Gas Safe 919881 · Bromley
24 hour emergency plumber in Bromley
Burst pipe, water through a ceiling, no heating in January. We cover the London Borough of Bromley round the clock, and our rates are published below rather than quoted once we are standing in your hallway.
- First hour
- £110 daytime, £120 out of hours
- Call-out fee
- None — you pay for time on site
- Repair guarantee
- 12 months on our workmanship
- Gas Safe
- Registration 919881
Get a free quote
Tell us what you need and we’ll come back to you with a price — usually within the hour.
Cost
What it costs
Most emergency plumbing pages tell you they are available 24/7 and nothing else. No rate, no boundary times, no help while you wait. This page does the opposite: what we charge and when the out-of-hours rate actually starts, where the stopcock sits in each common Bromley house type, and which problems genuinely need someone tonight.
| Job | Price | What it involves |
|---|---|---|
| First hour on site — daytime | £110 | Monday to Saturday, 7am to 8pm. Covers attendance, isolating the leak, diagnosis and a written account of what we found. |
| First hour on site — out of hours | £120 | Weekday evenings after 8pm, before 7am, all day Sunday and bank holidays. It does not step up again at midnight — 3am costs the same as 9pm. |
| Each additional hour — daytime | £55 | Charged in half hours after the first, so ninety minutes on site is £137.50 and not two full hours. |
| Each additional hour — out of hours | £70 | Also in half hours. We tell you before the first hour is up if the job looks like running over. |
| Burst or split pipe repair | from £160 | Accessible copper or plastic under a sink, in a loft or an airing cupboard. Cut out, new section fitted, tested under pressure. First hour included. |
| Trace and access leak report | from £280 | Thermal imaging, acoustic tracing and moisture readings to locate a hidden leak, with a dated photographic report worded for an escape-of-water claim. |
What changes the price
What time we arrive
Arrival sets the rate, not the call. Ring at ten to eight and reach you at half past and it is out of hours, so we say which applies before setting off.
Whether the water isolates
A job where the stopcock turns and the flow stops is an hour. A seized stopcock, or a flat whose valve sits in a locked riser cupboard, means a repair before the repair.
Getting to the pipe
Lifting floorboards is included. Chasing plaster, lifting a tiled floor or opening a boxed-in soil stack is more work, and we price it before we start rather than after.
Whose pipe it is
A leak on the communication pipe, street side of your boundary, is Thames Water’s and costs you nothing. We usually establish that on the phone rather than bill you for confirming it.
Whether it needs tracing
A visible split is a repair. A ceiling stain with no source needs finding first. Trace and access is priced separately because most policies pay for it, and it claims far more cleanly itemised.
Temporary or permanent
Some overnight work is properly a make-safe: a pipe capped, a supply isolated, heating on a bypass. We say which you are getting and what the permanent repair costs, in writing.
Before we arrive
Where your stopcock is, by Bromley house type
Turning the water off is the most useful thing you can do in the ten minutes before an engineer reaches you, and every competing page in Bromley says "turn off your main water supply" without saying where the valve is. Location follows the age and type of the building. Here is where it usually sits in the housing we work in most.
| Property type | Where the stopcock usually is | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|
| 1920s–30s semis — Petts Wood, Crofton, Shortlands, Bickley | Under the kitchen sink, or the front porch cupboard | The original run entered under the front bay and was often rerouted when kitchens were extended. If not under the sink, try the understairs cupboard. |
| Victorian and Edwardian terraces — Penge, Anerley, Beckenham | Under floorboards by the front bay, often behind a hatch | Frequently buried under laminate laid straight over the original boards. Worth finding on a dry afternoon rather than at 2am. |
| Post-war stock — Mottingham, Downham, Grove Park, the Crays | Kitchen, under the sink or beside the back door | The easiest of the lot. Some older estates still share one stop tap between a pair of houses, which is Thames Water’s to operate. |
| 1960s–80s flats — Bromley town centre, Penge, Beckenham | Airing cupboard valve, or a shared landing riser | Where there is no valve inside the flat, the riser cupboard is locked and the managing agent holds the key. Check which you have now. |
| Larger, older properties — Chislehurst, Keston, Downe, Farnborough | Cellar, boot room, or where the supply enters an outbuilding | Long runs to detached garages freeze first every January, and there is often more than one valve — close the wrong one and the split stays live. |
| Every property — the external stop tap | Under a small cover in the pavement or front path | The toby box, roughly at the boundary. It needs a proper stop tap key, not a screwdriver, and everything beyond it is Thames Water’s. |
Once the water is off
Open the lowest cold tap in the house and leave it running until it stops. That drains the pipework above and takes pressure off the split. Then open the taps upstairs. If water is near a light fitting or the consumer unit, switch the electricity off at the board first.
