Emergency plumber in Islington

In a split Barnsbury or Canonbury house, the bathroom of the upper flat is often built over a bedroom or living room below, because the rooms were divided long after the house was built. Pipes run under the floorboards between flats, and the old lath and plaster ceilings soak up water and stain before they drip. When a bath seal, shower waste or toilet connector fails upstairs, the first sign is a brown ring on the ceiling of the flat below.

Lower ground floor flats get the other kind of emergency. If the shared soil stack or the drain under the front garden blocks, waste from every flat above backs up into the lowest toilet or shower. If that is happening to you, stop using water, tell the other flats to do the same, and tell the freeholder or managing agent, because a shared stack is usually the building's to clear.

The stop tap for an upper flat in a converted Islington house is not always inside that flat. It can be in the ground floor hallway, in the cellar vault under the pavement, or there may be one valve for the whole house. Thames Water notes that flats may have a communal stop valve where the supply enters the building, plus another where it enters each flat. If you do not know where yours is, find out now, and check it turns. London's hard water stiffens valves that are never used.

If the outside stop tap under the pavement serves the whole house, turning it off cuts water to every flat. Warn your neighbours first.

If you rent, report leaks to your landlord or letting agent in writing. If you are a council or housing association tenant, use their repairs line. If you are a leaseholder, tell the managing agent or freeholder, who usually has the right under the lease to get into another flat to stop a leak. Building control for any major replumbing is handled by Islington Council.

If you are not sure who manages your building, the freeholder's details are usually on your service charge demand or in your lease. If the leak is in the street outside, on Upper Street, Holloway Road or anywhere else, that is Thames Water's to fix, so report it to them online or on 0800 316 9800. Keep photos of the damage, the date and time you found it, and the plumber's note of the cause. Insurers and freeholders both tend to ask for these, and it is much harder to piece together a week later.