Home › Burst Pipes
Take a breath, neighbour. The next five minutes matter far more than the next five hours, and every one of them is something you can do yourself.
What do we do about a burst pipe right now? Close the main stopcock — usually under the kitchen sink — then open the cold taps to drain the pipes, and cut the electrics at the consumer unit if water's anywhere near them and it's safe to reach. Once the flow has stopped, ring 020 4577 2888 and we'll put you through to a local plumber, any hour of the day or night.
Water off, taps open, electrics safe, heating off, then the phone. In that order — the towels come last, not first.
The instinct is to chase the water with whatever's nearest to hand in the airing cupboard. Resist it for thirty seconds — nothing gets better until the pipe stops being fed:
If a tap slowed to a dribble in freezing weather and the leak turned up as things thawed — almost certainly, yes. Keep the water off and don't warm anything else up just yet.
It's a familiar pattern here: a soft, damp spell, then a hard frost slides down off Binevenagh overnight, and the freeze blocks a pipe quietly somewhere it was never lagged. The split itself often happens without a sound — the flood only shows up once the thaw sets in. Lofts, garages, outbuildings and pipes buried in outside walls are the usual victims, and farms and older houses out toward Feeny, Dungiven and Drumsurn, with their long exposed supply runs, tend to get it worst.
If you've caught a pipe that's frozen but hasn't split yet, count yourself lucky and go gently: stopcock off first as insurance, then a hairdryer on its lowest setting or towels soaked in warm water, working along the pipe. A naked flame is never the answer — not a blowtorch, not a lighter, not once. And if the pipe has already split, stop thawing altogether — leave the water off and ring us, because melting the ice with the mains still on simply books your flood in for an hour's time.
You can slow it down; you can't fix it. Repair tape or a pipe clamp on a drained pipe is a fair stopgap — turning the water back on afterwards is the mistake.
Self-amalgamating tape or a slip-on repair clamp will hold a small split well enough to stop the dripping while you wait, and there's no harm trying one. The trouble starts when the patch gives someone the confidence to reopen the stopcock — a taped joint against mains pressure is a bet you'll usually lose, often at an hour when nobody wants to be mopping a kitchen floor.
Take extra care in the older houses along and behind Main Street. Their pipework has often been spliced together in stages over decades — lead into copper into plastic — and the joint next to the one you've just patched may be every bit as tired. Disturb one and you can easily spring another. Leave the water off, treat your patch as a courtesy to the carpet rather than a repair, and let the plumber make the fix that actually holds.
One test tells you: close your stopcock and watch. Leak stops — it's your side. Water keeps coming, or it's rising outside — it's likely the supply pipe or the mains.
The general split across the UK works like this: everything from the property boundary into and through your home is the owner's to fix, while the public mains beyond the boundary belongs to the water utility — here in Northern Ireland, that's NI Water. Water bubbling up through a footpath, a soaked verge outside your gate, or a leak that carries on regardless of your closed stopcock all point to the public side, and NI Water is the right call for a suspected mains leak.
The grey area is the supply pipe between the boundary and your walls — usually the owner's responsibility, and a common culprit on the rural stretches out toward Drumsurn and Feeny where a long private run crosses a field or a lane. A plumber can help you work out which side of the boundary the trouble sits on, and will tell you plainly when a fix isn't theirs to sell you.
Start under the kitchen sink — that's where it sits in most Limavady homes, including the terraces along and off Main Street. If it's not there, check wherever the supply pipe enters the house: a hall cupboard, utility room, garage or under the stairs. Out toward Dungiven, Feeny or Drumsurn there's often an outside stop valve too, under a small cover near the boundary. If yours won't turn, don't force it until it snaps — a plumber can free or replace it.
If the burst is on the heating or hot water side, or you've emptied the system by opening the cold taps, yes — leave the boiler off until a plumber has had a look. A boiler firing with little or no water in the system can damage itself, and then you're paying for two repairs instead of one.
Many UK buildings policies cover escape-of-water damage, but the excess and the small print vary a good deal, and damage judged to be gradual wear and tear can be treated differently. Read your own policy, tell your insurer promptly, and photograph everything before you start mopping up — those photos are your evidence.
Stopcock off first, then electricity off at the consumer unit if you can reach it safely — never touch a switch or fitting that's wet. Keep well clear of any ceiling that's sagging badly. If there's just a small bulge, piercing it gently with something thin over a bucket lets the water down in a controlled way instead of all at once.
The main page — how the line works and the areas it covers.
Go to home →Pressure drops, no heat, error codes — and gas safety.
Read the letter →What to try yourself and when it's the sewer, not your drain.
Read the letter →Honest ballparks and the questions to ask before work starts.
Read the letter →Pressure, controls, the immersion — the checks before you call.
Read the letter →Thawing safely with gentle heat — and the lagging that prevents it.
Read the letter →Damp patches, dropping pressure and the stopcock test.
Read the letter →Ring any hour and we'll put you through to a local plumber covering Limavady and the Roe Valley round about.
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