Emergency Leak Repair in London: What Gets Fixed Tonight

What emergency leak repair covers

Repair is the second half of a leak visit. The first half is finding where the water is coming from, which is set out on the emergency leak detection page. Once the source is known, three things can happen, and which one depends on the fault and not on how stressful the evening has been.

The first is a small repair done on the spot. A small fix, such as tightening a fitting or changing a small part, is done on the spot once the leak is found. The second is a stop and a quote. For a longer repair the leak is stopped first, and the repair is quoted in writing after that. The third is that the leak turns out not to be on your side of the property, in which case the repair belongs to someone else and the useful thing we can hand you is the evidence of where it is. The service is for water leaks only. It is available 24/7 across all of London.

The order matters. Stopping the water is urgent, and it is done first, wherever the leak sits. Deciding whether to lift a floor, open a wall or replace a run of pipe is not urgent in the same way, and it is better made with a written quote in front of you than at midnight with a wet carpet.

Stop first, repair second

A common mistake, and one that costs people money, is treating a leak as a single job. It is two. One is making the property safe, and the other is making the pipework right. They need different amounts of time and different amounts of thought.

Making safe means isolating the leaking section so that water stops reaching the damage. In a house this is often a valve on the branch, a stop tap, or a capped end. In a flat, the isolation may be in a cupboard, a riser or a shared meter room, and it can take longer to reach than to operate. The aim is that when the engineer leaves, nothing is running that should not be.

Repair is then proportionate. If a compression fitting has worked loose and a quarter turn cures it, that is done while the engineer is there, and charged as the minutes it took inside the hourly rate. If the pipe is corroded for half a metre and sits behind tiling, the leak is stopped, the section is isolated, and the repair is priced in writing. You can accept, ask for changes, or take the quote elsewhere. Nothing about the stop commits you to the repair.

Which repairs are done on the spot, and which are quoted

The table below is the honest version. It covers the faults that turn up most often, what is normally done about each, and what limits it. A fault that looks small can turn out to be part of a bigger problem, and the engineer will say so when it does.

Small fixes done on the spot

A small fix has a plain test: it can be done now, with the parts the engineer is carrying or can obtain easily, without opening a surface, and without leaving the system in worse condition than it was. Typical examples are tightening or remaking a compression fitting, swapping a flexible hose, changing a tap washer or a valve seal, and replacing a short exposed length of pipe.

Parts are costed on top of the hourly rate and agreed before the work starts. That means you are told what the part is and what it costs before it goes on the pipe. Repair work runs at the same hourly rate as detection, with parts and materials costed on top and agreed before we start. The rate is a fixed hourly rate quoted before we attend and never exceeded, and that applies to the repair part of a visit just as it does to the search.

A reasonable worry is that a small fix on a night visit becomes a lot of hours. The practical answer is that a fix which is really small is small. The leak has already been found, so the repair time is the time the repair takes. If a fix that looked small begins to grow, the engineer stops and tells you, because at that point it has stopped being a small fix and has become a quote.

No VAT is charged. The tracer gas cylinder, charged at £80, only comes into a repair visit if gas was needed to find the fault, and it is charged once.

Bigger repairs: stopped tonight, quoted in writing

Anything that involves opening a floor or wall, replacing a long run of pipe, working under a slab, digging up a supply pipe or coordinating with other occupiers is quoted, not improvised. The leak is stopped on the visit regardless, so the property is safe overnight, and the written quote follows.

A written quote for a repair says what the fault is and where it was confirmed, which pipe, joint or section is to be replaced or repaired, how the work will be done, the hours expected at the hourly rate, the parts and materials costed on top, what access has to be created, and what is left to be made good afterwards. It also says what the quote assumes, such as the condition of the pipe on either side of the failed section. It is not a package price. Where hours are involved, the quote gives the hours as an estimate and the rate as a rate.

