How the Water System Operates in your Home

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It’s important to know how the water systems work in your home. Particularly if you are dealing with emergencies!

How to do it

Step 1

The cold water supply on your road enters your home by flowing through a service pipe in your foundation and enters up through the floor into your kitchen.

Step 2

If you ever have a burst pipe in your garden, between the road and your house, you will need to stop the water supply to your house by using a ‘Water Key for the Underground Stopcock’.

Step 3

The water supply enters your home through the rising main, this can be found under your sink in the kitchen. This rising main is where your stop valve is located. If you need to stop the cold water supply to your home this is the valve to turn off.

Step 4

A handy tool to have for turning the valve is the ‘Stopcock Key’.

Step 5

The majority of Irish homes will have a non-pressurised indirect cold water system where one branch from the rising main is fed to the kitchen sink to supply drinking water. Other appliances in the kitchen like the dishwasher or washing machine or even an Outdoor Garden Tap can be taken from this branch as well.

Step 6

Otherwise the rising mains goes straight up to the cold water storage tank in the attic which in turn will supply all cold taps, bathroom cisterns and the hot water cylinder. The benefit of the non-pressurised indirect cold water system is that the cold water storage tank, which services all the taps and cisterns with water, acts as a reserve of water if for some reason the water supply is interrupted.

Step 7

When you are going on holidays it’s a good idea to turn off the stop valve at the rising mains in the kitchen. This way if a pipe burst the only water which can escape is that water already in the system.It is also important to turn off the mains in an emergency situation, like the extreme weather conditions similar to Winter 2010, where freezing conditions caused pipes to burst. Turn off the stop valve at the rising mains in the kitchen and prevent anymore water getting into the system.