What to Do When You Have a Water Leak in Your Home

Find and use your stopcock first

Every home has a main stopcock, usually under the kitchen sink, near the incoming water main, or under the stairs. Turning it clockwise shuts off the water supply to the whole property. If you don't already know where yours is, find it today, before you need it in a hurry.

If the leak is coming from a specific appliance, such as a washing machine or a toilet, there's often an isolation valve nearby that lets you cut the water to just that fitting without affecting the rest of the house.

It's worth testing your stopcock occasionally even when nothing is wrong. Valves that haven't been turned in years can seize, and discovering that during an actual leak wastes precious minutes. A firm quarter-turn back and forth once or twice a year keeps it moving freely.

Protect the property while you wait

• Move electrical items away from the water and switch off electricity to the affected area at the consumer unit if water is near sockets or light fittings
• Catch dripping water in buckets or bowls and lay down towels to limit spread
• If water is bulging a ceiling, pierce it carefully into a bucket to release pressure and prevent a larger collapse
• Photograph the damage for insurance purposes before you start mopping up
• Move furniture, rugs and any valuables away from the affected area to reduce further loss
• Open a window if practical to help air circulate and slow the onset of damp

Work out where the water is coming from

Leaks aren't always where the damage appears. Water can travel along joists and pipework before dripping somewhere completely different, so a stain on a downstairs ceiling might be a leak from a bathroom several feet above upstairs.

Common sources include failed pipe joints, worn tap washers, perished appliance hoses, cracked cistern components and, less obviously, condensation from poorly insulated pipework in cold spaces like lofts. Flexible tap connectors under sinks are a particularly common culprit, as the rubber inside them hardens and splits with age, often without any obvious external sign until it fails.

If you can see the source clearly, note whether it's a steady drip, a constant trickle, or water under pressure, as this helps whoever you call assess urgency over the phone.

When it's a job for a professional

A dripping tap or a slow trickle you can control isn't an emergency, but it should still be looked at before it gets worse or the fitting fails completely. A leak you can't stop with the stopcock, water coming through light fittings, or any leak near your consumer unit needs prompt attention.

Leaks involving a boiler, gas appliance or anything connected to a flue should always be left to a Gas Safe registered engineer, even if the leak itself looks like a plumbing issue such as a dripping pipe near the unit. Disturbing gas-connected pipework yourself, even accidentally while trying to fix a nearby leak, is not something to risk.

What an engineer checks and in what order

• Confirms the water is isolated and safe to work near before inspecting further
• Traces the leak back from the visible damage to its actual source, which is often some distance away
• Checks the specific fitting or joint under pressure to see exactly where water is escaping
• Assesses whether the surrounding pipework or fitting is likely to fail again soon
• Repairs or replaces the failed part, then tests the system under normal pressure before leaving

Preventing the next one

• Have visible pipework and appliance connections checked periodically, particularly flexible hoses which perish with age
• Don't ignore small drips — a worn washer is a five-minute job now and a bigger repair later
• Insulate pipes in lofts and outbuildings before winter to reduce the risk of freezing and splitting
• Replace flexible tap connectors every few years as a precaution rather than waiting for one to fail

How to describe the fault when you call

When you ring for help, it speeds things up if you can say where the water is coming from, whether you've managed to stop it, how long it's been going on, and whether it's affecting electrics or a boiler. Mentioning any recent work on the pipework, such as a new appliance being plumbed in, also helps narrow down the likely cause before an engineer even arrives.