Electric shower has broke and we can't find water valve.

[Plump82]

Our electric shower has broke, we've got a new one that my electrician husband can fit but we can't find the water valve to turn the water supply off. It's not in the usual place of under the sink.

When we had the bathroom done 6 years ago I don't recall the plumber even asking where the valve is! Turns out he did a lot of things wrong but surely he couldn't have done the bathroom without the water off?

Where does your water come into the house? Our internal stopcock for the whole house is next to the front door. They're usually at the point the pipe enters the house - in fact I've never had one under a sink!

Attic. If your house is old there would have been a water tank up there at some point.

Is it detailed in the papers/ survey from when you bought the house?

We're right on a corner and the little cover thing people have mentioned is a few houses up the street. There's nothing directly outside.

I've just looked at the home report and there's nothing.

Ours is behind a removable end panel next to the kitchen drawers on the external wall, all of our taps and the toilet have their own isolation valves but the shower doesn't. What is next to the external wall in your kitchen? The stopcock should be somewhere between your sink and where the main enters the house

We have one just for the shower in the pipe same as @GrannyAchingsShepherdsHut in the picture above. It’s under the shower tray.

Ours is in the downstairs loo, but we've also got isolator valves on most of the upstairs pipes just in case. And we leave a slothead screwdriver in the airing cupboard by most of them! When our water tank burst in the loft, our plumber put them in as I couldn't turn the downstairs one off where it had rusted.

If your bath is boxed in, and the panel is easy to remove, have a look behind that, as I've known the stop cock to be there in an old house.

You may have a shared external stop tap if the house is pre WW2. Best bet is to ask your neighbours.
You may also have an "internal" stop tap which is actually external, but immediately outside the house instead of in the street or pavement (we had this with an ex local authority property built in the 1940s.

If all else fails ask the water company to turn off the valve that isolates the whole street.

Because somebody working in the trades would usually have gained some knowledge from installing showers or working alongside the plumbers?

Not to derail but his type of job and the work he does, doesn't ever involve working along side plumbers.

It was built in 1901 so it might be looking likely that it's outside somewhere. I'll try and speak to my neighbours.

Ours is in the front hall. In our last house it was outside, where an outdoor tap might be.

Ours is in the airing cupboard (hotpress) beside the hot water cylinder

No outdoor taps here unfortunately.

He's probably not the best person to install an electric shower, then. Even if he is capable of connecting a few blocks.

A lot of people think the ones under the sink are the primary ones, but they are often just for the sink taps/kitchen utilities.

Mine is just inside the front door (similar age house also in Scotland).

Hi OP - we had the same issue. Victorian house built c1900 and eventually found the tap under the floor at the entry of the hallway - we'd tiled the floor so that was a great day 🥴It's my understanding too that some older houses share taps so your neighbour may have one and you not.

I had the same issues, I can only turn the water off from outside. But, my electrician removed the bath panel and found a way of switching water off for the shower.

Snap - mine is also behind a drawer in my kitchen

If you can't find the stopcock, and there isn't an isolating valve for the shower, you can use a freezing spray to freeze the water in the pipe whilst an isolating valve is fitted, it's not a big job so long as you have the right bits.

Oh really!! That sounds interesting. I'll go and research that now.

If you’re in a converted house, is it possible the stopcock is in the ground floor flat ?