patch and close the stop tap, which is behind the plinth under the sink. The sound of running water stops after a few seconds. You write down the time. You open the cold tap at the sink and the one in the bathroom to empty the pipes. The consumer unit is in the hall, dry to reach, but the floor between you and it is wet, so you step around the edge and leave the power on, because nothing electrical is near the water and the kettle is on the far side of the room.

You lift the toaster and the kettle onto a worktop, lay towels along the doorway, put a bowl under the split hose and move the bin out of the cupboard. You photograph the cupboard, the hose, the wet floor and the stop tap, and read the meter.

The water has stopped, nothing electrical is wet and it has not spread, so this can usually wait until morning. You leave the stop tap closed, mark the edge of the wet patch with a pencil and the time, and ring in the morning with the photographs. If the patch had spread, the answer would have been to call now.