Is a Burst Pipe an Emergency? What to Do Tonight

Is a burst pipe an emergency?

Most burst pipes are emergencies, but not all of them stay that way. The word covers a split in a pipe that is spraying water across a kitchen, and it also covers a pinhole that wept into a cupboard for a week before anyone noticed. The first is a call-now situation. The second may not be.

What decides it is not the size of the hole. It is whether water is still arriving, whether you can stop it yourself and whether it is reaching something that cannot get wet. Water that is flowing is moving every minute, into floors, behind skirting and down into the room below. Water that has stopped is damage that already happened, and the question becomes how fast it needs assessing.

The table sets the common situations side by side. Read the row that looks most like what you are seeing, then follow the first steps in the next section whatever the verdict, because they cost nothing and keep every option open.

What to do in the first few minutes

The same short sequence applies whichever row you matched. It reduces the water first and then protects people and belongings. Stop at any step that would mean standing in water or reaching near something electrical that is wet.

• Shut off the water supply at the stop tap, usually under the kitchen sink or where the pipe comes into the house. Turn it clockwise until it stops. If it will not move, do not hit it or force it with a tool. Leave it and tell whoever you call.
• Open the cold taps at the highest and lowest points of the house to empty the pipework, which takes the pressure off the split.
• If the burst is on a hot or heating pipe, turn the heating off at the programmer and the immersion heater off at its own switch, but only if you can reach them without standing in water.
• If water is near electrics, do not touch anything electrical that is wet. Switch off at the consumer unit only if it is dry and safe to reach, and ring an electrician or your electricity network if you are not sure.
• Move people, pets and valuables away from the wet area and lift what you can off the floor.
• Catch the flow with a bucket or a bowl, and put towels where water is travelling. Empty containers before they overflow.
• Photograph the pipe, the wet area and the surroundings before you move anything, and write down the time you shut the supply off.

What attending a burst pipe costs

The rate for attending an active leak is from £220 an hour, and it applies at night, at weekends and on bank holidays. It is a fixed hourly rate quoted before we attend and never exceeded. No VAT is charged. The exact rate is stated when you book, before anyone sets off.

No call-out fee and no travel charge: the rate starts when work starts. The cost of a visit is therefore the rate multiplied by the hours spent on your pipe. A burst under a sink in plain view is a short job. One behind a tiled wall, or one that has run for hours into a floor, takes longer because the first task is to be sure where the water has gone. The pricing page lists every rate, and the emergency leak repair page explains how a repair is priced after the leak is stopped.

Can I call someone at night for a burst pipe or a leak?

Yes. A burst pipe is exactly the kind of call that is worth making at night, and it is the situation this service exists for. We cover London inside the M25, 24/7, and an engineer attends a leak that cannot wait.

What the engineer does is narrower than what a general plumber might offer, and it is better to know that before you ring. We find the source, stop the leak and fix a small job on the spot, such as tightening a fitting or changing a small part. For a longer repair the leak is stopped first, and the repair is quoted in writing after that. The point of that order is that the water stops tonight even when the permanent repair is a bigger job.

We deal with water leaks only. If what you have is a boiler fault, a gas problem or a general plumbing job with no leak in it, this is not the right call. If you smell gas, ring the National Gas Emergency Service first.

Visible burst, slow burst, thawed pipe: three different problems

The phrase burst pipe hides three situations that behave differently, and telling them apart tells you how much hurry there is.

A visible burst is a split pipe or a blown joint you can see, flowing at supply pressure. It puts a lot of water on a floor quickly. It is a call-now case unless the supply is off and the area is dry.

A slow burst is a small failure that has been running quietly. It might be a pinhole in an old copper pipe, a joint that has loosened or a flexible hose that has started to weep. You find it as a stain, a damp smell, a swollen skirting board or a floor that feels soft. The water is not pouring, but it has often been arriving for days. That makes it less urgent tonight and more serious in total, because the structure around it is already wet. The test is whether the stain is growing, and a pencil line with a time beside it answers that.

A frozen pipe that has thawed is the one that catches people out. Ice can split a pipe without any water escaping, because the ice is still plugging the gap. The split only shows once the ice melts and the supply pushes water through it. If you found a frozen pipe and the house has warmed up, treat any sudden wet patch as a burst pipe. The freeze and thaw leak page covers that case in more detail.

What is urgent at 11pm and what is not

Late at night the instinct is to treat everything as urgent, and the opposite instinct is to hope it will keep. A short list of what moves a situation into each camp helps.

These make a burst pipe urgent tonight.

