Isolating Water Supply

[Tringo]

Hi - i am planning a kitchen extension and the wall we are extending is where the water supply comes into the house from the 'street'.

So i got a plumber around last night, quite a young lad, and told him what i wanted - i.e. move the stop cock and all the other gubbings (technical term i think) that currently live under my sink about 2 metres back so that when the extension is built all the plumbing will still be under my sink.

He told me that i would have to call the water board since there was no way that he could isolate my water supply to move all the pipes etc.

I thought this was strange so as i walked him out to the end of my drive i pointed to a little man hole cover which had 'WY Water' stamped on top, opened it up to reveal my water meter and a tap to isolate my house from the water mains.

Now i would have thought that a bonafide plumber would have known this - i know bugger all about plumbing but had to point this out to him. He did then offer to price up the job but given that he didnt realise he could isolate my water in this way i dont have much confidence in his plumbing skills.

Am i being unfair on the lad or should i be cautious about getting him to do any work?!

 

[gas4you]

Yes you can turn off the water at the meter, but he may be rightly concerned whether you have a lead pipe from the meter to indoors.

If it was lead I beleive you will have to replace it back to the water meter, quite a big job in terms of time and labour.

There are several regs that need to be adhered to with your outside mains.

If you have the blue plastic mains pipe then apart from some serious digging up it would be quite easy to move your stop cock.

I'm only a gas engineer so cannot point you to specific water regs. Others on here will

 

[Tringo]

Dave,

thanks for the reply.

I am no expert on any DIY matters to be honest but the property is a new build - only been up 3 or 4 years so would have thought it would be plastic.

As for the digging - the father in law is doing the building work so if i add that to his list of jobs

 

[gas4you]

I would agree then that I would think it is 25mm alcathene blue pipe most probably.