You are under no pressure to accept it on the night. People sometimes assume that if the leak has been stopped, the engineer needs the job. That is not how this works. The stop is done because water should not be escaping; the repair is a separate decision. Read the quote, ask questions, compare it if you want to. The leak repair quote explained guide goes through each line and what to ask about it.

• What is wrong and how it was confirmed.
• What will be repaired or replaced.
• How much access is needed and what it disturbs.
• The hours expected, at the hourly rate.
• Parts and materials, costed on top.
• What making good is needed afterwards, and who prices it.

How repair is charged

Emergency repair out of hours is charged from £220 an hour, with the exact rate stated when you book, and the rate is a fixed hourly rate quoted before we attend and never exceeded. If the work is not an emergency, for example a repair booked for a weekday after the leak has been stopped, the standard rate of £160 an hour applies to detection, and the pricing page shows how each type of work is rated. No VAT is charged.

Booking has no call-out fee and no travel charge: the rate starts when work starts. The rate does not rise because a leak is awkward, large or runs into the night. Parts and materials are the only additional charge, and you agree them before work starts.

It helps to see how the sum goes. Take a flexible hose that has failed behind a washing machine and an isolating valve that still shuts. The time is the engineer stopping the water, replacing the hose, restoring the supply and checking the joints for weeping. The charge is that time at the hourly rate, plus the hose. Now take a corroded pipe in a wall. The charge for the visit is the time spent finding the section, isolating it and making the property safe. The repair, with its hours, access and making good, is a separate quote. In neither case is a figure invented before the facts are known.

For the thinking behind the model, the why leak work is charged by the hour guide explains why leak work is charged by the hour and what that protects you from.

Making good after a leak repair

A repaired pipe does not repair a wet ceiling, a stained wall or lifted flooring. Making good, such as walls, ceilings and decorating, is quoted per job by a partner team. That work is a different skill from finding and stopping a leak, and it is priced separately so that you can see which cost belongs to which job.

The practical sequence matters. Walls and ceilings need time to dry before they are repaired, and the moisture readings from the leak visit are the best guide to when that is. Plaster and paint put over wet material fail, and a rushed finish is the usual reason a stain returns. For that reason the quote for making good often comes after a period of drying, not on the night.

If you have an insurer, tell them early. They may want a report on how the leak was found and where it was, and some cases need a trace and access report. The pricing page covers the trace and access rate. Your policy is between you and the insurer, and we do not advise on what it covers.

What emergency leak repair does not include

The service stays in a narrow lane on purpose, because a narrow lane is done properly. It covers water leaks on water pipework, fittings, valves and connections to appliances. Gas appliances, boilers as machines, blocked drains, roof and gutter faults, pools and electrical faults are other trades, and they are not something this service repairs.

It also does not offer a repair that has not been quoted, a price before the fault is known, or a promise about how long a repair will last or how soon an engineer can reach you. Nobody can say how long a patch on a corroded pipe will hold, so it is better not to hear a number. If the pipe is in poor condition generally, the engineer will say so.

Water near electrics, and gas, are safety matters that override everything on this page. If you can smell gas, leave and ring the National Gas Emergency Service.

Three examples of how a repair visit goes

A kitchen cupboard floor is wet. The engineer finds a washing machine hose weeping at its connection. The isolating valve still closes. The hose is replaced with the part agreed, the joints are dried and checked, and the visit ends. A small fix, done on the spot, at the hourly rate plus the part.

A bedroom ceiling is stained, and it gets worse when the heating runs. Thermal imaging and moisture mapping point to a heating pipe in the floor void above. The circuit is isolated so that the water stops, the radiators on that branch are left off, and a written quote follows for opening the floor and replacing the pipe. A stop tonight, a quote in writing, and a decision for the owner.

The water meter turns with every tap closed. Acoustic listening and a pressure test point to the supply pipe between the boundary and the house. The supply is isolated at the stop tap inside, and the property is left with water off at the leak. A written quote follows for excavation and repair, and the finding states exactly where the pipe was confirmed to be losing water. That quote is yours to compare. For the larger case, the what the engineer does on arrival guide describes the visit.