Have you ever been caught out by a leaking tap or a flooding bathroom? Do you know how to fix it in an emergency when theres no one else to help straight away?
We have just the answer!
First of all you need to find your stopcock, your stopcock is a valve that can turn off your water supply in your home. This should be located near your kitchen sink, water metre or utility room.
A good thing to regularly check is if the stopcock is in good working condition, can it be turned easily? Give it a test every now and then to make sure it is in good working order.
If you have a leak or a problem, turning this off will be your first step to sorting it.
Stopcock not working? You will need a Scottish Pattered Heavy Duty Water Key and to know where your water toby is.
Your water toby is the main water valve that supplies your home and is usually found near the point where the main water supply enters the boundary of your property. This is the point where the council plumbing ends and your responsability for the plumbing starts.
You can visit Scottish Water website for more details about your responsibility and byelaws or follow this link 071020YourWaterByelawsExplainedHousehold.pdf
Have a look around, your toby might be in your driveway, across or in the middle of the road.
A heavy duty water key is used to turn the toby on and off in the case of an emergency. Its not just plumbers or the council/water board that should own one, everyone should at have or at least know someone who does.
Your next step is to check the condition of the toby. Is it easily accesible, can you open the toby cover, is it blocked by something? If the cover is rather rusty try hitting the four corners with a happer and scrape round the edges with a thin tipped screwdriver. A slim ‘nick’ will become obvious and then try opening it with a flat blade screwdriver and it should release open.
One you have opened the toby its time to use your water key. The key will fit on top of the toby like a puzzle, once in place turn the key a quarter turn to turn off the water supply. After the work has been done reverse the turn to put the water back on and then close the cover.
Hopefully this article has explained in resonable terms how to identify and use stopcocks and water keys to save yourself a lot of trouble next time the kitchen tap leaks.
For a better understanding here is a video of Kevin demonstrating how to use a Water key.
