Since 2010
Burst pipe repair in Pontefract
If water is coming out of a pipe right now, turn it off at the internal stopcock, open every cold tap downstairs, and call 01924 266211. We answer 24 hours a day.
If the water is off and under control, or you are reading this before winter rather than in the middle of it, the rest of the page is worth a read.
We have been doing burst pipe repair in Pontefract from Queens Avenue since 2010, and we cover Knottingley, Castleford, Featherstone, Ackworth, Darrington and Wakefield.
Answered out of hours, every hour
You know the price before we start
A written price before any work begins, agreed with you. No day rates quoted over the phone, no extras appearing on the invoice.
Plumbing, electrics and roofing, one contractor
A leak that has taken out the lights needs a plumber and an electrician. You call once and we send both, rather than you chasing two trades.
Who we work with
Homes, rentals and commercial property in Pontefract and surrounding areas.
The same trades, the same standards and the same written pricing whether it is a family home, a rental portfolio or a commercial building.
Homeowners
Repairs, replacements and improvements. Priced clearly before we start.
- ✓ Every trade under one contractor
- ✓ Free written quotes, no obligation
- ✓ All work fully guaranteed
Landlords and letting agents
Tenanted property looked after without you having to be there.
- ✓ Direct contact with your tenant
- ✓ Photographs and sign-off on every job
- ✓ Gas and electrical certification
Commercial and healthcare
Maintenance and repairs planned around the people using the building.
- ✓ Out of hours attendance
- ✓ Work planned around occupants
- ✓ 24/7 emergency cover, 365 days
Here is what to do if a pipe has gone right now, why they burst when they do, and how we put them right.
Water is coming out right now
Three things, in order:
Stopcock off. Usually under the kitchen sink. If it will not turn, there is normally an external stop tap under a small cover near the boundary or the pavement.
Open the cold taps downstairs. Drains the system and drops the pressure at the split while you wait.
Kill the power to anything wet. Water getting into a light fitting or a socket can give someone a shock, so switch that circuit off at the consumer unit. Do not stand in water to do it.
The out of hours side is covered on our emergency plumber in Pontefract page.
Why pipes burst on the thaw, not the freeze
Water expands by roughly nine percent when it freezes. In a pipe, the ice does not push outwards evenly. It forms a plug, and as more water freezes behind that plug, pressure builds up in the trapped section between the ice and the nearest closed tap or valve. That pressure is what splits the pipe, and it can split it some distance from where the ice actually is.
The split often happens while everything is still frozen, and nothing comes out, because the ice is still plugging the pipe. You have no idea anything is wrong. Then the weather turns mild, the plug melts, and the water finds the split all at once, usually while everyone is at work.
So the dangerous day is not the coldest night of the year. It is the mild morning a few days later. If you have had a hard freeze and a tap or a radiator stopped working during it, do not assume it sorted itself out when the water came back on. Go and check that pipework for damp and splits.
Where pipes burst in houses around here
Frozen pipes in Pontefract turn up in the same four places every winter, and it is always somewhere cold that nobody has thought about.
Lofts, garages and outhouses
The most common one by far. Unheated space, often with a cold water tank and pipework sitting above the insulation rather than below it. A lot of the housing around Pontefract, Featherstone and Castleford has loft pipework that was lagged once, decades ago, and has not been looked at since.
Pipes clipped to an external wall
Common in older terraces, and in extensions where the pipework was taken round the outside rather than through the building. An outside tap and its feed is the usual version of this, and the easiest to prevent.
Under suspended floors
Older properties with ventilated voids under the ground floor. The airflow that stops the joists rotting is the same airflow that freezes the pipework. These are the worst ones to find, because the water runs into the void and the first sign is often a smell or a damp skirting board weeks later.
The boiler condensate pipe
The most common cold weather callout of the lot. Modern condensing boilers drain a small amount of acidic water out through a plastic condensate pipe, which is very often routed outside. In freezing weather that pipe ices up, the boiler sees the blockage and shuts itself down.
No heating, no hot water, and nothing actually wrong with the boiler.
Thawing a frozen condensate pipe is a plumbing job rather than a gas one, and it is usually straightforward. Warm water poured along the outside of the pipe, not boiling, works in most cases. If it keeps happening, the pipe wants lagging, re-routing inside the house, or replacing with a wider one. Anything on the boiler itself goes through a Gas Safe registered engineer.
Underground, between the boundary and the house
That stretch of pipe belongs to you rather than Yorkshire Water, so a burst there is your repair. The signs are a patch of lawn that never dries out, water pressure that has dropped gradually rather than suddenly, and a meter that keeps turning with everything in the house switched off.
If it is waste water rather than clean water appearing, that is a drainage problem instead. Our blocked drains page covers how to tell the difference.
Frozen but not burst yet, what to do
If one tap has stopped running while the others are fine, you have probably caught it in time, and you may not need frozen pipe repair at all.
Turn the stopcock off first. If the pipe has already split, you do not want to find out when it thaws
Open the affected tap, so the water has somewhere to go as it melts
Warm the pipe gently along its length with a hot water bottle, a cloth soaked in warm water or a hairdryer on a low setting, starting at the tap end and working back
Never use a blowtorch or any naked flame. That is how a frozen pipe becomes a flooded kitchen or a house fire
Once it runs again, check the whole length of that pipework for splits and damp
If you are not sure where the frozen section is, or you cannot get to it, ring us rather than guess.
