Water Meter / Stopcock Woes

A question about : Water Meter / Stopcock Woes

My daughter has just bought her first little terraced house, moved in, mid December and on Christmas day her combination Boiler broke and is un-repairable. (She did know it was very old & might need replacing). British Gas came to fit new boiler 5 days ago and needed to turn mains water off. Had to ring previous owner to find out where stopcock was, its in road outside house. It was pouring with rain and there was a car parked over the stopcock cover. Took half an hour of knocking on neighbours doors to try & find out who car belonged to and get them to move it. When lifted cover, the whole area inside was swamped with water (water meter in here too), the British gas engineer used his wet vac to try and remove water although it was just filling up straight away from the rain water pouring down the road. The stopcock was broken / ceased so unable to turn off. Phoned local water Co (South East Water) and asked if someone could come and help turn off water as new boiler in process of being fitted and also told them that my daughter was vunerable as she suffers from bad asthma and had had no heating or hot water for 2 weeks and they said they would raise a job but didn't think they could get there today. Eventually the British Gas engineer saved the day and cut the pipe to the boiler (live) and managed to put a stopcock on that section. Boiler all installed and working but 5 days on, still haven't heard from or seen water board! called them today and they said they will chase up job order but it normally takes 5 working days... Sorry for rambling on but my main concern is that at the moment my daughter cannot turn the mains water off to her property. Also, where the stopcock is currently located is in an area that is always used for parking so if stopcock did work, in an emergency she probably still wouldn't be able to access it quickly enough and when it rains the whole thing fills rapidly with water flooding the meter and stopcock. I know she really needs an internal stopcock which once the external one is fixed she can have fitted but ideally she would like the external stopcock/meter moved to within her boundry so it is always accessible. The Meter/stopcock are at the front of the property and water pipe must run under her front garden, under the lounge & dining room floor to the kitchen & bathroom that are at the back of the property, so even having an internal stopcock fitted where the mains comes into the house (probably in kitchen) it wouldn't help if a leak occurred in pipe before stopcock (ie under house). Does anybody know if the water board will be liable for fixing the stopcock and if due to the problems she is having would consider moving it to inside her garden? I would assume that the meter being submerged in water wouldn't be doing it any good either and makes me wonder how accurate the readings will be. Any advice much appreciated....

Best answers:

• There is a stop tap on the main supply from the street, so that the Waterboard can turn off your water supply without entering the property. I doubt that the waterboard will move this for you.
  There should also be a stop tap in the property so that the homeowner can turn off the supply as it comes into the house. If the property definately does not have one then this explains why the meter has been fitted to the street.
  I had similar issues with my internal and external tap.
  The internal tap would not turn off and nor would the external tap.
  Severn Trent Water repaired the external stop tap which enabled me to replace my internal stop tap.
• The stopcock at the premises as opposed to the feed pipe on the road from the mains is not the water boards responsibility . Its part of the plumbing in job on a house build .The section from the meter under the garden is the householders responsibility as well .
  Some internal stopcocks can be in obscure places .
  Its normal for the stopcock/ meter hole to be full of water that's why the meter is a sealed unit .
• I'd of thought it'd be on your property somewhere - sheesh! Still at least it's possible to get one fitted easily enough though.