No external stop tap

[mogga]

Woohoo! No need to pay the water bills anymore, they're not allowed to cut people off.... and apparently that's why the council's tarmac over external stop taps these days.

Your options if you need to turn the water off to your house to mend a leaky internal stop tap involve squeeze and freeze, adding a customer owned external stop tap, or using a water industry approved plumber to do an "under pressure" replacement. Or re-pipe youe water to the boundary of your property and they'll connect you to the mains for free.

And you're not allowed to uncover the tarmac'd over stop tap!!

Strangely enough the girl on the phone went very quiet when I said "woohoo, I'll stop paying the bill straight away"

(And how do you add a customer owned external stop tap under pressure?)

Utterly bizarre imo.

[Frank Erskine]

On Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:25:21 +0100, mogga had this to say:

The external stop tap belongs to the water company, so you should contact them. You still have a right of access/use of this tap. It's nothing to do with the 'council'.

[NT]

with this

NT

[mogga]

I have contacted them. That's who told me they're not allowed to cut people off for non payment of bills anymore and so they don't need external stop taps.

If it's covered up I'm not allowed to un-tarmac it.

The option is basically re-plumb the house to the boundary and let them connect us to the mains in a different place. (They do the from boundary to water main for free .. )

Do I have a legal right to an external stop tap? I can't find anything about that on United Utilities site.

[mogga]

It was pure sarcasm on my part after being told some fairly expensive slightly insane options. Putting a new water pipe to my house wasn't something I'd ever considered! Even if they connect from the boundary to main free, there's still the cost of a water industry approved plumber putting in a new water pipe to my house and in my garden.

Tarmacing over a stop tap seems insane.

[Tim W]

mogga wibbled on Saturday 24 October 2009 11:09

Not sure - but you could always put a stopcock just inside your boundary.

Depending on your pipe type, you might be able to freeze the pipe to do this...

[Piers Finlayson]

I believe this has been the case for a while. I saw somewhere recently that they might allow the water company to reduce the flow to a trickle for non-payers.

In any case, the council's position is clearly nonsense.

[A.Lee]

I'd say that is bollocks. Whoever told you that must be without a clue. The lazy bastards round here tarmaced over my stop tap, the water board dug up the pavement to locate the tap, then found the hole to the tap was nearly full with tarmac, so they gave up, and did a repair to the pipe in situ. They just cut the pipe, then shoved a pushfit stop tap on it. Quick and without too much spillage.

That is partly true, in that you need insurance to work on the pavement, as well as making the pavement to as good as new when finished,but it is not impossible to do it early on a Sunday with no one around. Alan.

[mogga]

It's a common supply and can't work out where it's buried - digging up the floors sounds hard work

We've not got a full 9" of pipe showing from the floor which is one what one of those freezer things needs I think.

[mogga]

Not without a stop tap outside they won't. :)

[js.b1]

IIRC you can lay your own twinwall ducting at the right depth, or at a higher depth with the very expensive insulation, then feed through Hep2O etc and that is it.

The water company can not refuse to connect a pipe which complies with regulations, but of course they will probably want to see it open in the trench along its route - or even feed in the pipe themselves if internally metered to satisfy themselves there are no pre-meter branches.

That is unless someone has created a gold plated job.

I have heard they have ignored an existing duct in open trench quite separate from existing services, but insurers took them to the cleaners (UU and somewhat infamous SW).

[sm_jamieson]

Water industry approved plumber ? They want to inspect the trench etc, but you can do the work yourself. Simon.

[Steve Walker]

Okay for us people who still have header tanks then ;)

SteveW

[Andy Dingley]

Bollocks.

It's _difficult_ to cut people off (for varying levels of "difficult" for different groups of "people") but that doesn't change anything about stopcocks as being a maintenance device.

[mogga]

You're supposed to have a working one within the house the UU girl said.

[mogga]

I need to do some work in my house, but the outside stoptap doesn't work and I don't have an internal one. What can I do?

The outside stoptap usually belongs to the water company, and as long as you are receiving a supply, the company does not have a duty to replace stop taps even if they are faulty. Despite this, if a customer reports a faulty stop tap to the company, they will often arrange to repair it. However, this job is not a priority for the company, and the customer could wait some weeks before a repair is completed. As an alternative, any good plumber will have clamping or freezing equipment which can block the supply to your home, enabling you to carry out any plumbing work inside the property. We advise customers to get an internal stop tap fitted if they do not already have one.

a tarmac'd over one counting as faulty?

[Stuart Noble]

And if it fails, you need to be able to change it. AIUI you are entitled to a working stopcock in the road.

[The Medway Handyman]

You also need a street works licence. My youngest daughters 'bloke' installs water mains via impact moling. He is forever on courses & has more certificates than you could shake a stick at.

[<me9]

They installed a pipe by that method under a major road near here. The road then had to be closed for a weekend in order to remove the hump they created.

[Andy Dingley]

On 24 Oct, 17:59, "The Medway Handyman"

Can he impact the little bugger that's putting holes in my back garden?