How we repair a burst pipe
A burst pipe in Pontefract gets the same sequence every time. Isolate, drain down, cut out the failed section, replace it, pressure test, then check the pipework either side. That last step is the one people skip, and it matters, because the pipework either side is sitting in the same cold spot that caused the burst in the first place.
Copper
Splits lengthways along the pipe, which is easy enough to spot once it is exposed. We cut out and replace the damaged section with a soldered or a compression joint, depending on where it is and how easy it needs to be to get at later.
Plastic push fit
Usually fails at the fitting rather than along the pipe, and it is often the support insert inside the pipe end that was never pushed home properly. We replace the fitting and the section either side of it.
Older lead pipework
Still there in parts of the older housing around here, particularly on incoming supplies. We do not patch lead. Where we find it on a burst, the right answer is replacing that section in modern pipe, which also gets the lead out of your drinking water.
Repair or replace the whole length
One split in otherwise sound pipework is a repair. A length that has burst twice, or that sits somewhere guaranteed to freeze again, is worth replacing or re-routing properly. Water leak repair in Pontefract is rarely just the one joint, and treating it as one joint is how people end up ringing twice. We will tell you which of the two you have got, and price both where it is a real choice.
After the repair, the drying out
Fixing the pipe is the quick part. Getting the house dry again is what takes the time, and it is the bit people are not expecting.
Water does not sit politely where you can see it. It goes into plaster, under floor coverings, into the chipboard beneath them, and in some houses straight down into the cavity. A ceiling that looks dry on the surface can still be holding water in the plaster behind it for weeks.
What helps:
Lift carpets and underlay early, even if you intend to keep them. Underlay holds water like a sponge and will not dry in place
Get air moving. Windows open, doors open, and a dehumidifier running if you can borrow or hire one
Keep the heating on a steady low setting rather than blasting it, because drying plaster too fast cracks it
Do not redecorate yet. Plaster looks dry long before it is, and paint over damp plaster blisters and comes away a few months later
If you are claiming, your insurer will often appoint a drying company and take readings before signing anything off. Let them.
Once it is dry, the making good is plastering, flooring and decorating, which we cover too. That is the advantage of using a building firm rather than a plumber for a burst pipe. The same people who fixed the pipe put the room back.
Burst pipes and your insurance
Water damage from a burst pipe, which your policy will call escape of water, is one of the most common household claims there is. What you do in the first hour decides how smoothly the claim goes.
Photograph everything before any work starts, including the split itself
Keep the failed section of pipe, because it is your evidence
Get the repair priced in writing, which your insurer will want to see
Tell your insurer promptly, even if you have not decided whether to claim
Do not bin damaged flooring or belongings until you are told you can
Worth checking on your policy: trace and access cover. That is the part that pays for finding the leak and getting to it, lifting floors and opening up walls, rather than just repairing the pipe itself. Not every policy includes it, and on a buried leak the tracing can cost more than the repair does.
Empty properties and holidays
If a house is going to be empty in winter, most insurers attach conditions, and almost nobody reads them until they need to.
Typically the policy will require either the heating left on at a minimum temperature, or the water system drained down, once the property has been empty beyond a set number of days. If neither was done and a pipe bursts, the claim can be refused.
Going away for Christmas, the short version:
Leave the heating on a low constant setting rather than off
Or turn the water off at the stopcock and drain the system down
Open the loft hatch to let warm air up if there is pipework and a tank up there
Ask someone to call in every few days and check for damp patches and running water
Burst pipes in rented property
Under section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, keeping the water and heating installations in repair is the landlord's obligation, not the tenant's. A burst pipe is a repair, and an urgent one.
How we handle it:
The tenant can call us directly and we attend, with you or your agent authorising the work
We deal with the tenant for access rather than making you the switchboard
Photographs and a written sign-off on every job, for your file and for any deposit or insurance question later
Same 24 hour cover, because tenants have burst pipes at weekends too
Getting through winter without one
None of this is expensive, and it is all an afternoon’s work in October.
| Job | Why | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lag the pipework in the loft, garage and outhouse | The places pipes actually freeze |
| 2 | Make sure the loft insulation runs over the top of the pipes, not under them | Insulation underneath leaves the pipes out in the cold loft |
| 3 | Turn the outside tap off at its internal valve and drain it | The most preventable burst there is |
| 4 | Lag or re-route the boiler condensate pipe | Stops the boiler shutting down in a cold snap |
| 5 | Fit isolating valves under sinks and behind toilets | Next time you can shut off one sink instead of the whole house |
| 6 | Find the stopcock, check it turns, tell the household | Costs nothing and saves more than anything else on this list |
| 7 | Note what the water meter reads normally | A hidden leak shows up early |
More on all of this is on our plumbing services in Pontefract page.
Where we cover
We are at The Stables, Queens Avenue, Pontefract, WF8 4SF. We cover burst pipes across Pontefract, Knottingley, Castleford, Featherstone, Ackworth, Darrington and Wakefield.
If you have searched for a burst pipe near me, a burst water pipe near me or emergency burst pipe repair near me from any of those towns, we are a local firm with a real address in Pontefract a short drive away, answering the phone at any hour.
Need a plumber?
Tell us what is wrong and we will come back to you with a free written quote.
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FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Clear, honest answers to the things people ask us most. If you can’t find what you need, just get in touch - we’re happy to help.