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You can hear water where there should be none. Stay with this page — it walks the whole first hour, one minute at a time, and nothing on it needs tools.
The one-line answer: turn the water off at the main stopcock first — before towels, before phone calls — then open the cold taps, cut electrics near the water if it is safe, and ring 020 4577 2888 to be connected with a local plumber, any hour.
Do not chase the water. Go straight to the stopcock and turn it clockwise until it will not turn any further. Under the kitchen sink is the first place to look; in the stone-built older houses around the centre of town it may instead be in a hall cupboard, under the stairs, in a floor recess or a cellar, and some properties have an outside stop valve under a small cover near the boundary. If the handle is stiff, wrap a cloth around it and use steady, even pressure — snapping the spindle turns one emergency into two.
Supply off. The pipe can only spill what is already in it now — the worst is over.
Open every cold tap in the house. This empties the pipework quickly and takes the remaining pressure off the split, so the leak slows to a dribble and stops. While the taps run, look at what the water has touched. Anywhere it has reached sockets, appliances or light fittings, switch the electricity off at the consumer unit — but only if you can reach it without standing in water. Wet electrics stay off until someone qualified says otherwise.
If the burst is on the heating or hot water side — or you have just drained the system — switch the boiler off as well. A boiler running on an emptying system can damage itself, and it loses you nothing to leave it off for a few hours.
Two quick diagnostics before you pick up the phone. First: with the stopcock shut, has the flow actually stopped? If water keeps coming — or is rising up outside the house — the fault may be on the supply pipe or the mains side rather than your own pipework. Leaks on the public side of the boundary are Scottish Water's territory, and the plumber can help you work out which side of the line you are on. Second: in a hard central-Scotland frost, ask whether the pipe froze and split. A tap that faded to a dribble before the leak appeared is the classic sign, and lofts, garages and pipe runs on external walls are the usual victims.
Now call. Say where the water came from, how fast it came, what you have switched off, and what kind of house it is — a stone terrace re-plumbed over decades and a new-build on a commuter estate are different jobs. You will get an honest arrival estimate based on workload and distance, and you can ask about the call-out fee and hourly rate before agreeing to anything.
Move furniture, rugs and electronics away from the wet. Photograph every damaged room and item before you tidy — insurers ask for evidence, and the photos cost nothing. Towels down, windows open, and if a ceiling below the leak is bulging, keep everyone out from under it; a small hole pierced in the bulge with a bucket underneath drains it gently instead of letting the plasterboard decide its own moment. Resist the urge to re-open the stopcock to test anything — a taped or clamped split is a stopgap on a drained pipe, not a repair, and repressurising against it is a gamble not worth taking.
Once the repair is made, keep the drying going for days, not hours — trapped moisture in floors and walls does its damage quietly. Log the claim with your insurer while photos and receipts are fresh, label the stopcock so the next person can find it in seconds, and before the next frost, insulate whichever cold-space pipe run just taught you this lesson.
Older stone-built homes have often been re-plumbed more than once, so the stopcock can be in a hall cupboard, under the stairs, in a cellar or floor recess, or outside under a small cover near the boundary. Newer homes on the commuter estates almost always keep it under the kitchen sink. Find yours on a quiet day if you can — mid-flood is the worst time to go looking.
If the burst is on the heating or hot water side, or you have drained the system through the cold taps, switch the boiler off until a plumber has seen it. Running a boiler on an empty or part-empty system can damage it, and it costs nothing to leave it off for a few hours.
Many UK buildings policies cover escape-of-water damage, but excesses and conditions vary, and damage put down to gradual wear can be treated differently. Photograph everything before you tidy up, keep any split pipe sections the plumber removes, and tell your insurer promptly. Check your own policy rather than assuming.
Water off at the stopcock, electricity off at the consumer unit if you can reach it safely, and keep everyone away from a sagging ceiling. If a bulge is holding water, piercing a small hole with a bucket underneath lets it drain in a controlled way instead of bringing the plasterboard down all at once.
The main page — the whole first hour on one clock, plus areas covered.
Go to home →Pressure, lockouts, frozen condensate pipes — and gas safety first.
Start the clock →One plughole or the whole house — how to tell, and what to try.
Start the clock →Honest ballparks and the questions to ask before work starts.
Read the guide →Pressure, timer, tripped switch — the safe checks before you call.
Start the clock →Gentle heat from the tap end — and the lagging that stops the next one.
Start the clock →Damp patches and dropping pressure — the honest stopcock test.
Start the clock →The clock is running but you are ahead of it. Ring now, any hour, to be connected with a local plumber covering Dunfermline and west Fife.
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