Emergency plumber West Midlands

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. The West Midlands is supplied by more than one company — Severn Trent Water and South Staffs Water among them — and which one is yours can change from one street to the next, so check the top of your water bill. 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 the five counties rather than working out of one depot. Out in the villages 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.

That is a good part of what we do here. Overnight and early-morning callouts to workshops, shops and small industrial units, so the fault is cleared before trading starts. Tell us what has happened and what has to be working by opening — a washroom, a kitchen, hot water — and we will send someone equipped for it. If water has reached stock or equipment, stop it at the stopcock and photograph everything before anything is moved, because your insurer will want to see it.

Where one pipe feeds more than one property, the owners generally share the responsibility for repairing it, and the water company usually does not pay for the shared section, though some will help in certain cases. Which part of the pipe the leak is on matters, so the first job is to find it. Ring us and we will trace the leak, tell you which stretch it is in, and give you a written note of what we found to show your neighbour. Then agree who pays what in writing, check your home insurance wording, and ask your water company what help it offers. Policies differ, so treat this as a guide.

Usually not an emergency, but do not ignore it. The bang is water hammer: the flow stops suddenly and the shock travels through the pipes. The common causes are pipe clips that have worked loose so the pipe knocks against the wall, a tired valve that shuts too abruptly, or pressure that is higher than the pipework likes. Left alone it can loosen joints over time. If the noise has started suddenly, or is joined by a drip or a damp patch, ring us. If it is only a knock you have lived with for a while, mention it next time we are out and we will take a look.

They are two different problems. Cold at the top means air is trapped, and you can usually fix it yourself: with the heating off and the radiator cool, turn the bleed screw a little with a radiator key until water appears, then close it, and check the boiler pressure afterwards because bleeding lets it drop. Cold at the bottom, or cold in a patch in the middle, usually means sludge has built up inside, which bleeding will not cure and which needs a plumber to clear. If several radiators are cold, or the whole system is slow to warm, ring us and we will tell you what we find.