I'm sure they remove the old stop c*ck when they install the meter. The new stop c*ck is below the meter and requires a special key to turn it off.
Of course, the householder is never given a key!
Will Plumbers know of such things - they have only been around for about 10 years!
They vary in design. Mine just needs a hex socket or an Allen key. Or a firm grip may suffice - especially if desperations lends strength. Others have a user-friendly tap to turn.
Plastic keys used to be available - and sometimes even supplied with the meter - but disappeared some years ago for reasons I've never established.
More with links to pictures at
And you then find out that it also turns off 3 neighbouring properties.
I got one from CPC.
In our case it used to turn off the brothel next door.
And that is now sorted ?
You now have separate supplies?
They failed to pay their water bill and the tables were turned. We were cut off by the water company. After that they came out and turned it on again.
The brothel was demolished and a house built on the site. Cowboy builders separated their water supply and didn't seal ours properly at the tee- piece. Major leak, 30 cu. metres a day.
Which is where we started.
Haven't heard from him for a while... Is it Australia Day or something?
Currently posting as 'Tim J'
mine isn't like that. In any case we were never given a key to the "in the road stop c*ck"
On mine the tap/stop-c*ck can be seen next to the meter, not below,
and can be turned off with a standard stop c*ck key
Longer than that. The remote switch I have (and changed after it cracked up after many years) is the same as the one in the first picture on
Reading between the lines at....
Thanks. That was good reading.
After seeing the damage a neighbour suffered when a toilet cistern failed when they were on holiday *, we always turn off our water when going away.
*we could see the water pouring from the over flow. Couldn?t reach the main stop c*ck in the street. Water board more interested in fining for wasting water. Eventually found someone with tool to turn off water in street. Damage was extensive- skirting boards downstairs swelled to several inches thick. Owners forced to live in hotel for over a month.....
I think a good idea from the view point of you access problem. But, the main stopcock may seize up due to lack of use. If you can, try to turn it at least once a year to prevent this.
One of our neighbours went away to the bloody Antarctic of all places one winter. Just before they went they turned on an outside tap it didn't work cos it was frozen and stayed that way for a while then came a thaw and the tap turned right on started pissing water into their back garden and quite a big secluded one it was too!
Anyway a bloke from the water co was outside one day asked him, what's up?, leak somewhere around here sez he . Well their away so don't know what to do but its here somewhere and at that point a managed to look across their tall garden gate there was a lake there around must have been a 100 or more foot in diameter! He found a outside stop tap buried under the gravel and turned it off.
The water board came to an arrangement, they charged him for the water used but not the sewage charge for taking it away, cost him a fair old bit too!..
If you have a modern combined stop c*ck and meter housing then the stop c*ck is just a 90 degree arrangement with a plastic key to operate it.
I woke one morning to the sound of running water. It was pouring out of the upstairs bathroom toilet cistern overflow into the front garden, which had become a pond. The fault was that the ball valve arm (plastic) had snapped, leaving the inlet valve running at full pelt. I was very lucky the overflow handled the rate - it was a close thing. I had not previously considered the possibility of one of these failing without warning at full flow.
It doubled my 6-monthly water consumption IIRC. I don't know how long it was leaking before I found it, but a max of 8 hours.
When I was a child, a school friend lost their house for a year or more when the loft pipework froze whilst they where away, and then spent a week or more pouring water through the house. They lost all the floors and ceilings, and almost everything in the house.
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