Water is not coming from my tap!

You don’t necessarily have to call the plumbers if water is not coming out of your taps; you may be able to deal with this plumbing emergency without any experience or skill. You might not have to call up 247 Home Rescue to make a home emergency cover claim, either; the problem may even be completely unrelated to your household’s plumbing supply. A huge range of factors can lead to the issue – your first task will be to find out exactly what has gone wrong.

Check your other taps

Is water flowing out of your other taps properly? If it seems like all of your home’s plumbing has broken down, check to see that your main stopcock is open; you may have accidentally turned it off.

Ask your neighbours

If your stopcock is open, ask your neighbour about their water supply. The problem might not be isolated to your home but may be affecting your entire estate! If your neighbours are having similar problems, give the water company a call and tell them that your neighbourhood’s water system has shut down.

If water does not come from any of your taps:

Examine your cold water cistern

If there’s no water in the house but your stopcock is open and your neighbours are not experiencing any problems, take a look at your cold water cistern. The ball valve may be stuck, which will have caused the cistern to empty. If this is the case, sharply move the float arm to dislodge the valve, and then give it a proper clean. The cold water cistern should fill up, and your taps should start working again.

Is there an air-lock in your plumbing?

If you are experiencing no hot water coming from the tap? If the upstairs taps don’t work but the downstairs taps still work, or if the water pressure from a particular tap gradually declined until the water flow reached a trickle, then you might have an air lock in your pipes. This might sound like a serious problem, but it’s actually not that difficult to resolve: read our advice about removing air locks from pipes to find out more.

If only one tap seems to be broken:

Could your pipes be frozen?

Depending on the location of the pipe, a frozen pipe can prevent water from flowing from one tap, a series of taps, or all the taps in a house. If the cold water cistern is working properly, then check your bathroom taps; if they do not work, then the supply pipe leading from the cistern may be frozen. If the cold water tap in the cistern is working, then press down on the ball valve in your water cistern to see if water flows into it; if it does not, then the main supply pipe may be frozen.

Be careful when thawing a pipe—don’t use any open flames or blowtorches! Read our advice on defrosting frozen condensate pipe to find out what to do.

Does the tap washer need replacing?

The tap may simply be blocked. This can easily be resolved by removing the tap and looking at the washer. Isolate the water supply to the tap, then follow our instructions for fixing a leaking tap; these instructions also work for fixing blocked taps. You can tell for certain if a tap needs replacing by turning the water supply back on again for a moment to see if water flows through the base of the tap.

Call 24|7 Home Rescue

Contact us on 0345 3192 247 and we can help! Our technical teams will run through some simple troubleshooting tips with you to see if your problem can be resolved over the phone. If not, we’ll send a highly skilled and qualified plumber to turn on your taps as soon as possible.

There could be a number of reasons for your lack of water, so it’s better to trust the professionals. After all, you could end up making it worse, and you could be faced with a hefty bill to pay to repair the damage. We help, we repair, and we care.