Home › Burst Pipes
A burst pipe punishes hesitation more than any other household fault. Here's the order of moves, graded by urgency, and what each one buys you.
Water escaping right now? Stopcock off — clockwise until it stops, usually under the kitchen sink. Open every cold tap to drain the pipework. Water near sockets or lights? Consumer unit off, but only if you can reach it without standing in water. Then ring 020 4577 2888 any hour to be connected with a local plumber.
Supply, pressure, electrics, boiler, phone — in that order. Don't chase the water with towels first; stop it at source.
In winter, usually yes — and the flood often arrives with the thaw, not the freeze. A tap slowing to a dribble in cold weather is your early warning.
Ice is a quiet saboteur: water expands as it freezes and can split copper without spilling a drop, because the plug of ice seals its own damage. Then a mild day arrives — and in the north-west the mild day always arrives — the plug melts, and January's freeze becomes February's flood. The pipes at risk are the ones in the cold margins: lofts, garages, outbuildings, external walls, and long rural supply runs out towards Claudy or Eglinton.
If you catch a pipe frozen but not yet burst, shut the stopcock as a precaution and thaw it gently — hairdryer on low, warm towels, a heated room, working from the tap end back. Never a flame. And when the first thaw of spring comes, walk the house with suspicious eyes: fresh damp patches, a hiss behind a wall, a stain on the ceiling below the loft. Caught early it's a repair; caught late it's a redecoration.
A modest patch on a drained pipe: fine. Repressurising against tape: a gamble. Keep the water off and let the patch be temporary in fact as well as name.
Pipe repair tape or a slip-on clamp can hold a small split on a drained pipe overnight, and there's no shame in a tidy stopgap that keeps a household running. But it is a stopgap. Turning the mains back on against a taped joint asks a bandage to do a surgeon's job, and in older Derry terraces — where pipework of several generations meets at tired joints — disturbing one fragile fitting can spring a second leak alongside the first.
The triage rule: water off, patch modest, permanent repair left to the professional. Tell the plumber what you've patched and with what — it changes how they approach the joint.
One test settles most cases: close your stopcock. Leak stops — your side. Water keeps coming — possibly the supply pipe or the public main.
As a general rule, the pipework from the property boundary into the house is the owner's responsibility, while the public main beyond it belongs to NI Water — and leaks on the public side are worth reporting to them rather than paying to fix yourself. Water welling up out of the ground outside, or a leak that carries on with your stopcock closed, points to the supply side.
Whether you're in a city terrace or a rural property with a long private supply run, a plumber can help you establish which side of the boundary the fault sits on before anyone starts digging — which is exactly the kind of question worth asking on the first call.
Close the stopcock first as a precaution, then warm the frozen run gently — a hairdryer on its lowest setting, towels soaked in warm water, or simply heating the room. Work from the tap end back towards the blockage, and never bring a blowtorch or any naked flame near a pipe. If the pipe has already split, keep the water off and call a plumber.
Many UK buildings policies include escape-of-water cover, but excesses and conditions differ, and damage attributed to wear and tear or a long-ignored fault may be treated differently. Read your own policy, notify the insurer promptly, and photograph everything before you start clearing up.
Stopcock off, then electricity off at the consumer unit if you can reach it safely — never touch wet switches or fittings. Keep out from under any badly sagging plaster. If a small bulge has formed, piercing it with something thin over a bucket releases the water in a controlled trickle rather than a collapse.
Close your stopcock and watch. If the leak stops, the fault is on your side. If water keeps coming, or is rising out of the ground outside, the trouble may be on the supply pipe or the public main — the public side is NI Water's responsibility, and mains-side leaks are worth reporting to them. A plumber can help you establish which side of the boundary it sits on.
The main page — the triage board and the areas this line covers.
Go to home →Pressure drops, no heat, error codes — and the gas rule.
Read the guide →What to try, what never to pour, and when it's NI Water's sewer.
Read the guide →No invented prices — how charging works and what to ask first.
Read the guide →Pressure, timer, tripped switch, diverter valve — the checks before the call.
Read the guide →Prevention that costs pennies, thawing that doesn't end in a flood.
Read the guide →The signs, the stopcock test, and when a damp patch turns urgent.
Read the guide →Ring any hour to be connected with a local plumber covering Derry and the villages around it.
Call now