Away n leak at home!

[Amy1989]

Were away n before we went we had an issue with the taps called our landlord he send a so called plumber round who could not find mains water tap to turn it off so tried every pipe and tap (ours are old! We have house sitter shes said a pipe is leaking the 1 he said might but the issue we have is the guy who came over had no idea where the water main switch is ... any ideas what to do or where these this usually are or look like

[mickey house]

Often under the sink, and usually a brass standard stopcock (google that if unsure). Many homes don’t have one and the water has to be turned off outside the home. In fact I recently helped a neighbour turn his water off from the outside valve on his drive. A plumber should know this though.

[Lisa123wm]

The stop cock? Look in the kitchen, under sink maybe?
Ours is in the hallway by the front door at this house.
It’ll be a small handle that you turn.

[Lell]

Ours is in our utility room behind the washing machine. For years we thought we didn't have one and used to turn it off on the main road.

[Disney_time]

Our stopcock is reached by putting your hand through a hole in the floorboards which are inside the meter cupboard. Who knew? We now have an electronic stopcock called surestop. I was having difficulty turning the manual stopcock and the surestop stops the water in an instant.

[RickT]

as above as MH says - the only option maybe to turn it off in the street.

A friend of mine had a 1900 terrace house, in his cellar he had the stopcocks for the full row of houses! He simply told all the neighbours they had 3 months to get their own stopcocks fitted as he was going to box all them pipes in and as he works away a lot may not be around for weeks on end...

OP - a good plumber will turn the supply off outside, and worse case, fit you an additional stop cock at the closest point to entry.

[mickey house]

I should mention that even if its not possible to turn the water supply off in or outside the house, a good plumber will have a freezing kit, so they can freeze the water pipe coming into the house and then fit the stopcock just beyond that.

The idea of freezing the pipe is to avoid flooding the house whilst fitting the stopcock.

[Rac20]

Ours is outside on the path by the kitchen wall.
We also have an internal one in the kitchen but that’s hard to get to so we use the outside one.

[Lola]

Years ago we turned our stop cock off only to find water was still fountaining out from the downstairs loo connection we were dismantling. DH went round to see an elderly man who used to live in our house and he came round with his water divining rods. Eventually found the outside connector which had been covered with tarmac over about 20 years previously. Also he showed us where there was a well in our garden.

[plutofan1]

Ours is near the boiler ! In the garage
Took us years to find
It’s just a black lever which you turn
We had previously had all the kick boards off in the kitchen
And had back of kitchen cupboard out to try and find it after we moved in

Good luck