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. Our builder isn't sure this is permitted as you're not allowed to cover with paving even though it will have an access key, but Thames Water say that provided it's accessible then it's fine (although they won't put this in writing). Anyone got any experience of this? The diagram below shows the typical pipework for most homes and who is responsible for maintaining it. Mark does not recommend using lubricating oil, WD40 or similar to try to loosen a stop tap. He explained: ‘Oil and WD40 work on rust, so on ferrous metals. There’s nothing worse than arriving to find a customer has sprayed the stop tap with WD40, as it just makes it slippery to work with.’ You might not want to cut off water to your entire house, and with small jobs, like fixing a tap, it usually isn’t necessary – all you’ll need to do is to find the right isolation valve (also known as a service valve).

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. 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. 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. You'll usually get to a point where you can’t turn it anymore. You shouldn’t use force to turn it further.Without isolation valves or a working stop tap, your plumber may need to drain the entire system before making any repairs. This takes time and, as plumbers often charge by the hour, often means higher charges. On the plus side, once your system is drained, it’s a great opportunity to install new isolation valves or a new stop tap. Your inside stop valve is inside your house and is normally located just after the water pipe enters the house. This is often under the kitchen sink, but can also be:

Even a simple plumbing job, such as changing a tap on a sink, becomes more complicated and more costly if you’re unable to shut off the water effectively within your home. The diagram below shows the typical pipework at most homes and who is responsible for maintaining it. 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 Mark told us: ‘An old-fashioned stop tap that hasn’t been turned for a couple of years is unlikely to work, in which case you’ll have to get the Water Board out. They will have to fix the stop tap in the road before you can do anything in the house.’ Important: if your home is on a shared water supply, turning the water off will also turn your neighbour’s off. Let them know before you start work. How to turn your water on using the outside stop valveIf 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.

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. It may take a few turns to turn the water on. It may also take a few minutes for the water to start running from your taps, as it will need to run through the pipes again.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.