247 emergency plumber
Water coming through the ceiling? Get the stopcock off, then get an emergency plumber booked
Burst and frozen pipes, leaks you cannot stop, a boiler down with a baby in the house, a toilet or drain that has put the bathroom out of use. Emergency plumbing requests are taken day and night across Norwich and the towns within twenty miles.
Five-star ratedby homeowners and landlords
- Requests taken day and night
- Leaks, bursts and no heating
- Made safe first, repaired second
What Norwich households say after the emergency visit
A plumbing emergency is any fault that is doing damage while you wait, or that has taken something essential out of use. Water through a ceiling, a pipe spraying under the sink, a cylinder dumping its contents into the airing cupboard, a toilet that cannot be flushed in a house with one bathroom, a boiler that has failed in January with young children or an elderly relative at home.
The first minutes matter more than the plumber does. Shut the water off at the stopcock, open the cold taps to drain the pipes, turn the boiler off if the leak is on the heating and the electrics off if water is anywhere near them. Our guide to the first ten minutes after a burst pipe walks through it. Then send the form marked as an emergency and the call back is prioritised.
Once the water is off, the aim of the visit is to make the property safe and usable, then to repair the fault properly rather than patch it. Where the emergency is a boiler, the boiler breakdown repair page describes what that diagnosis involves. Emergency cover runs across all the towns on the areas list, not just the city.
What counts as an emergency, and what to do first
- Burst or split pipe. Stopcock off, cold taps open, buckets under the drip. If a ceiling is bulging, put a small hole in the lowest point with a screwdriver to let the water out in one place rather than let the whole board come down.
- Leak from a fitting you cannot isolate. Same again: stopcock off. If the leak continues after the stopcock is closed, it is on the stored side and the cold tank in the loft needs to drain, or the cylinder valve needs closing.
- No heating or hot water in cold weather. Check the boiler display for a fault code and the pressure gauge, try one reset, then stop. Repeated resets can lock the boiler out.
- Toilet or drain backing up. Stop using every fitting. Each flush upstairs comes out at the lowest point.
- Frozen pipe with no leak yet. Stopcock off, the affected tap open, gentle warmth on the pipe. Never a flame.
- Smell of gas. This is not a plumbing emergency: open the windows, do not touch switches, turn off the gas at the meter and call the national gas emergency line first.
What the emergency visit does
The visit is in two parts. The first is making the property safe and usable: isolating the leak properly so the rest of the house has water again, capping a split pipe, freeing a blocked toilet, getting a boiler running if the fault allows it. The second is the repair itself, which is often done there and then when the part is on the van, and otherwise quoted for a return visit with the house left safe in the meantime.
The price for the emergency visit is agreed on the call back, before anyone sets off. If the repair needs parts that have to be ordered, that is priced separately and you decide.
The emergencies Norwich houses tend to have
The inner-city terraces, with their suspended timber ground floors and pipework in cold voids, freeze in a hard winter and burst in the thaw. Houses with a loft cold tank and an uninsulated feed pipe do the same. Rental properties between tenants, with the heating off, are the classic January call.
Older houses also produce the leaks that have been going for a while: a weeping compression joint under a bath that finally lets go, a lead-to-copper joint on the supply that fails, a cast iron soil stack that cracks. On the estates built after the war the common ones are a failed cylinder in the airing cupboard and a combi that has locked out on a frozen condensate pipe.
After the emergency: drying out and following up
Once the leak is fixed, lift wet carpet so the floor beneath can dry, open cupboards the water passed through and get air moving. A sagging ceiling will not recover and needs replacing before it comes down on its own. Photograph everything before it is cleared, keep the failed part, and if you are claiming on insurance, the invoice describes the fault and the repair in the terms an assessor expects.
If the emergency was one of a series, a pipe that has now burst twice or a boiler that keeps locking out, the follow-up is a proper look at why, whether that is tracing a hidden leak or re-routing a pipe out of a cold void.
How a job runs
How an emergency call is handled
Make it safe, make it usable, then fix it properly.
Water off, form sent
You isolate what you can and describe the emergency on the form, marked urgent. The call back is prioritised and the visit price agreed.
Made safe on arrival
The leak isolated properly, a split pipe capped, the rest of the house put back on water, a boiler assessed.
Repaired where possible
Most common failures are fixed on the visit with parts from the van. Anything needing an ordered part is quoted for a return.
Cause explained
Why it happened and what stops it happening again, from lagging a loft pipe to replacing a stopcock that would not turn.
Ready when you are
Stopcock off? Then send the form and mark it as an emergency
Describe what has happened and where you are. Emergency requests are taken day and night and the call back is prioritised.
On the tools
247 Emergency Plumber: the kind of work behind the page
Four from the gallery. The full set is on the home page, and every photo opens full size.
Where we work
Emergency plumbing across Norwich and twenty miles around
City and suburbs, the fringe estates, the market towns, the Broads villages and the coast. An emergency in Diss or Great Yarmouth is treated the same as one in NR2.
The larger towns in the area
- Norwich
- Great Yarmouth
- Bowthorpe
- East Dereham
- Beccles
- North Walsham
- Diss
- Attleborough
Related
Jobs that often go with this one
One visit often covers two of these. Mention both on the form and the price covers the lot.
Leaking Pipes
Weeping joints, pinholed copper, split plastic push-fits and frozen pipes that have thawed and burst. Leaking pipes repaired at the source, not patched over.
Boiler Repair
Fault codes, lockouts, no hot water, pressure that keeps dropping. Boiler repairs diagnosed properly before any part is ordered or fitted.
Leak Detection
Finding the leak behind a damp patch, a dropping boiler gauge or a water bill that doubled, using tracing methods that do not mean lifting every floor.
Questions
247 Emergency Plumber: the questions people ask first
Where is my stopcock?
Usually under the kitchen sink, otherwise in a downstairs toilet, a hall cupboard, under the stairs or under a floorboard by the front door in older houses. Find it now, before you need it, and check it turns.
The stopcock is off but water is still coming out. Why?
The leak is fed from stored water: the loft cold tank or the hot water cylinder. Open every hot and cold tap to drain them down faster, and close the gate valve on the tank or cylinder outlet if you can reach it.
My boiler has stopped. Is that an emergency?
In cold weather with vulnerable people in the house, yes. Otherwise check the pressure and the fault code, try one reset, and book a repair visit. Repeated resets can make the fault harder to diagnose.
Do you charge more for evenings and weekends?
The price of the visit is agreed on the call back before anyone sets off, so you know what it is whatever the hour.
Can you fix a burst pipe permanently on the first visit?
Usually. A split in copper or plastic is cut out and replaced with parts from the van. A failed lead joint, a cracked soil stack or a cylinder is made safe and quoted for a return.
Should I turn the electricity off?
If water is coming through a ceiling with a light fitting in it, or is anywhere near sockets or the consumer unit, yes, at the main switch, before touching anything.
Anything not covered here is answered on the contact page, where the same form takes the details and someone calls you back.
Quick Quote Online
Five-star ratedby homeowners and landlords
Describe the emergency and the call back is prioritised
What has happened, whether the water is off, and where you are. Put the word emergency in the message and it goes to the top.
- A written price before any work starts
- Plumbing, heating, drains and bathrooms from one enquiry
- Norwich and every town within twenty miles