Martin Lewis warns homeowners to act now or face whopping £9,000 bill this winter

The user champion has issued a stark informing to households crossed the UK arsenic the upwind gets colder. Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis took to societal media to contented the plea

Martin Lewis has issued a stark informing to homeowners astir locating a hidden power successful their homes to debar a imaginable £9k measure this winter.

The BBC Sounds and ITV star's proposal comes arsenic the upwind takes a crook for the worse, with temperatures dropping significantly.

On his website, Mr Lewis highlighted the value of knowing wherever your home's stopcock is - a mains h2o pat besides known arsenic the disconnected switch. He said: "If you don't cognize wherever yours is, your location could beryllium flooded with h2o everywhere, portion you person nary thought however to halt it.

"A stopcock is your mains h2o pat (the disconnected switch). Everyone should cognize wherever theirs is, particularly astatine this clip of twelvemonth erstwhile pipes tin burst owed to frost."

The disconnected power helps to halt the travel of h2o done these pipes, and according to Mr Lewis, "before wintertime hits, it's bully to cognize however to crook your h2o disconnected should you request to."

Taking to societal media level X, formerly known arsenic Twitter, helium asked: "Do you cognize wherever your stopcock is" and warned that "burst frozen pipes make connected mean £9,000 + of damage."

If your stopcock isn't functioning properly, helium advises calling a plumber present – earlier immoderate issues arise. Money Saving Expert readers shared their ain experiences, with 1 revealing: "Mine is successful the bath astatine the broadside of the bath. V. strange," portion different said: "Ours is adjacent to the beforehand door, down a screwed-on panel! Great successful lawsuit of emergencies (not)," and a 3rd added: "In our area, the stopcock is successful the beforehand country adjacent to the fireplace, truthful different spot to find them,".

"Mine's underneath the oven – we person to prevarication connected our tummy and wriggle to scope it! " 1 idiosyncratic shared. "Behind the descend successful the bathroom," chimed successful another.

A 3rd contributor mentioned, "Some radical whitethorn person a posh stopcock button, alternatively than a turntable valve," "Under the floorboards successful the eating room," revealed yet another.

Earlier, we reported connected the galore ways to prevention a spot of other currency connected your energy bills this wintertime if you are disquieted astir the outgo of the acold season.

There are each sorts of unusual tips and bits of folklore astir keeping lukewarm successful winter, from coating your radiators achromatic to putting beverage lights wrong works pots. In effect to these claims, Martin Lewis ’ squad astatine the Money Saving Expert website enactment together a database of heating myths to bust.

Interestingly 1 of the commonly recommended heating hacks they said really worked was utilizing radiator panels to support vigor in. “Radiator panels tin prevention energy, but not precise much,” the squad said. “It's much important that your walls are insulated, to forestall the vigor leaking retired of your location altogether.”