Stop !!!!!! jammed. And no stop tap in street

FreeBear

fly-catchers said: I think replacing the pipes outside the house would be tricky. Apart from digging up the raised garden and concrete pathway I would have to have my hedge and wall partly removed.

The utilities companies will often use a mole to bore a hole under paths & other obstacles - As long as they can dig a small hole at either end, a mole would probably be used.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toTmgKD-9Jo

Albermarle

Whenever I read about the stop !!!!!! being under the sink I assume that is mainly on homes where the kitchen is at the front of the house!

In many older houses, the kitchen sink was originally the only place where mains water would be used. So that would be where the stoptap would be and in many cases will have remained there.

I have read on other threads that a new plastic pipe replacement will have a wider diameter and a higher flow rate, so can bring other benefits.

ThisIsWeird

Bottom line, if you don't sort this, FlyCatch, then you will have a wet disaster occurring in yer hoosie at some point, and you will cuss the high heavens.

Worse than that, the accumulative effect of lead ingestion will ultimately render you unfit for anything other than populating this forum.

GrubbyGirl_2

ThisIsWeird said:

Bottom line, if you don't sort this, FlyCatch, then you will have a wet disaster occurring in yer hoosie at some point, and you will cuss the high heavens.

Worse than that, the accumulative effect of lead ingestion will ultimately render you unfit for anything other than populating this forum.

I lived in a hard water area and was told not to worry about lead pipes because after 120 years the limescale stopped the water coming into contact with any lead.  In a soft water area that will be different I guess

Gavin83

fly-catchers said:

Whenever I read about the stop !!!!!! being under the sink I assume that is mainly on homes where the kitchen is at the front of the house!

Just to say this definitely isn’t the case. The stopcock is in our kitchen which is at the back of the house. It’s run in a 100mm waste pipe though, presumably to make it easier to replace if necessary. Like a lot of modern houses our downstairs subfloors are concrete.

Lorian

What has been tried to unstick it. There are several things a plumber would try.

Sophie4120

FreeBear said:

Contact your local water company - There will be a phone number on the bill.

The stopcock is their responsibility, and if there isn't one out in the street, they will (should) fix the internal one free of charge. Would also be worthwhile asking if they will replace the lead pipe at the same time - Again, it should be free of charge from the water main up to the stopcock.

Can confirm - we had something very similar. Completely jammed stop tap internally, we were having our heating system replaced and plumber couldn't shift it. The water company came out to look but couldn't trace an external one either. They installed an external stop tap just outside our kitchen, in our back garden, free of charge. Couldn't fault them, they were extremely helpful and came out more than once to try and trace which way our pipes went! May be worth giving them a call.

silvercar

In addition to our stop!!!! we have a water softener that has a bypass (looks like an H with valves at the top two poles of the H and one on the horizontal bar. So the vertical pipes are the IN and OUT of the water softener and the horizontal is the bypass. The plumber said this can also act as a stop!!!! by turning all three valves off.

ThisIsWeird

Lorian said:

What has been tried to unstick it. There are several things a plumber would try.

I'd personally be terrified of trying anything on a stopcock that doesn't have an external means of shutting off the water!