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Steady. The next five minutes are the whole job, and every step is one you can do yourself. Work them in order.
Isolate the supply, then everything else. Close the main stopcock — under the kitchen sink in most homes — then open the cold taps to drain the pipework, and cut the electrics at the consumer unit if water is anywhere near them and you can reach it dry. Flow stopped, area safe: ring 020 4577 2888 any hour to be put through to a local plumber.
Water off, taps open, electrics safe, boiler off, then the phone. The towels come last — they always come last.
The instinct is to chase the water around the floor. Park it. Nothing improves until the pipe stops being fed, so the briefing runs:
Do not touch the consumer unit, or any switch or fitting, if you'd be standing in water or reaching past it to get there. If you can't kill the power dry, leave it on, keep everyone clear of the wet area, and say so on the call.
If a tap slowed to a dribble in frosty weather and the leak arrived with the thaw — almost certainly. Keep the water off and don't warm anything else up yet.
It's a well-worn sequence when a hard frost settles over the hills west of Cookstown: the freeze blocks the pipe without a sound, the ice splits it quietly, and the flood holds off until the thaw. Lofts, garages, outbuildings and pipes buried in external walls take it worst — and the farms and rural houses out toward Kildress, Pomeroy or the lough shore at Coagh, with their long exposed supply runs, worst of all.
Found a pipe that's frozen but not yet leaking? Count it a near miss and act accordingly: stopcock off as insurance, then gentle heat only — hairdryer on low, warm wet towels, working from the tap end. A flame near a pipe is a permanent no: not a blowtorch, not a lighter, not once. And if the pipe has already split, stop thawing altogether — leave the water off and get it repaired, because melting the ice with the mains live just books your flood in for later.
You can slow it; you can't sign it off. Repair tape or a pipe clamp on a drained pipe is a fair stopgap — reopening the stopcock afterwards is the mistake.
Self-amalgamating tape or a slip-on repair clamp will hold a small split well enough to spare the carpet while you wait, and there's no harm in either. The trouble starts when the patch breeds confidence and someone reopens the stopcock. A taped joint against mains pressure is a bet you'll usually lose, generally at two in the morning.
Extra care in older property. The buildings along Cookstown's long main street, and the older houses off it, often carry generations of pipework spliced together — lead into copper into plastic — and the joint beside the one you're patching may be every bit as tired. Disturb one, spring another. Water stays off, the patch stays temporary, and the permanent repair is the plumber's to make.
One test settles it: close your stopcock and watch. Leak stops — your side. Water keeps coming, or it's rising outside — likely the supply pipe or the public main.
The general UK split runs like this: everything from the property boundary into and through your home is the owner's to repair, while the public main beyond the boundary belongs to the water utility — in Northern Ireland, that's NI Water. Water bubbling up through a footpath, a soaked verge outside your gate, or a leak that carries on with your stopcock closed all point to the public side, and NI Water is the right call for a suspected mains leak.
The grey area is the private supply pipe between the boundary and your walls — usually the owner's responsibility, and a regular culprit on rural properties where a long run crosses a field or lane from the road. A plumber can help you pin down which side of the boundary the fault sits on, and will tell you straight when the fix isn't theirs to sell.
Under the kitchen sink first — that's the spot in most Cookstown homes, including the older buildings along the main street. Then check wherever the supply pipe enters: hall cupboard, utility room, garage, under the stairs. Rural properties often have an outside stop valve under a small lid near the boundary as well. Seized solid? Don't force it — a plumber can free or replace it.
If the burst is on the heating or hot water side, or you've drained the system through the cold taps, yes — switch the boiler off until it's been checked. A boiler run with little or no water in the system can damage itself, and that turns one repair into two. The same goes for oil-fired boilers, which are common around rural Mid-Ulster.
Many UK buildings policies cover escape-of-water damage, but excesses and exclusions vary a lot, and gradual wear and tear is often treated differently from a sudden burst. Read your own policy, notify the insurer promptly, and photograph everything before you start mopping — that record does the arguing for you later.
Stopcock closed, then electrics off at the consumer unit if you can reach it dry — never touch wet switches or fittings. Keep everyone out from under a ceiling that's sagging badly. A small bulge can be pierced with something thin over a bucket, which lets the water down in a controlled way instead of all at once.
The main page — how the line works and the patch it covers.
Go to home →Pressure drops, lockouts, oil and gas — and the gas hold point.
Take the briefing →What you're cleared to try, and when it's NI Water's sewer.
Take the briefing →Hedged ballparks and the questions to ask before work starts.
Take the briefing →Switches, controls, pressure, oil, immersion — in order.
Take the briefing →Gentle thawing done right, and the lagging that prevents it.
Take the briefing →Damp patches, falling pressure and the stopcock test.
Take the briefing →Ring any hour to be put through to a local plumber covering Cookstown and the villages and townlands around it.
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