Emergency plumber North West

A street-wide loss of water is the water company’s to fix, not a problem with your pipes, and nobody should charge you to tell you that. Most of the North West is supplied by United Utilities, but there are exceptions along the edges of the region — Chester, for one, is served by Severn Trent — so check the top of your water bill to be sure whose it is. If the water is off or leaking only in your own property, it is ours.

The town list is where our plumbers are based, not a boundary. In and around the towns it is 30 to 60 minutes, because our plumbers are spread across four counties rather than working out of one depot. Out in the Lancashire villages, the Cheshire lanes or the hills, it takes longer, and we would rather tell you so. Give us the postcode when you call and we will tell you the real travel time rather than quote a standard one we cannot keep.

Switch off the lights and anything electrical in that room at the fuse board if you can reach it safely, and move belongings out of the way. Then try the neighbour above: the cause is often a tap left running, a washing machine hose or a leaking shower tray, and they can turn their own stopcock off in seconds. If nobody answers, or the water is coming from a pipe rather than an appliance, ring us and tell us how fast it is coming through. Do not poke at a bulging ceiling — if it is sagging, stay out from under it.

Often, yes. Turn the machine off, pull the plug if the floor around it is dry enough to do so safely, and turn off the small isolation valve on the supply pipe behind it. Common causes are a split or loose inlet hose, a worn pump seal or a blocked waste pipe backing up the drain. If there is no isolation valve, or it will not turn, ring us: we can shut the water off elsewhere, fix the leak, and fit a valve so the next one is a thirty-second job.

Turn off the supply to it first — there is usually an isolation valve on the pipe inside the wall, close to where it goes through. If you cannot find one, shut the stopcock. A dripping outside tap is a slow waste, but a split pipe behind the wall can soak the brickwork and the room inside, so do not leave it. Ring us and we will repair it and fit a proper isolation valve and, where it makes sense, a frost-protection cover for the winter.

Stop pouring chemicals down it: they rarely clear a solid blockage and make the pipework unpleasant to work on. Check whether other fixtures are slow too — if the bath and the toilet gurgle as well, the blockage is further down the drain, not just in the sink. If it is only the sink, the trap beneath it is the usual culprit and a plumber can clear it quickly. If water is rising anywhere in the house, or you can smell sewage, ring us straight away.