Mains stopcock buried in cement

[norsey]

A stupid path repairer, who has now disappeared, blocked the stopcock inside my boundary, with cement. That was 8 years ago.
Whose responsiblity is the stopcock? Is it automatically mine as it is on my property?

How can it be repaired, by the water board? How do they stop the water flow to fit a new stopcock?

 

[keego]

If there is no other stop tap on the supply then I would imagine it would be the responsibility of the water company even if it's on your land, I worked for north west water for a lot of years & have seen plenty of stop taps, even valves & hydrants in gardens. Good luck trying to get them to do it as it will be low down on their list of priorities, if it was me I would dig down around the chamber & remove it to expose the tap & then rebuild it & make good rather than go through all the hassle & wait.

 

[doitall]

I think anyone in there right mind would have said something to the path repairer 8 years ago.

 

[Dan Robinson]

John me ol' mucker house it going...

 

[Agile]

Did you fully pay the path repairer?

Its not unknown for an unpaid path repaired to block stopcocks!

Tony

 

[norsey]

To Mr doitall.
I am in my right mind. His address turned out to be a letter retrieval service. I had no address, only his phone number, but he wouldn't answer. I contacted Trading Standards, BT, Citizen's Advice Bureau and my MP. The law is such that nobody was prepared to use his phone number to provide his address. Small Claims Court would not pursue as they could not deliver the summons. I gave up.
Now I am retired I feel I need to get the stoptap fixed, but don't know if I am looking at hudreds or over a thousand £'s. I also guess the repair will damage my driveway.

 

[norsey]

To Agile,
Sadly I did pay him having checked the job thoroughly as I thought. Only the next day did I lift the stoptap lid and found a layer of concrete 18 inches below the surface. My worry is that if I try breaking it ( and the access is ver small) I could well damage the pipe and cause a worse situation.

 

[mattylad]

Probably best to start digging around it then so that you can see to what extent it actually covers the stop tap.
You never know you could have the usual layer of dirt etc on the tap with a simple cement cap to that.

 

[Agile]

As matty says it may be mostly loose sand with a hard top.

You could hammer a piece of 15 mm copper tube down and see if that breakes through to something softer. Do it towards the edge rather than in the centre.

If not the use a large angle grinder to cut a neat square about 600 mm square around the tap and break the surgace up and dig down 750 mm until you can lift out the pipe and hopefully expose the tap again.

If it really will not budge without lifting the pipe on either side then you will have to break the pipe up carefully.

You have never said if you have a street stopcock which works.

Tony

 

[doitall]

John me ol' mucker house it going...

Just great Dan, isn't it nice being lazy.

How that gorgeous Baby.

May be down your way shortly for the night.

Pssssssssst don't forget to read my letter in PhamNews.

 

[ScottishGasMan]

Not ideal, but would it be possible to find the most convinient to access part of the mains pipe inside the house, freeze it and just fit an internal stopcock? Much Much less money than doing the driveway one properly.

 

[norsey]

Hi Guys,
Thanks for all your comments. That's cleared my mind somewhat. Can I just say that the tube leading down to the tap is only about 8 inches by 5 inches so not much space to work in. The path is extra strong patterned concrete so the only way I could enlarge the hole would be with a pneumatic drill, which would make the path costly to replace.
I have had a go at trying to break the concrete round the tap with a chisle and it seems totally solid and probably several inches thick, so the worry there is that if I do fracture the mains I'm in deep sh*t.
I do have another stop tap in the kitchen so I think I will bury my head in the sand and just hope I shall never need the one in my drive. I've not needed it for 8 years and I could well be dead when the problem raises it's ugly head. Thanks again.


Norsey

 

[John506]

I do have another stop tap in the kitchen so I think I will bury my head in the sand and just hope I shall never need the one in my drive.

If it makes you feel better, I would do that too