If the pipe is lead
Much pre-1970 Bromley stock still has lead: dull grey, soft enough to mark with a thumbnail, with swollen wiped joints rather than soldered ones. Lead will not take a repair clamp — it bites in and worsens the split. Isolate at the toby box and tell us it is lead so we arrive with the right fittings.
If nothing stops the flow
A seized stopcock with water still running means draining the system instead. Shut the boiler down, open every cold tap and let the storage empty. Say on the phone that you cannot isolate, because it changes what we bring and how fast we need to be.
If you can smell gas, this comes first
Do not ring a plumber. Ring the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999 — free, 24 hours, attended as an emergency. While you wait: turn the gas off at the meter using the handle beside it, open doors and windows, touch no electrical switch or socket including the lights, do not use a phone indoors, and put out any naked flame. Once the supply is made safe, a Gas Safe registered engineer carries out the repair and recommissions the appliances. That is the part we do, under registration 919881.
Local
What Bromley specifically changes about an emergency
The borough sits entirely in the Thames Water supply area, carries more than forty conservation areas, and runs from Victorian terraces in Penge to interwar semis in Petts Wood and large detached properties at Keston and Downe. Each changes what the repair involves, who pays, and what has to happen afterwards to keep it compliant.
Who owns the pipe that burst
Thames Water is responsible for the communication pipe, from the main in the street to your boundary at the external stop tap. Everything from there into the house is your supply pipe, including the run under your own front garden or drive. A burst on the street side costs you nothing. A burst under your lawn is yours, though Thames Water operate a repair allowance covering a first supply-pipe leak for many households — worth asking about before anyone excavates. We establish which side the leak is on before quoting to dig.
Trace and access, and your insurance
Most buildings policies with escape-of-water cover also pay for trace and access: finding and exposing a hidden leak, and making good afterwards, even where the pipe repair itself is small. A loss adjuster will not accept "there was a leak somewhere". They want dated photographs, moisture meter readings, the leak located rather than guessed at, and an invoice carrying trace and access as its own line. We produce that as standard. Check your excess first, because on a modest repair it is sometimes cheaper not to claim, and we will say so.
Conservation areas and overnight fixes
Petts Wood alone has five conservation areas, with more at Chislehurst, Keston, Park Langley, Shortlands, Sundridge Park, Farnborough and Chelsfield. Inside them, new work on a street-facing elevation can need consent nobody considers at midnight: a re-sited flue terminal, a surface-mounted condensate run, an external overflow, a meter box on a front wall. Repairing an existing installation is not the problem; bolting new pipework to a front elevation overnight leaves you with an enforcement issue months later. We keep emergency work reversible and internal where we can, and flag anything needing consent before the permanent repair is designed.
Flats, leaseholds and shared soil stacks
Bromley town centre, Penge and Beckenham hold a lot of converted and purpose-built flats, and the emergency is rarely confined to one of them. Where water comes from the flat above, the leak is the upstairs leaseholder’s if it is their pipework and the freeholder’s if it is a communal riser, a shared soil stack or the roof. Damage to your ceiling normally falls under the buildings insurance the freeholder holds. None of that stops water at 3am, so we attend, isolate and make safe first, then itemise the invoice so it can be passed on cleanly.
January, and the runs that go first
Frozen pipe searches quadruple in January and burst calls roughly double with them. The failures are consistent: loft pipework laid above the insulation instead of below it, condensate taken outside in 22mm rather than 32mm, and long external runs to garages and outbuildings around Chislehurst, Keston and Downe. Thaw a frozen section slowly with a hot water bottle or a cloth soaked in hot water, working back from the tap end, never with a blowtorch. If a property stands empty over Christmas, leave the heating on low and constant.
Lead in the older stock
Anything built before about 1970 may still have a lead communication or supply pipe, and plenty in the older parts of Beckenham, Penge and Bromley Common do. It matters practically: lead takes neither a repair clamp nor a compression fitting meant for copper, and the right answer is usually a short replacement in MDPE rather than a patch. Thames Water run a replacement scheme for the section belonging to them. Where we find lead on an emergency call, we set out the options for the rest instead of patching it and leaving.
The job
How it works
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Ring us and we triage it
We ask what you can see and whether water is still running, and talk you through isolating it while you are on the phone. If it will keep until morning and cost you less, we say so. If it is gas, we send you to 0800 111 999 first.
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A time and a rate, before we set off
An honest arrival window and the rate that will apply when we get there, both given on the phone. We do not sell a call-out and price the job on your doorstep.
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Make safe first
The first job on arrival is stopping the water, the gas or the spread of damage — isolate, drain down, cap off, get the electrics clear. Only then do we look at the cause.
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Diagnose, price, then repair
What has failed, what the repair costs, and whether tonight’s work is permanent or a make-safe with a return visit. Nothing is fitted before you have agreed the price of the parts.
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Paperwork before we leave
An itemised invoice, photographs of the fault and the repair, the parts used, a Gas Safe record where gas work was carried out, and the twelve-month workmanship guarantee in writing.
