When there is a leaking water pipe in your house, you should turn off the water supply at the stop cock. When the stop cock then snaps off in your hand, you should swear violently and prepare to get very, very wet . . .

Yesterday was a bizarre, twisted day. Those 6 remaining snags were all resolved and my wife and I then went out on an evening stroll, full of self-congratulatory talk about how great it was that our home was finally ‘complete’. On our return my wife turned on the kitchen tap and then instantly heard a hissing sound from under the sink. She opened the cabinet beneath to see a fine spray of water coming from the maze of piping. I went straight to the stop cock at the heart of the piping and turned it off. A minor disaster was averted. Craig was the hero. A small amount of mopping up and the cupboard was as good as new.

So we are then left without any water, and I’m left wondering where the leak came from. There are pipes out to the washing machine and dishwasher under there, and I was confident I could solve any problem with these links. So I decided to very slowly switch the stop cock back on and observe where this slight, fine, barely visible spray of water was coming from. My hand reached out towards the brass tap, and rotated it with tender care the merest fraction of a degree when suddenly……holy &*(&! The tap literally flew out of my hand, and gallon upon gallon of water gushed forth into my face and my body, and down onto the kitchen floor.

Now I would like to say that I handled the situation with consummate cool and came up with some witty, James Bond-esque comment, (‘Fancy a swim, darling?’), but I’m afraid to say that panic well and truly set in. After catching my breath I shouted to my wife, ‘GO AND GET EVERY TOWEL IN THE ENTIRE HOUSE!’ Ever sensing the urgency of the situation, she proceeded to carefully browse through her 5-or-so towel storage areas, selecting only the oldest and shabbiest of towels. Eventually they reach the kitchen floor and I look around to see a feeble ring of 100% cotton shielding our through-diner and lounge from complete waterlog. After briefly thinking to myself that I was sure we had more towels than that, I continued my futile efforts to staunch the flow of water by jamming the tap back in the gaping whole. I had some success, with the flow being completely stopped for the odd second before it flew back in my face, stronger than ever.

The ceramic tiles in our kitchen are ever deeper under water, and I am moaning and groaning from the strain of shoving the blasted tap against the considerable water pressure. It then strikes me that we need a follow-on plan, especially as our towels are already fully saturated. ‘EMERGENCY PLUMBER!’ I manage through the torrent of water, telling my wife to get the phone number from the window of the sales office. I also ask her to get the next door neighbour. I wasn’t quite sure what he could add to the mix, but I felt it only fair to share the misery around.

My hands are shaking from the cold and the physical exertion, as water bounces against my body and my slippers begin to look like a sinking pair of tartan life rafts. Then my wife returns with the news I have been waiting for: she’s not too bothered about the bathroom hand towel if I’d like that as well. Great, that should make all the difference. But she also managed to get through to the emergency plumber who was on his way, as was my next door neighbour.

The neighbour soon arrived like a beautiful knight in shining armour, taking one brief look at the devastation and then vanishing again. I suddenly felt lonely, cold, and ever frightened for the welfare of our lounge furniture and my beloved 42 inch plasma TV. I used every last ounce of my strength to fight the flow and keep it down as much as possible with the broken tap. And then I heard angels singing on my shoulder and harps playing gently in the distance, and the water flow stopped. It actually stopped! It stopped, it stopped, it stopped! The jubilation was overwhelming, until I looked down to see my feet covered by an inch of water, and the dining room carpet absorbing ever increasing amounts as the flow made its slow progress inwards, threatening to damage our entire furniture collection.

Our neighbour returned to the briefest of hero’s welcomes, having located the outdoor stop cock in the pitch black, and we then rushed to soak up the water from the kitchen floor before it continued its onslaught on our living area. We paused briefly to move the furniture further and further into the corners of the room, while frantically wringing out towels in the sink and then going back to soak up more water. The emergency plumber arrived and instantly joined in the clean-up operation until the kitchen floor was dry and the lounge area carpet was only partially soaked. All of our furniture had been spared, along with my beloved TV and my wife’s best towels. It had been a frantic half hour, but the mayhem was finally over.

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On closer inspection, the plumber could see that the screw thread of the stop cock had literally snapped in two. Apparently it is a very rare event, and there must have been some sort of crack or defect there since it was installed. It was only a matter of time before it would let rip with such devastating consequences. We were actually pretty lucky that it happened then, while we were downstairs. If it had happened during the night then we would have been oblivious until morning, by which time our furniture would have been floating around the lounge.

The plumber returned this morning to fit a replacement stop cock (which only took around 5 minutes), and the site manager arranged for a dehumidifier to be delivered to try and dry out the carpet. He will return on Monday to assess the damage and see whether the carpet needs to be cleaned or replaced.