You can reduce the risk of burst or frozen pipes in your home by taking some precautions. If you own your home, you're responsible for insulating and protecting all inside pipework. In rented accommodation, landlords are responsible.

Preventing burst and frozen pipes

To help prevent your pipes from freezing, it's important to:

• know where the internal stop/tap valve is (usually under the kitchen sink) and how to turn it off
• keep the home as warm as possible even if you are out
• lag pipes in exposed or draughty places
• leave the trap door to roofspace open to let warm air flow in during extreme weather conditions when there is the chance that un-lagged water tanks and pipes could freeze
• see that taps are turned off properly
• have contact details for a plumber

You should:

• not use an electric, gas or paraffin heater in the roofspace
• become familiar with your water supply system now and find the main stopcock which turns off the water supply to your property

Frozen pipes

If you have a frozen pipe:

• put hot water bottles or a thick cloth soaked in hot water over the frozen pipe - when thawing, start at the end of the pipe nearest the tap and work away from it
• don't use a naked flame

Burst pipes

If a pipe bursts:

• turn off the main stopcock
• open all the cold taps to drain the system if the flow of water cannot be stopped
• if the burst is on a pipe from the storage tank, turn off the stop valve in the storage tank, turn on all hot taps to drain the system, allow the fire to burn out or turn the heating off until the burst pipe has been attended to by a plumber