What to do in the first five minutes of a burst pipe

A burst pipe does most of its damage in the time it takes to work out what to do. These are the steps that matter, in order.

Turn the water off, if it is safe to reach

Find the internal stop tap and turn it clockwise until it stops. In most houses it is under the kitchen sink, in a downstairs cloakroom or near the water meter. If the tap is behind the leak, or you would have to reach across water to get to it, leave it and move on to the next step.

Keep away from anything electrical

Water travelling through a ceiling or down a wall can reach lights, sockets and consumer units. If water is coming through a ceiling, stay out of that room and do not touch switches in it. If you are in any doubt about the electrics, treat it as unsafe.

Open the taps

Once the supply is off, open the cold taps in the house. That drains what is left in the pipework and reduces how much more can escape.

Contain what you can

Buckets, towels and anything that lifts your furniture off a wet floor. If water is pooling on a ceiling, a single small hole in the lowest point of the bulge lets it drain in one place rather than bringing the ceiling down.

Take photographs

This is the step people skip. Photograph the leak, the damage and the meter reading before anything is moved or dried. Insurers ask for it later, and it is much harder to reconstruct afterwards.

Then call

Tell us the postcode, what is happening and whether the water is off. If it is safe to take a short video on the way to the phone, send it over WhatsApp: seeing the pipe usually tells us what to bring.