• You cannot shut the water off, or it keeps flowing after the stop tap is closed.
• Water is near anything electrical, including sockets, fittings, appliances and the fuse board.
• Water is going through a ceiling or a floor into another room, a flat below or a neighbour.
• A ceiling is bulging, sagging or dripping steadily.
• The water is hot or it is coming from the heating system, which can keep refilling a leak.
• You cannot contain the flow with a bucket and towels.

When the leak is contained and the supply is off

These are the conditions in which waiting until morning is a reasonable decision. They all need to be true, not just most of them.

The supply is shut off and no water is arriving. Nothing electrical is wet and the electrics in the area are not affected. The damp has not spread beyond the room it started in, and you have marked its edge so you can tell in the morning whether it moved. You can live with the supply off until someone attends, which means filling a kettle and a few bottles before you close the stop tap. Nobody in the home is relying on running water for a medical reason or because of a baby or a vulnerable person.

If a single one of those fails, the decision changes. A leak that waits is still a leak, and a quick check before you go to bed costs nothing. Look at the container, the stain and the pencil mark. If any of them has moved, ring.

When to turn off the supply to the whole house

Closing the stop tap isolates the whole property, and for a burst pipe that is the right first move almost every time. Small valves on a toilet supply, under a basin or on the washing machine feed can isolate one fitting, but use them only when you can see that fitting is the source and the valve closes fully. Otherwise shut off everything.

Leave the whole supply off if the leak is inside a wall, under a floor or above a ceiling and you cannot see the pipe. A concealed burst keeps running into the structure, and it is the one most likely to be bigger than it looks.

The first-hour steps for a pipe that is moving fast are on the burst pipe first hour page, and the who to call page covers the choice of who to ring.

Protecting the property while you wait

Once the supply is off, the work shifts to limiting what the water has already done. None of this needs tools.

Lift rugs, bags, boxes and soft furnishings off wet floors and move them to a dry room. Water wicks upward, so a cardboard box that is standing in an inch of water will be wet through to the top in no time. Pull furniture away from wet walls so air can reach them. Open interior doors to let air move, and open a window if the room is not near the wet area and it is safe to do so.

Take photographs and a short video of the area before you move anything, and again once you have. The photographs help the engineer and help any later claim.

What not to do with a burst pipe

Most of the avoidable harm in the first hour comes from well-meant actions. These are the ones to skip.

Do not wrap a split in tape or a rag and assume it is dealt with. Tape slows a drip and then lets go without warning, usually when nobody is watching it. Do not keep turning the supply back on to see if it has stopped, because each time the pressure comes back it widens the split a little.

Do not heat a frozen pipe with a naked flame, and do not assume the pipe you can see is the leaking one, because water travels. Do not poke or pierce a bulging ceiling unless water is about to bring it down, and never near a light fitting. Do not use a wet vacuum or any mains appliance near standing water. Do not touch a wet socket or switch, and do not use the lights in a room where water is coming through the ceiling.

What the engineer does when they arrive

A visit follows a fixed order, whatever the time. The engineer asks what you saw and when, looks at the photographs and the wet area, and checks that the water supply and the electrics near the leak are safe before working.

The next job is finding the source. For a visible burst that is quick. For a concealed one it can mean moisture mapping to follow the wettest line back to where the water starts, thermal imaging to show cold, wet areas behind a surface, acoustic listening on the pipe or a tracer gas test along the run. The method is chosen to suit the symptoms and explained before it is used.

Once the source is found the leak is stopped, by isolating a pipe section or closing a valve, so the rest of the supply can usually come back on. 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. Repair work runs at the same hourly rate as detection, with parts and materials costed on top and agreed before we start. No VAT is charged.

Making good, such as walls, ceilings and decorating, is quoted per job by a partner team. The engineer finds and stops the water and does not take on the making good. The how it works page walks through the visit from the first call.

Tell your insurer, and know when it is a water company problem

Most home and landlord policies cover sudden water damage, but the terms differ, and many require prompt notice. Ring the insurer or the emergency helpline on your policy as early as is practical, even if you do not yet know the cause. Keep damaged items until they have been seen or you have been told you can throw them away, keep the photographs and times, and ask before you agree to any large repair that is not about stopping the damage.

Some burst pipes are not on your side of the boundary. The main in the street is the water company's responsibility. The pipe that runs from the boundary to your property is normally yours. If water is coming up through the pavement or the road outside, or the meter box is flooded and the stop tap in the house is dry and closed, report it to your water company and tell the engineer.

We attend leaks inside and on the supply to your property. A leak that proves to be a neighbour's, a communal riser's or the water company's main is still located and stopped as far as access allows. Where a leak is in that category, the detection time is chargeable. The boundaries of the free case are set out on the no find, no fee page. No find, no fee waives the detection fee only when a live leak inside your own property cannot be located.