Not being crude. The cold water stopcock is under the kitchen cupboards and is the usual nightmare to get to. I'm not getting any younger and sometimes wonder about turning off the cold water if something bad happened. Has anybody had experience or opinions with this?
It's rather unusual to actually need to cut off the entire cold water feed to the house.
My stopcock is reasonably accessible, but I've added another after the kitchen cold tap. So I can turn off the rest of the house but still have water. And put that in a readily accessible place.
Given the propensity of under-sink mains taps to seize up, I'd be inclined to make up a tool to make operation much easier. I envisage a hollow pipe with notches cut out one end to fit over the tap handle and a slot for a bar at the other; about 800mm long. A few drops of your favourite releasing agent on the tap and keep it free-turning by application of the tool at least twice a year. Should do the trick.
OK so this has been mentioned before. By me.
I fitted one at my parents holiday apartment as their insurance said the water needed to be turned off when they were not there. And would you believe it? Their stop tap was under the kitchen cupboards behind my Mothers stash of empty carrier bags and other crap and they are not getting any younger.
They are now a standard install on army houses and they are brilliant.
I fitted the remote stop tap at my parents apartment and they now just have a switch just inside the kitchen cupboard.
I do not know which one will suit you best but you will never regret having fitting one.
It was about £40 from screwfix a few years ago.
I would get a Pegler (or other reasonably decent make) 1/4 turn lever valve installed somewhere more convenient if possible. Even if that means just bringing a loop of pipe towards the front of the cupboard so the valve is at near the front on one side.
The other thing might be an answer, but I always feel happier with a solid simple valve :)
IIRC they rely on water pressure to stay locked off? Just wondering if losing and regaining water supply could, in effect, turn the supply back on?
Just keep your fingers crossed that Rod say they are shit. You know that you are then onto a winner by getting one installed.
Or keep one of these handy:
I did keep my parents original stop c*ck in place.
It is my job to make sure it works a couple of times a year. The sure stop is used after the existing stop tap and it there for ease of use and insurance purposes.
I shut off the supply at the meter, removed the internal stop-c*ck, stripped, cleaned and greased it. Now it's dead easy to operate (well, might have to do it againg in a couple of years) - does have the advantage of being out in the open, so easy to grip.
I still have a remotely operated one that I was going to put in after the stopcock for exactly this reason. Then the water main failed and new supply is under the front path, so now I have one which comes up by the front door. I have a full bore lever action ball valve after it to make it easier for everyone (similarly on the gas).
Or use a decent quality lever-operated full bore ball valve. They might try to seize but at least you can easily get good leverage. I would fix both ends so you don't tend to rip out the plastic supply pipe, though.
I have fiddled with one for someone. Seems to do what it says on the tin. Tricky to get the remote control assembled back together once you have taken it apart though!
Why not use the water company's one in the street?
I been using one for the past couple of decades to turn off the water to an outside tap at the front of my house. It works well.
I have the one with the remote switch. The stop valve is under the floor and the switch is mounted on the hall wall and easily accessible. In the remote model there are two thin tubes from the valve to the switch and the switch just compresses the tube - here is no electrical components.
I did have to replace the switch/tube as after around 10 years of sitting behind a window that gets full sunlight for half of the day the plastic became brittle and cracked. The switch is now sited differently.
The only reservation I have is that it doesn't shut the water off until there is a large enough differential in pressure between input and output. I turn the valve off at the switch and then open the tap and for a fraction of a second water comes out of the tap at mains pressure and then the valve cuts in. If the tap was just open a tiny bit and was dribbling at the time that the switch was turned to off the tap would continue to dribble forever. So just hitting the switch alone will not possible cut off the water to a small leak. The switch needs to be switched to off and a tap need to be turned fully on to force the valve to fully close. However Surestop now claim no dripping taps so perhaps they have improved the design since I installed their previous model many many years ago?
Does an OAP really need to go out into the street to do that when there is brilliant device on the market that turns the water off at the press of a switch?
Assuming you can find the one in the street, that its not in a hole full of mud, and you can get the lid up, and you can actually reach the tap with the appropriate tool when you need to!
In my case its stuck on a lead pipe under the stairs. I have been too chicken to try to move it for some time now. I assume I should be able to turn it off at the meter in the road should I? Brian
It all depends on the last time it was used. My outside stop c*ck was just inside the boundary of my property and when I first moved into my property I spent some considerable amount of time cleaning out all the earth that had fallen down the hole to a level above the tap-head and rocking the tap clockwise/anticlockwise to eventually free it up. The earth was removed by using water to convert the earth to mud and then using a wet vacuum cleaner to suck it out. I now have a combined meter, stop-c*ck in plastic in that location.
When a near neighbour had a burst pipe the stop c*ck just inside that property boundary was siezed.
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