What to do in the first two minutes of a burst pipe
Turn the water off. Turn the power off if water is near it. Then call. Everything else can wait.
Published 9 September 2026
Most of the damage happens in the first few minutes. Do these three things in this order.
1. Turn the water off
Find the main stop tap and close it. Turn it clockwise.
In most Cyprus homes it is by the water meter, often in a box at the edge of the property. Sometimes it is under the kitchen sink. In a flat there is usually one inside the flat as well as one for the whole block.
If you have a tank on the roof, the water will not stop straight away. The tank keeps feeding the house by gravity even with the mains off. Look for a tap on the pipe leaving the tank and close that too.
This one step matters more than everything else on this page.
2. Turn the power off if water is near it
If water is running near sockets, near the fuse box, or coming down through a ceiling with lights in it, switch the power off at the fuse box.
Do not stand in water and touch anything electrical. Do not reach into a flooded room to get to a switch. If you cannot get there safely, leave it, and get everyone out of that part of the house.
Water in a ceiling finds the light fittings. That is how a water problem turns into an electrical one.
3. Now call
The water is off, so you have time to explain properly. This is what an urgent call-out needs from you:
- Where the water is coming from, if you can see it
- Whether it is clean water or from a drain
- Whether it is still running now the tap is closed
- Whether it is getting into a neighbour’s place
- Your address, and how to get in
“It is coming through the kitchen ceiling, I have turned the mains off, it has slowed but not stopped” tells us far more than “there is water everywhere”. It changes what we bring.
While you wait
Move what you can. Lift things off a wet floor.
Take photos before you clean up. If you claim on insurance, the photos from the first ten minutes are the ones that count.
Put a bucket under a drip. Do not start pulling the ceiling down to find the leak.
If water is getting to a neighbour, tell them now, not later. In a block it is often a shared problem, and whoever runs the building may need to shut a valve.
If it is a drain, not a clean pipe
This is a different job from a clean-water leak. Drain water is a health problem as well as a mess. Keep people and pets away from it. Do not use the toilet or sinks in that part of the house. Say so when you call, because it changes how we do the job.
Do this today, not in an emergency
Go and find your stop tap now. Turn it off, then on again, to check it is not stuck.
A tap that has not moved in fifteen years often will not move when you need it. Fixing that takes five minutes on a quiet afternoon. At midnight with water coming through the ceiling, it is a different story.