Water leak - somewhere on property

[waterwatereverywhere]

Hi everyone,
first post and a little bit desperate for advice. My elderly mother has discovered that there is a leak at her property. Normally hew water bills are £80 and this last one shot up to £400. The water board made a note that there might be a leak but didn't contact her.
Anyway - before they come out to investigate they have told my mother that she needs to turn off the water to the stop cock outside. Not sure why this is - doesn't seem very helpful to me but hey.
So my mother locates the stop cock and has someone try to turn it off. It won't budge. It's almost impossible to access and is about 3 foot down. She has a plumber come out - he can't turn it off either.
She calls the water company - and she is told again that they can't help unless she can turn it off. She will need to do so OR have an internal stop cock fitted.
In the meantime the water continues to leak. When all the taps are off in the house, the meter still continues to clock up usage.
She now has an Water Engineer (?) coming in out in another 2 days time to take a look.

Just wanted to find out here is the water company are correct in that they can't help until the water is off and what this policy is all about? Also, any suggestions on how to tackle this both physically and from a process point of view.
She is very worried that there is an ever increasing leak under the house and also that this might escalate into having the entire front drive dug up - just to work out the leak isn't in her piping.

Any comments and suggestions are welcomed.

Thanks

dave

 

[Bahco]

I would see if your local rag can make a story out of it to shame the water co into action and replace the outside stoptap.
The newspapers would be glad to have that story especially if your mom is elderly /disabled.

You could also ask the nice water co if they will fit an internal stoptap too!

 

[JohnD]

My old mum's house in London had a water leak. With great difficulty I established that Thames Water make a £220 contribution if you replace a leaking supply pipe, and they als give a rbate against the metered usage of water lost by the leak.

An extra tip I found out: If the waterpipe is lead, ask them to come and test at the kitchen tap for lead content. If there is any, they will replace the bit of pipe they own (under the pavement and up to your boundary) and may possibly make a grant towards the cost of replacing your (inside the boundary) lead pipe. Ask for this test to be done straight away. In my case they took so long to make an appointment that the pipe had already been replaced, so I got no help.

If you can get them to replace their bit of pipe, it will be very much easier to connect your pipe to it. In my case I was faced with a non-standard sized bronze stub on a 100-year old lead pipe and a 100-year old stopcock. which was difficult to connect to.

You can probably dig up the damaged pipe yourself and lay a new, blue plastic one. The pipe is only about £25 per 25 metres, and reasonably flexible, so quite easy to lay. The trench has to be 750mm (18") deep.

BTW our water meter had a blue plastic T handle in the meter hole to turn off the supply. It is removable. Have a go at your water co if you can't see or feel this handle.

You can get a metal T handle tool (mine is about a metre long, with a crutch to fit the stopcock, and the T handle is about 300mm wide so gives good leverage.

In my experience, plumbers are not keen on digging holes and trenches, you might do better with a small local builder. If you can excavate the stopcock I am sure you can turn it.

Call your water co and demand that they send you a PRINTED copy of their Code of Practce, and their booklet "What do do if you have a leak" these will set out your rights and obligations, and also theirs.

the old lead pipe, exposed
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A 100-year old stopcock (non-standard connections)
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my T handle at home. The base fits three different sizes and shapes of stopcock head.
View media item 1510