Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Property/DIY

Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

Original poster

Water leak between house and external stop cock. Terrified

30 replies

NoNoNoMYDoIt · 18/01/2015 15:01

Looking for reassurances

Found out on Friday after receiving £900 water bill that there is a leak somewhere between my internal stopcock and the external one at the metre.

The external one is at the top of my drive.

I have no idea where the leak is or where all the water is going.

Welsh water are coming out on Tuesday to try to locate the leak. The house is mortgaged but I have just taken a 40% pay cut to move to a local job to make life less complicated and reduce my travel. I wouldn't technically get my existing mortgage on my current salary so if I need thousands of pounds to sort this out I have no idea how I will do this. Does anyone have any experience of this sort of thing and what happens?

I'm terrified. I am a single mum and work full time. I have no spare cash.

OP posts:
PigletJohn · 18/01/2015 15:32

Yes

It would be interesting to know how old the house is

IME they may rebate the excess cost of the leaked water, and there may be a modest subsidy to the cost of replacing or repairing the pipe, especially if it is lead. Look on their website.

However, to get the lead replacement subsidy, you need them to take and test a sample of drinking water for lead content before it is replaced, and there is often no time to get it done.

Replacing a water pipe means digging a trench and putting a pipe in it, which any builder or labourer can do, with a bit of plumbing work to connect it at each end.

The trench has to be about 18" deep, they will inspect it before filling in if you do not use one if their approved contractors. It is more tiresome if there are concrete floors and drives to dig up or mole through.

PigletJohn · 18/01/2015 15:35

BTW if you do have to trench and lay a new pipe, have a blue plastic one of at least 25mm diameter, and preferably 32mm, end to end, which will give much better flow than your old half-inch pipe. The extra materials cost of a larger pipe is trifling, and the labour is the same.

VivaLeBeaver · 18/01/2015 15:43

You might be covered by a "beyond the box" agreement. Not sure if it's the same for Wales but iirc it became mandatory in England for the water companies to do repairs up to the foundations even on your land. Certainly the case where I live.

VivaLeBeaver · 18/01/2015 15:47

Yes. Mir you google Welsh water code they will do one repair every thee years free for you.

VivaLeBeaver · 18/01/2015 15:49

You also get a refund of the water bill caused by the leak.

VivaLeBeaver · 18/01/2015 15:49

This is all if your supply pipe is 15m or shorter.

Eminybob · 18/01/2015 15:55

Try claiming on your home insurance. Escape of water is usually covered. It might be worth calling them before anyone else comes out as they may only use their own people.

roneik · 18/01/2015 16:01

First you will probably find that the leak is coming form a old lead pipe. I had exactly the same problem with a bungalow I owned in Glyneath years ago. The leak was under the drive way. You will find it very difficult to join up to any lead pipe because the fittings are near non existent.The water board then wanted about 650 to do the job so double that and more now. You will probably find that a lot of the subsoil has washed away. You need the pipe to be much lower than piglet has indicated because of the harsher weather in Wales. I would say 3ft under (especially on high ground). If you look carefully at your drive you may well see a dip where the leak is located, as it may well have washed away a great deal of the sub surface. I bought a builders bag of sand and got rid of a mass of rubble into the hole. It's not until you dig down that you realize the amount of materiel that has washed away.
I renewed the lot and the hard part was the digging. Cant you get someone you know to do the groundwork? By the way the driveway was long and this all happened during the winter. I was living in Essex and going down at the weekends, I was going to do it up and live in it when I retired. By the way the pipe and fittings and the sand did not cost more than about a hundred quid. It's only graft and a couple of compression joints. I would ask around and try to get someone local. It was blood hard digging the old pipe up.

roneik · 18/01/2015 16:10

Forgot if it was a heavy leak it would probably show on the surface at any lower part. Quite possibly in a neighbors garden. I would not upset yourself over it. As I said someone local would probably be pleased to earn some money doing the groundwork. Hopefully as things have changed regarding charging you may be covered

specialsubject · 18/01/2015 16:38

speak to your house insurers. Escape of water now has a £250 excess on most policies.

but as others note, the water company may be paying anyway.

roneik · 18/01/2015 16:48

Failing that buy a spade even and as well as
I am surprised none have advised turning it into a water featureGrin

Skinflint landlords would probably tie up their houseboat and get a few more immigrants into the trough

BlueStringPudding · 18/01/2015 16:51

Check with your home insurance company. We weren't on a meter but had a leak and discovered our external stopcock was a way down the main road. It was complicated as the pipes ran under someone else's land, and in the end we had a new water supply put in at a cost of £3000. The Home insurance covered it..

