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Avoiding & handling winter emergencies

A long period of iciness and wintry conditions could mean that you are more likely to experience problems with your water pipes than in a mild winter.

Frozen and burst pipes are inconvenient, and leaks are often expensive to repair.

Prepare yourself this winter and avoid the unnecessary waste of water and damage to your home that burst pipes can bring.

• Can you give me any advice on avoiding problems with water and what to do if there are any?

Here are our top five tips and advice so that you can prepare for the worst:

• A dripping tap is a sign of a problem and should be fixed. As well as being a waste of water, a dripping tap in freezing conditions may block the waste pipe with ice and possibly cause a problem if left for a long period as the basin, sink or bath may then overflow into the room. Even a gentle trickle of water could freeze and block the pipe.
• If you have outside taps, insulate them, or even better, turn them off and drain them (leaving the tap open to allow any ice to escape) at their isolation valve during the winter.
• Protect your pipes, fittings and appliances. Insulate all pipework in unheated areas like lofts, roofs, outbuildings and garages. Also, lag any cold water storage cisterns in your loft. The necessary equipment is usually available at DIY stores and local plumbers' merchants.
• Locate and label your stop tap/s and isolation valves. These are usually found in the kitchen or utility room, or in a ground floor bathroom or garage - most likely wherever the water pipe enters the premises. Isolation valves are used to turn off water to hot water system, outside taps, appliances (washing machines etc) (Use the link on the right to read more information about stop taps.)
• Leave your loft hatch slightly open to allow warm air to enter your roof space. But make sure you keep your house secure from unauthorised access.

Our downloadable leaflet 'Avoiding and handling winter emergencies' on the right has more useful information.

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• Avoiding and handling winter emergencies