Outside tap problem

[Toiletduck]

Hi,

Theres an outside tap at the bottom of my garden which I recently noticed was leaking quite badly. The tap is connected to a 15mm copper pipe which comes directly out of the ground next to the garden wall. It appears to be completely separate to the house supply anyway and there is no stop tap I can find for it. Nothing in the garden and nothing in the back lane either. This presented me with a bit of a problem in how to fix it! I tried using a freeze pack but I think the leak was causing too much of a flow of water for that to work. In the end I did it "live" - which was fun hot day anyway needed to cool down . Its fixed now and I put in an isolating valve before the tap. My question is however where is this pipe coming from, I suspect that it is the water supply from the long demolished outside toilet. Could the copper pipe be connected directly to the mains then? Why would it be connected without any way of turning it off!

Cheers

Andy

 

[mickyg]

Have you got a water meter? that would be an easy way of checking if its on your metered supply, turn on watch dial. Other than that, turn off your main stoptap at the boundary to see if it isolates.
Now, if you have a water meter, and find that you have a seperate unmetered supply available on your property..........

 

[Toiletduck]

That had actually crossed my mind! Im not on a meter though and to be honest as I only pay £12 a month unmetered Ive not been inspired to get one!

As for stop cocks there is one in the house, but I can see that nothing goes back into the garden downstream from that so its definately not attached to that one. Theres one in the street outside I imagine it shuts down the whole street though!

It actually wasnt that bad doing it "live" outside though.

 

[mickyg]

you wanna try doing it inside

you would normally have a stop tap on the street just for your property, however in some instances ie..rows of old cottages etc.. it may supply 3 or 4.
you should be able to count the number of stop taps and houses in a row to get an idea.

 

[Toiletduck]

Its an old row or terraced houses, I guess theres one tap for number of houses. Seems a bit odd that the stop tap is at the front when the water supply appears to come in at the back. Oh well all fixed now anyway.