Expert Plumbing Services.

An hour spent going round the plumbing before something fails: the stop valve, the small valves under sinks and toilets, the tank in the loft if there is one, and the pipes that freeze. It is a chance to turn valves nobody has touched in years, and to catch parts that have started to drip. We tell you what we found as we go. Small things, such as a valve that will not shut or a washer that drips, we can put right on the same visit. Anything bigger we price before we start.

A new basin, bath, bidet or toilet in the place of the old one, with the tiles and the layout staying as they are. We take the old piece out, fit the new one, connect it up, and run water through until every joint is dry. Moving things round, or retiling, is a new bathroom rather than a swap. That is Full Bathroom Refurbishment, priced after a free survey.

We clear blockages inside the house: sinks, basins, baths, showers and toilets that drain slowly or not at all. We take the trap off, clear it and the waste pipe behind it, and run water through to show it flows again. We do not clear outside drains, gullies or manholes.

This is the one job we take at any hour of the day or night: a pipe that has burst, water coming through a ceiling, or a leak that will not stop when the nearest valve is closed. Call or WhatsApp us with what is happening and your postcode, and we aim to have a technician with you within 60 to 90 minutes. It is never booked as an online slot, because the next free slot could be tomorrow. A drip that a bowl can catch until a weekday is a Leak Repair, booked online at the ordinary plumbing rate.

The plumbing at the kitchen sink: a new or replacement sink with its waste and trap, the hot and cold feeds to the kitchen tap, and a valve on each feed so one part can be shut off while the rest of the house keeps its water. A new tap on its own, or a dripping one, is a Tap Repair; a washing machine or dishwasher at the sink is a Washing Machine & Dishwasher Install.

A leak we can see or reach: a drip from a joint under a sink, a valve weeping at a radiator, a pipe behind a bath panel, a stain spreading on the ceiling under a bathroom. We find where the water starts, stop it, and leave the repair dry under full pressure.

We fit a tap to an outside wall and feed it from the cold supply inside the house, often the pipe under the kitchen sink, with the wall drilled through and sealed round the pipe. A garden hose can draw water back into the house's pipes: left in a pond, a water butt or a bucket of weedkiller, it can siphon that water into the drinking supply. Water Regs UK puts a hose used for watering a garden or washing a car in fluid category 3, which a double check valve protects against. We fit it indoors, next to a shut-off valve for winter, because one fitted outdoors can freeze and fail.

Pipes split in a frost, take a nail through a floorboard, wear thin, or are still the old lead. We cut out the damaged length and join in new copper or plastic pipe, then test the run under full mains pressure. Lead pipe inside the house is replaced as far as the inside stop valve. Thames Water says the pipe from your outside stop valve to the inside one is yours, and that you are unlikely to have lead if the house was built after 1970.

A thermostatic radiator valve, or TRV, sits where the radiator meets its pipe and turns the radiator down as the room warms up, so each room holds the temperature its dial is set to. We change a manual valve for a TRV, replace a TRV that has stuck or started to weep, and swap an old radiator for a new one. When the pipes are already where the new radiator needs them, it goes straight on. When they are not, we alter the pipe ends to suit.

Which shower a home can take depends on how it makes its hot water. A combi boiler gives hot water at mains pressure, which Worcester Bosch says suits a mains-pressure mixer shower. A hot water cylinder fed from a cold tank in the loft gives low pressure, and that is what a pump-assisted power shower is made for. We fit mixer, power and electric showers, with the pipework run to the valve, connected and tested. A new circuit for a shower is notifiable work under the Building Regulations, so the wiring for an electric shower or a shower pump is done by a registered electrician we bring in, who certifies it.

A tap that drips, will not turn off fully or has gone stiff nearly always has one worn part inside it, and that part can be changed without changing the tap. Taps with separate hot and cold heads close on a rubber washer; quarter-turn and most mixer taps close on a ceramic cartridge. We fit new basin, bath and kitchen taps too, when the old one is past repair or you want a different one.

Running, slow to fill, a weak flush, water on the floor: most toilet faults come down to one part, either inside the cistern or behind the pan. It is the flush valve, the fill valve, the seal between cistern and pan, or the pan connector. We find which one has failed and change it, with the toilet left in place. A toilet that trickles into the pan all day is easy to miss and costly on a water meter: Waterwise puts the loss from a leaking toilet at 200 to 400 litres a day.

A new washing machine, washer-dryer or dishwasher connected to the water and the waste and set up the way its maker's instructions say. For a washing machine, Bosch's own steps are to take out the transit bolts and fit the blanks supplied, connect the fill hose to the cold supply, run the waste to a standpipe or the sink trap with no kinks in either hose, and level the machine on its feet. Where there is no valve or waste for it yet, we add them: a valve on the cold pipe, and a waste connection under the sink or a standpipe of its own.