Emergency plumber in Camden

A large Belsize Park or Hampstead house can hold five or six flats, each added at a different time by a different builder. That means pipework that crosses between flats, supply pipes for the top flat running through two or three floors, and old lead or early copper mixed with modern plastic. A leak from a second floor bathroom may surface in a ground floor kitchen, two rooms away from where you would expect.

When you have water through a ceiling in one of these buildings, work upwards. Knock on the flat directly above, then the one above that. If nobody is in, the managing agent or freeholder usually has a power under the lease to get access to investigate a leak.

Old lead pipes are still found in some of these houses. Thames Water says homes built before 1970 may have lead pipes and runs a replacement scheme for eligible properties. Lead joints are a common point of failure when a pipe is disturbed during other work, such as a new kitchen or bathroom in the flat above.

Around the Bloomsbury squares and in parts of Camden Town, Georgian houses have basements reached by steps from the street, with coal vaults running under the pavement. Stop taps and meters can be tucked into those vaults or the front area. Basement flats here are the most exposed to drains backing up, because they sit below the level of the street and the sewer. If sewage comes up only during heavy rain, it may be the sewer rather than a blockage in your pipe, and Thames Water's sewer flooding team should be told.

Camden's mansion blocks and larger estates often have communal hot water or heating, and cold water fed from tanks or a rising main. If hot water fails across the building, it is the building's plant, not your flat. If it is only you, check your own valves and cylinder first. A plumber can deal with the water side, but any work on a gas boiler must be done by a Gas Safe registered engineer.

In student blocks and large estates around Somers Town and Kilburn, the building's management team or the housing provider's repairs line is the first call for anything in a shared riser or plant room.