Clark Drain CD880 140mm x 115mm x 75mm Stop Tap Stopcock Cover/lid PVC Locking Surround Box

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If the T-bar handle is across the pipe, this should mean the mains are shut. If it’s in line with the pipe, the mains should be open. To protect your home, you should always have a working inside stop valve.Use this as the main way to turn your water on and off.

Indirect systems utilise both a hot water and a cold-water storage vessel, which are usually located in the attic, loft, or an upstairs cupboard. A gate vale is located under each of these tanks. You'll usually get to a point where you can’t turn it anymore. You shouldn’t use force to turn it further.We all have a list of things to do around the home that we may or may not get round to. Filing paperwork, sorting out the linen cupboard and in all likelihood, testing your stop tap is on that list too. The problem is, while not being able to find a record of your accounts or your towels being in a mess might be annoying, failing to test your stop tap can be disastrous. In an emergency, your local water company guarantee to come out within 24 hours. However, this is more than long enough for a leak within your property to create some serious damage. It may also take a few minutes for the water to stop running from your taps, as there will be some water left in the pipes from before you turned the water off.

Turning off an old-style stop tap from the street may also turn off the water to neighbouring properties. If this is the case, it’s only fair to let them know what’s going on and how long the water is likely to be off for. Using your inside stop valve should be easy and you should be able to operate the valve yourself. How to turn your water off using the inside stop valve It may take a few turns to stop the water. You'll usually get to a point where you can’t turn it anymore. You shouldn’t need to use excessive force to turn it further. If a stop tap has seized up, it’s probably scaled up and full of debris, rather than rusty. Plumbing parts are made of non-ferrous metals, such as brass or copper, so they corrode and scale up rather than rust. Depending on your system, you may have one or three stop taps in your home. If you have a high-pressure system – usually found in homes with combi-boilers or a mega-flow hot water tank, there will be one single stop tap that turns off water from the mains.Here you'll find a range of surface box covers at Drainage Superstore, from popular and leading brands including Clark Drain, Wrekin and EJ, all at our famously competitive prices. Build and Plumb Registered office JT Dove Ltd, Riversdale Way, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, NE15 8SF,United Kingdom, Registered in GB An isolation valve should be fitted to the water pipe that feeds each tap, and water-using device in your home, including washing machines, toilets, showers and dishwashers. The diagram below shows the typical pipework for most homes and who is responsible for maintaining it. There are two types of water systems – direct, and indirect. As the name suggests, in direct systems, the water comes directly from the mains, whereas in indirect systems, your water comes from a cold-water tank, which is fed by the mains.

If you’ve got a water-meter, there’ll be a modern plastic tap next to the meter. Mark says: ‘A modern water-meter comes with a plastic stop tap, which doesn’t corrode.’ In other words, it should work and is relatively simple to turn off by hand or a universal stop tap key (available from any hardware store) if it’s too deep to reach.

At the end of your road. This is common if your house is old and you share a supply with your neighbours. I think your Builder is right not to cover a stop tap, if you or others need this in an emergency it has to be visible. The external valve controls the flow from the water main that serves your street to the supply pipe into your house. A gravity or low-pressure system, when there is a tank in the loft that supplies the toilets and basins, will have the mains stop tap that supplies water to the kitchen sink, plus a stop tap coming out of the tank for the hot-water flow and for the cold-water flow too. You can try gently using a spanner to get leverage, but it is easy to snap the spindle, at which point the stop tap will need replacing in its entirety. Mark cautioned: ‘Too much torque from a spanner can twist the spindle like toffee, as it’s made from brass.’