Home Emergency Numbers and Shut-Offs: The Fridge List

The shut-offs everyone in the house should be able to find

Find each of these today, in daylight, and tag it with a marker or a luggage label. Then show every adult in the house, including anyone who works there.

• The main water valve. Usually where the supply enters the flat — a bathroom, the kitchen service area, or inside a duct behind an access panel. Turn clockwise to close. Note it on your sheet as a location, not a vague description.
• The small angle valves at each fixture. Under every basin, behind every WC, at the washing machine point. These isolate one leak without shutting the whole flat.
• The pump switch. Whatever fills your tank. An overflowing tank stops within seconds of the pump going off, and most households have no idea which switch it is.
• The main electrical switch and the labelled MCBs. Everyone should be able to kill the whole flat in the dark. Label the MCBs for the kitchen, bathrooms, geyser, air conditioners and the inverter circuit while you are at it.
• The gas shut-off. The cylinder regulator knob for LPG, or the isolation valve for piped gas. Know where it is, and turn it off every night as a habit.
• The inverter isolator, if you have one, and where the battery sits.
• The building riser isolator and the guard or caretaker’s location. You will not operate a riser valve yourself, but knowing it exists is what lets you ask for the right thing.
• The grille escape panel key. If your balcony or window grilles have an openable panel, the key goes on a hook beside it, high enough that children cannot reach it, and every adult knows where it is.

Which numbers should I write down?

These, in your own handwriting, taken from your own bills and official sources. Do not copy an emergency number from any website, including ours — look it up at source and confirm it is current.

• Official emergency services. Police, fire and ambulance for your area. Look up the current numbers from an official source and write them at the top of the sheet.
• Your gas supplier’s emergency line. For LPG, your distributor and the bottling company’s emergency number, both on your booking receipt and cylinder paperwork. For piped gas, your supplier’s emergency number from your bill or their official site.
• Your electricity distribution company’s complaint and emergency number, taken from your own bill, plus your consumer or connection number, which they will ask for.
• Your water utility or borewell and tanker contact, and your connection number.
• Society office, RWA, building caretaker and the guard on duty. These are the fastest response you have for anything involving a shared line, a riser or the terrace.
• Your own plumber, electrician and carpenter. The people you have already used and would call again. Finding a professional at 2am is far harder than finding one on a Tuesday afternoon — our who to call for home repairs guide helps you decide which trade covers what.
• The lift maintenance contact, if your building has a lift and the society does not handle it directly.
• Two neighbours and one family member outside the building. The people who can open your door, take your children, or come when you cannot.
• Your nearest hospital, and your family doctor. Address as well as number, because someone else may need to take a person there.

Add your own full address as it should be given on a call: block, flat number, floor, tower, colony and a landmark. In an emergency people forget how to describe where they live, and callers on the other end need it exactly.

How to make the sheet so it actually gets used

A sheet nobody can find is the same as no sheet. Four rules make the difference.

• One page, large handwriting, no clutter. If it needs reading glasses in a hurry, it will not be read.
• Two copies in fixed places. One inside a kitchen cupboard door or on the fridge, one near the main door. Both should be findable by touch.
• Write the locations, not just the numbers. “Water valve: inside bathroom duct, left of the WC” is useful. “Water valve” is not.
• Tell everyone, including children and domestic help. Walk them past each shut-off once. The person at home when something happens is often not the person who made the sheet.
• Keep a torch beside it. Most water and electrical emergencies happen with the power off, and a torch in a known place is worth more than a phone light you have to find first.
• Put the same list in your phone as a note and as contacts, so you have it when you are away from home too.

Keep it current, and know what each emergency needs

Review the sheet once a year, on a date you will remember, and after anything changes: a new plumber, a new society contact, a change of gas connection, a move.

• Re-check the official numbers each year. Helplines and utility numbers do change, and a number that has quietly stopped working is a number you will discover at the worst moment.
• Water first, then power. For a leak, cut the power to the wet area before you go in, then the pump, then the valve. The full order is in our home water emergency guide.
• For gas, nothing electrical at all. No switches on or off, no lift, no doorbell, no phone inside. Out first, call from outside.
• For fire, get out and call from outside, close doors behind you, use the stairs, and never go back in. Prevention and escape planning are in home fire safety basics.
• For anything electrical you can smell or feel, switch that circuit off at the board and leave it off until an electrician has seen it — see our electrical safety tips.

None of this makes a home emergency-proof. It removes the ten minutes of panic and searching at the start, which is usually where the damage is decided.