No Water Emergency Plumber, Day or Night

Is it just my house, or the whole street?

This one question decides who fixes it. Ask a few neighbours further along the road, not just next door, because terraces often share one private supply pipe. If the whole street has no water, the problem is almost certainly on the water company’s main: a burst, planned work or a pressure fault. Check the water company’s live incident map for your postcode and report it there. A plumber cannot fix a public main, so do not pay anyone to try. Our guide on no water in your area covers what to check and what you are entitled to while it is off.

If the neighbours have water and you do not, the fault is somewhere between the boundary stop tap in the pavement and your taps. In the Thames Water area that pipe, and everything inside the house, is the owner’s responsibility. That is the job we come out for.

Household water supplies in England cannot be cut off for an unpaid bill. That has been the law since the Water Industry Act 1999, so a missed payment is not the reason your taps are dry.

Why has my water stopped when the neighbours still have it?

Work through the causes in this order, because each check takes seconds and rules the next one in or out.

Check the kitchen cold tap next. In a house with a cold water tank in the loft, it is usually the only tap fed straight from the mains. If the kitchen cold runs but the bathroom taps and toilets do not, the mains is fine and the loft cold water tank has emptied. The usual reason is a float valve stuck shut, or a split in the tank’s feed pipe. Our loft tank ballcock guide explains what is safe to try.

If nothing runs at all, look at the stopcock. Someone may have turned it off during other work, or it may have been left almost closed. On older brass stopcocks the jumper, the small part carrying the washer, is loose from the spindle. It can stick down on its seat, so the valve looks fully open while the flow stays blocked, and turning the handle makes no difference. That is a common reason for water failing after someone has shut the stopcock and reopened it for the first time in years. See how to turn off a stopcock if you are not sure which way is open.

In a cold snap, a frozen supply pipe is the likeliest cause, especially where the pipe crosses a garage, a loft or a void under the floor. Turn the stopcock off, open the kitchen cold tap, and warm the pipe gently with a hairdryer or hot-water bottle, working from the tap end back. Never use a naked flame or blowtorch, and watch the pipe for a split as it thaws. Finally, if the water went from a trickle to nothing over a day or two, suspect a leak on the underground supply pipe. A wet patch in the front garden, or a meter still turning with every tap shut, points the same way.

What we do on the visit

The engineer starts at the outside stop tap, checking it is open and, where a meter sits in the same box, whether water is reaching the property. If water arrives there but not at the stopcock indoors, the fault is on the buried supply pipe. If it reaches the stopcock but not beyond, the valve is the problem. A seized or jumper-failed stopcock is usually replaced with a modern quarter-turn valve, because repairing a worn brass one rarely lasts.

Frozen pipes are thawed slowly with warm air and then lagged. A split found in the process is cut out and rejoined before the water goes back on. If the loft tank has run dry, the float valve is freed or replaced and the tank refilled. Where the supply pipe itself has failed underground, we make the house safe and agree the next step with you, whether that is a repair section or a new run.

Once water is back, taps are opened one at a time to push out air. The combi or hot water cylinder is checked so hot water comes back too.

What does it usually cost to get the water back on?

It depends on where the fault is. Freeing a stuck float valve or swapping an internal stopcock is a short job. Across the UK market, stopcock replacements are usually quoted at roughly £100 to £250 including parts. A leak on a buried supply pipe that needs digging is a different scale of job and is priced once the leak is found.

With us you pay the £60 call-out to get an engineer there, and the repair price is agreed with you on site before any work starts. Full details of the cost of an emergency plumber are on one page.

When no water cannot wait

Some situations need someone the same night. A burst you cannot stop is one, and so is a vulnerable person or baby in the house, or a home where the toilets cannot be flushed. If the supply failed because a pipe split and you can hear water running, shut the stopcock and switch off the boiler and immersion heater. Then call. Our burst pipe repair page covers that case.