Pipe Repair near you

Ownership decides who pays and who you ring. On the company's side of the outside stop valve, the communication pipe is the water undertaker's responsibility; from that valve into and around the house, the supply pipe and the internal plumbing are the property owner's. Where lead is involved this matters twice over, because the Drinking Water Inspectorate says a water company is legally required to replace its communication pipe if that pipe is lead and is at risk of contributing to the amount of lead in the drinking water supply, which is why replacing your own lead supply pipe is worth coordinating with them rather than doing in isolation.

Whoever does the work, the standard is the same. A repair is work on a water fitting, so regulation 4 of the Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations 1999 applies: the fitting must be of an appropriate quality and standard and suitable for the circumstances, it must comply with Schedule 2, and it must be repaired in a workmanlike manner, which the regulation defines as conforming to an appropriate British Standard or European technical approval, to a specification approved by the regulator, or to a method of installation approved by the water undertaker.

An ordinary repair to existing pipework does not need to be notified. Scotland works instead to byelaws made by Scottish Water under section 70 of the Water (Scotland) Act 1980, which can require fittings that do not comply to be altered, repaired or replaced at the occupier's expense, and Northern Ireland applies its own Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations made in 2009, whose regulation 4 mirrors the England and Wales wording.

Find the internal stop tap and close it. The Drinking Water Inspectorate describes it as the point where the water first comes into the property, commonly in or behind the kitchen cupboards or in a downstairs toilet; in flats it may be in a service cupboard on the landing. Then open the taps, starting with the lowest in the house, to drain what is left in the pipework so it stops feeding the leak.

The Regulations treat freezing as a design problem rather than bad luck. Schedule 2 requires every water fitting to be constructed and installed so as to prevent ingress by contaminants and to inhibit damage by freezing or any other cause, and requires any water fitting laid below ground level to have a depth of cover sufficient to prevent water freezing in it. It also requires cisterns to have thermal insulation to minimise freezing or undue warming, along with a rigid, close-fitting cover positioned to exclude light and insects.

Warmth is regulated as well as cold. Any pipe supplying cold water for domestic purposes to a tap must be installed so that, so far as is reasonably practicable, the water in it is not warmed above 25°C — which is why running a cold supply through the same insulated void as heating pipes causes trouble later, and why the pipes most likely to split are the ones in lofts, garages and outbuildings that nobody insulated at all.

Lead was widely used to connect properties to the mains before 1970 and its use has since been banned, but the Drinking Water Inspectorate points out that many older properties which have not been modernised are likely to still have lead pipework underground or inside the building. The check it describes is simple: find the internal stop tap, look for pipe that is dull grey with a swollen joint beside the tap, and scrape it gently with a coin, wearing disposable gloves and taking care not to breathe in any dust — lead shows shiny and silver beneath, where copper is bright brown and hard and iron is dark and may be rusty.

Lead dissolves into water that stands in the pipe, so how long the water has been sitting, the condition of the pipework, the temperature and the hardness of the water all change how much ends up in the glass. Where a risk exists, water companies dose the supply with orthophosphate to reduce it significantly, though particles can still build up in old pipes and appear intermittently. Because disturbing lead pipework temporarily raises the concentration, the Inspectorate advises flushing the tap well for at least 10 minutes after any work on a lead pipe.

If you suspect lead, you can ask your water company to test the water at your kitchen tap, and if it finds lead pipes or another source in the plumbing system it should give you written advice on what to do. As a short-term measure, run off the water that has been standing overnight before drinking or cooking with it; as a permanent one, have the lead replaced and tell the water company so its own communication pipe can be dealt with at the same time.

A single defensible failure — a joint disturbed by building work, a nail through a pipe, a split at a known freezing point — is a repair. The argument for replacing the run instead is repetition: pinholes appearing in different places in the same length of copper, a galvanised supply that has narrowed to the point where flow is poor everywhere, or a lead pipe that would have to be opened up again anyway.

Access usually decides the cost, not the pipe. Where a leak sits under a solid floor or behind tiling, rerouting a new length through an accessible void can be quicker, cheaper and less destructive than reaching the failure, and it leaves something that can be maintained next time. Ask for the reasoning in writing, and for any pipework that stays buried to be recorded before the floor goes back down.

Finding the right trade quickly is the part LokalMatch is for: describe where the water is appearing, what you have already turned off and your postcode once, and plumbers covering that area get in touch, having paid for the request. LokalMatch does not do the repair, does not set or influence prices, and does not vet, rank or recommend anyone who replies, so ask each of them how they will locate the leak before they start opening anything up.