Emergency call-out
Turning Your Water Off: Where the Stopcock Is and What to Do Next
Closing your stopcock stops the water reaching the leak. In most post-war London homes it sits under the kitchen sink; in Victorian and Edwardian stock, a hall cupboard, under the stairs, or the cellar head. Turn it clockwise, then open the lowest cold tap to drain the pipes above the leak. A handle that will not move should not be forced — call Rillwater Plumbing & Heating before the spindle snaps.
- Close the stopcock — usually under the kitchen sink.
- Open the cold taps to drain the pipework down.
- Move what you can out from under the leak, and photograph it.
- Directly employed engineers, not subcontractors
- Fixed price agreed before work starts
- No charge for the visit if you decline the quote
- Written workmanship guarantee on completion
Are you in an area we attend?
Enter a postcode and we will tell you before you call.
We attend 16 London boroughs: Islington, Camden, Westminster, Hackney, Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham, Wandsworth, Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham, Tower Hamlets, Greenwich, Croydon, Bromley, Barnet, Ealing.
Where is my stopcock?
Look under the kitchen sink first: that is the location in most post-war London housing. In Victorian and Edwardian stock it sits in a hall cupboard, under the stairs, or in the cellar head. Flats often have one inside the entrance cupboard.
| Property | Usual position | Second place to look |
|---|---|---|
| Post-war house or maisonette | Under the kitchen sink, at the back behind the waste trap | A downstairs cloakroom or a utility room |
| Victorian or Edwardian terrace | Hall cupboard, under the stairs, or the cellar head | Under a floor hatch just inside the front door |
| Converted flat | Inside the entrance cupboard serving that flat | Under the kitchen sink, or in a boxed riser |
| Purpose-built block or mansion block | A communal riser cupboard on the landing | Inside the flat, on the branch after the riser tee |
| Basement conversion | Cellar head, at the point the supply enters the building | Under the lowest ground-floor sink |
The internal stopcock is the valve that isolates the whole property’s cold supply, and every dwelling has one. It sits at the point the supply pipe enters the building, which is why it follows the front wall in a terrace and the kitchen in a post-war house. A brass body with a red or blue crutch handle is the commonest pattern; a chrome lever on a quarter-turn body is the modern replacement.
Which way does it turn?
Clockwise closes it, the same direction as a tap. Turn it until it stops without forcing it further. Run a cold tap afterwards to confirm the flow has stopped, because a partly closed valve still passes water.
A quarter-turn lever valve is the exception to the count of turns rather than to the direction: the lever moves through ninety degrees and ends across the pipe when closed, in line with it when open.
What do I do straight after closing it?
Open the lowest cold tap in the property to drain the pipework above the leak, then the remaining cold taps. Move what you can from beneath the water and photograph the damage before anything is mopped or dried.
- Open the lowest cold tap in the building — a ground-floor kitchen or a cellar tap — and let it run until the flow dies.
- Open the remaining cold taps, working upward through the property.
- Move furniture, boxes and anything absorbent out from under the water.
- Photograph every wet surface before a towel or a dehumidifier touches it.
Draining from the bottom uses gravity to empty the run the closed valve no longer feeds. A gravity-fed property adds one step: the cold water storage tank in the loft keeps feeding the taps and the hot cylinder for several minutes after the stopcock closes, so the flow tails off rather than stopping outright.
The stopcock will not turn — what now?
Stop before you break it: a snapped spindle floods what you were protecting. Close the external boundary stopcock instead, or call and we will isolate it. A seized valve is replaced afterwards, not forced during the emergency.
Seizure is a scale problem. A valve left in one position for years in a hard-water supply grows a deposit across the seat and the spindle thread, and the force needed to break that deposit is close to the force that shears the spindle. A sheared spindle leaves the valve open permanently and removes the only isolation point inside the property.
Two routes exist while the water is running. The boundary stopcock at the property line closes the supply from outside, and it needs a stopcock key rather than a hand. An engineer isolating the property does the same job with the right tools and replaces the seized valve once the emergency is over. Neither route involves persuading a stuck handle with a wrench.
Where is the outside stopcock?
Under a small metal or plastic cover at the property boundary, often at the pavement edge. It sits deeper than arm’s length and needs a stopcock key. The water company owns everything on its far side.
The cover is a round or rectangular plate roughly the size of a hand, set flush into the footway, the front path or the verge, and frequently under gravel or a paving slab laid over it. Below it is a vertical guard pipe with the valve at the bottom, and a stopcock key is a long shaft with a socket that reaches it. Terraced properties sometimes share one chamber between two houses, so closing it affects a neighbour as well.
Should I test it before something goes wrong?
Turn it fully closed and open again twice a year. A valve that is never operated seizes with scale, and the moment you discover that is the moment water is running. Two minutes now replaces a much larger job later.
Most of London is supplied with hard water, which deposits scale on every wetted surface including a valve seat. Operating the valve twice a year breaks that deposit before it consolidates. Turn it fully closed, run a cold tap to prove it, then open it fully again and back off a quarter turn so the spindle does not bind at the open stop.
Where we attend emergencies
Emergencies are attended in Barnet, Bromley, Camden, Croydon, Ealing, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth and Westminster, 24 hours a day on 07446 375079. The line is answered by an engineer, who talks a caller through isolation while another travels. An address outside the sixteen boroughs is told so on the call.
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Rillwater Plumbing & Heating
32 Northampton Square, London EC1V 0ES
Telephone 07446 375079
Mo-Su 00:00-23:59
Telephone answered 24 hours for emergencies.