Included
What comes as standard
- Phone triage before we set off, including telling you when it can wait until morning
- No call-out fee and no minimum charge — you pay for time on site
- Isolation and make-safe on arrival, before any diagnosis
- Time charged in half hours after the first hour rather than rounded up
- Parts quoted for your approval before anything is fitted
- Dated photographs of the fault and of the completed repair
- Trace and access report worded for an escape-of-water claim on hidden leaks
- Gas Safe record for any work on a gas appliance, registration 919881
- A written note of anything still needing a permanent follow-up repair
- 12-month guarantee on our workmanship, manufacturer terms on parts
Questions
Emergency plumbing questions
What is classed as a plumbing emergency?
Three tiers, and it is worth knowing which one you are in before paying an out-of-hours rate. Ring now: uncontrolled water you cannot isolate, water near electrics, a burst pipe, sewage backing up, no water at all, or a smell of gas — and gas goes to 0800 111 999 before it comes to us. It keeps until morning: a dripping tap, one cold radiator, a slow-draining sink, a toilet that fills slowly. Try this first: bleed the radiator, reset the boiler once and check the pressure gauge reads 1 to 1.5 bar, plunge the toilet, check the RCD has not tripped. No heating is an emergency where there is a baby, an elderly or unwell occupant, or a freezing forecast, and an inconvenience where there is not.
How much does an emergency plumber cost in Bromley?
Ours is £110 for the first hour between 7am and 8pm Monday to Saturday, and £120 for the first hour out of hours, with no call-out fee on either. After that it is £55 an hour daytime and £70 out of hours, charged in half hours. A burst pipe repair on accessible pipework is from £160 all in. The only other Bromley figure published anywhere is an aggregator estimate of roughly £144 to £300, averaging £205, which is a range rather than a price. We publish ours because six of the seven local firms do not.
When exactly does the out-of-hours rate start?
After 8pm and before 7am on weekdays, all day Sunday, and on bank holidays. Saturday between 7am and 8pm is charged at the daytime rate, which is not how most firms do it and is worth checking with anyone else you ring. The rate does not step up again at midnight, so 3am costs the same as 9pm. What sets it is the time we arrive rather than the time you called.
Do you charge a call-out fee?
No, and there is no minimum charge either. You pay for time on site from the first hour, and that hour covers attendance, isolating the problem, diagnosis and a written account of what we found. Several local firms advertise "no call-out charge" without publishing an hourly rate, which tells you nothing about what the visit will actually cost.
How do I turn the water off in my house?
Find the internal stopcock and turn it clockwise. In 1920s and 30s semis around Petts Wood, Shortlands and Bickley it is usually under the kitchen sink or in the front porch cupboard. In Victorian and Edwardian terraces in Penge and Beckenham it is often under floorboards by the front bay. In post-war houses in Mottingham, Downham and the Crays it is nearly always in the kitchen. In flats it is a valve in the airing cupboard or a shared landing riser. If yours has seized, the external stop tap under the small cover in the pavement is the backstop, though it needs a proper key. Once the water is off, open the lowest cold tap to drain the pipework.
Will my insurance pay for finding the leak?
Usually, and it is the thing homeowners least often know at 2am. Most buildings policies with escape-of-water cover also pay for trace and access — locating and exposing a hidden leak, and making good afterwards — even where the repair itself is small. A loss adjuster wants evidence: dated photographs, moisture meter readings, the leak located rather than guessed at, and an invoice with trace and access itemised separately. We supply all of that as standard. Check your excess before claiming, because on a modest repair it is sometimes cheaper not to.
A pipe has burst in my front garden. Is that Thames Water’s problem?
It depends which side of the boundary it is on. The communication pipe runs from the main in the street to your boundary, typically the external stop tap under the pavement, and that section is Thames Water’s to repair at no cost to you. The supply pipe from the boundary into the house is yours, including the run under your own garden or drive. So a burst in the road is not your bill and one in your lawn generally is, although Thames Water operate a repair allowance covering a first supply-pipe leak for many households.
Why are emergency plumbers so expensive, and how do I avoid being overcharged?
Out-of-hours work costs more because someone is awake, on the road and carrying stock at 3am, and that is fair. What is not fair is the pattern that gives the trade its reputation: no published rate, a call-out fee that buys nothing, a three-hour minimum, parts marked up without a figure shown, and the job priced once the water is off and you are committed. Four questions protect you with any firm. What is the hourly rate, and when do out-of-hours times start. Is there a minimum charge. What do the parts cost, before they go in. And will the invoice be itemised with photographs. If a firm will not give you a rate on the phone, that is your answer.
Coverage
Where we work
Across the London Borough of Bromley — BR1 to BR7 — plus Penge, Sydenham and Crystal Palace.
No heating? No hot water?
Get a fixed price from a Gas Safe registered engineer — not an answering service. Same-day appointments across Bromley most days.