My house in the Old Town is listed. Can you do emergency plumbing without listed building consent?

Stopping a leak, isolating a burst pipe or swapping a failed tap or valve like for like does not normally need consent. What does need care is anything invasive: cutting new pipe routes through historic timber or plaster is exactly the kind of alteration conservation officers care about. So we stop the water on the night, keep disruption to the fabric to a minimum, and plan any replumbing around surface-run or minimally invasive routes you can clear with the council first.

I still have old lead pipes. Do I have to replace them tonight?

Lead pipe is still found in plenty of Hastings homes, but it is fragile at the joints, restricts pressure and is not ideal for drinking water, and a leak is usually a sign of age rather than bad luck. On an emergency visit we find the leak, make that section safe and repair it properly rather than patching over the problem. Replacing the lead supply is planned daytime work, and we will tell you honestly whether yours can wait.

Can you come out tonight?

Yes. We run a 24 hour rota that covers evenings, weekends and bank holidays. Call and you get a real arrival window before anyone sets off, not a vague promise.

I rent a studio in a converted building in St Leonards and the pipes seem shared with other units. Whose problem is a leak?

Converted shops and warehouses often have pipework that was added piecemeal as units were split, so what feeds what is genuinely unclear until someone traces it. In an emergency we stop the leak first regardless of whose flat it sits under, then identify which supply and pipe is responsible so you and the landlord know where you stand. For landlords, a proper survey of the shared pipework and drains is the next step, and we can put the findings in writing.

Emergency Plumber Hastings | 24 Hour Call-Outs

Water went off with a bang

A bang followed by no water usually means a pipe or joint has burst somewhere, often out of sight under a floor or in a loft. Turn the stopcock off straight away. If the stopcock was already open and nothing burst inside, the supply may have failed in the street, and that belongs to the water company.

Pressure weak on the top floor

Weak flow on the top floor of a tall Hastings house while the ground floor runs fine almost always comes down to height and the incoming pressure, a partly closed valve, or old pipe furred with scale. We check what feeds the top floor and where the flow is being lost, rather than guessing.

No water in the bathroom

Bathrooms are often fed separately from the kitchen, so a dead bathroom can mean a seized isolation valve, a blocked filter in a shower or a frozen pipe in an outside wall. Years of steam and hard water do the damage, and scale clogs the smallest valves first.

No hot water from the taps

Which system you have decides the approach. A combi heats on demand, a cylinder stores hot water, and an older gravity system relies on a tank in the loft. We handle the plumbing side, from valves and cylinders to airlocks, and tell you straight away if a Gas Safe registered engineer is needed.

Pipes bang when a tap shuts

One bang, one valve closing, two candidates: high mains pressure, or pipe loose in its clips. Kitchens usually turn out to be the washing machine or dishwasher valve snapping shut. We find which valve is causing it, then secure the pipe or fit an arrestor so the noise stops.

Dishwasher leaking under the worktop

Dishwashers fill and drain several times a cycle, so a split hose or a loose waste connection shows up quickly. It normally appears as the machine empties. Checking the waste and the trap under the sink settles it, and a clean result sends us to the machine's own hoses and seals.

No water goes back on until the repair has been checked and is fit to use. If the repair runs past the call-out, the property is left safe and the return visit booked before we go.