GertrudePerkins · 18/01/2015 17:00

i had this exact thing last summer
home insurance will typically cover trace and access (ie finding the repair) and making good (filling in lost subsoil, repaving etc) but NOT the repair itself, as this is due to wear and tear. This little lot cost us the best part of a grand, but insurance covered all but about £150 plus our excess. some water companies do this kind of thing free or subsidised. not ours though Angry.

you will get away with just fixing a small section of pipe - you don't need to have the whole thing replaced. Ultimately we did decide to have our supply pipe upgraded as ours was 120year old lead, and bound to go again, but if your piping is newer and otherwise in good nick you wouldn't necessarily need to upgrade. our upgrade cost £1200, not covered by insurance.

the job is most digging as others have said, so cheaper if you can find a labourer to work with your plumber, rather than paying plumber's rates for digging all day IYSWIM.

wonkylegs · 18/01/2015 17:30

If you have a long drive it may be worth considering a guy with a moleing machine. We had our lead water main replaced last year (not in an emergency but because we wanted to get rid of the lead & increase water pressure)
Instead of digging a trench the dug holes at each end of the drive and one where it branches off for the garage and then we had ours moled - machine digs under the surface and feeds the replacement pipe in. Ours cost £710 but we felt the guy charged too little as our drive was a nightmare due to hard clay soil so took an extra day)so gave him £800. They don't remove the old pipe just lay a new one in parallel and connect up the ends.
Ours is a very long drive 40m so it's a lot of pipe.

Original poster
NoNoNoMYDoIt · 18/01/2015 17:38

Thank you all. The house is 1970 I think. I live right at the top of the hill but my house is set down at the bottom of my drive which is quite steep. If the leak is on the drive I would expect the water tone pooling at the bottom of my drive and it isn't. There is a bit of a dip in the drive but not much.

Welsh water say they will endeavour to trace and repair on their website. But I assume they won't replace my drive for me or anything else if they need to dig it all up. I had the drive put in 3 years ago. Cost me a couple of grand Hmm

The worst is the uncertainty. I think my policy covers water damage as long as it isn't accidental damage caused by someone doing something wrong. It is a very cheap policy tho so I am.a bit scared it will be rubbish.

I am terrified of costs I can't pay and also damage to the foundations of my house;apparently we are talking swimming pools full of water which have escaped.

I'm can't do any digging myself. I am so clueless plus I have 2 kids to mind and am on my own.

OP posts:
roneik · 18/01/2015 18:00

GertrudePerkins there are three different weights for half inch lead pipe alone.You would need to establish which one you have. It will be very old by now as lead has been banned for potable water .If you want to risk lead poison don't remove the leaded pipe.Lead is soft and damages easily , you need a round surface to get a decent compression joint, so if it's damaged which it most likely is you wont achieve that. nah! remove and replace

Onthedoorstep · 18/01/2015 18:04

This happened to me and none of it was covered by insurance or water company. It cost a lot of money.

You can get specific insurance for this - it's about 3 quid a month - but it might be one of those things which is just not covered. :( Sorry. Hope it works out.

roneik · 18/01/2015 18:06

That small dip on the drive sounds like the small dip hiding the massive pit that I had. I would bet a tenner that is where your leak is. If the pipe is lead it's a good chance the drive resurface caused the leak , or caused a small leak to become a big leak

PigletJohn · 18/01/2015 18:55

1970 house more likely a steel pipe. It may have rusted through at a joint or elbow.

roneik · 18/01/2015 19:03

Plastic water pipe and kuterlite fittings that dont rust were around in the seventies. In fact I think that was the only brand ,no in wales there is still a lot of lead pipe around . Very unlikely plastic pipe fracturing it's tough old stuff

roneik · 18/01/2015 19:08

A lot of properties are gerry built in some parts of wales. Some with no foundations. Some pre fabs bricked round and look like standard construction , till you look for the footings and find a four inch concrete slab

PigletJohn · 18/01/2015 19:11

if you decide to lay a new water pipe, it does not have to follow the same route as the old one. Sometimes it is more convenient to trench through the garden. A 1970's house might have solid concrete floors, so it would be easier to bring the pipe outside and them through the kitchen floor/wall. If you have wooden floors with a gap beneath, a pipe can be poked or pulled through the void. It is easy to push Armaflex or other insulation over new pipe as you install it.

roneik · 18/01/2015 19:14

Even cattle drinking troughs were plastic pipe water supplied in the seventies. I worked for a company in the west country and in 72 it's about all they sold to builders and farmers

Original poster
NoNoNoMYDoIt · 18/01/2015 19:56

Concrete floors downstairs here.

No idea where the pipes go outside - don't even know which route they take. Guess I will find out on Tuesday Confused

OP posts:
roneik · 19/01/2015 16:01

If your kitchen is alongside the drive then the pipe entry will be roughly inline with your water entry point under sink. I have experience with property in wales
years ago their building regs were lax and lots of cowboys connected up to whatever was nearest ,be it lead plastic or whatever. If another dwelling sat on the land before your house I would bet that's what they did

Swipe left for the next trending thread