Emergency plumber in Wandsworth and Battersea

In Balham, Tooting and the streets around Northcote Road, Victorian terraces were either kept as houses or split into an upper and lower flat. In houses, the most common emergencies are burst pipes in lofts and under suspended timber floors after cold nights, and blocked drains in the back garden. In conversions, it is leaks from the upper flat's bathroom and kitchen into the lower flat.

If you own the house, the supply pipe from your boundary to the house is yours. In terraced streets, a supply pipe can be shared with neighbours, and Thames Water says the households served share responsibility for it.

Wandsworth's terraces between the commons have a lot of extended kitchens with washing machines and dishwashers along an outside wall. Pipes there are more exposed to frost, and inlet hoses that split or a waste hose that slips out of its standpipe can flood a kitchen floor in minutes. Turn off the appliance's valve, switch off the kitchen circuit if water is near sockets, and check whether water has gone under the units.

The mansion blocks along Prince of Wales Drive and around Battersea Park date from around 1900. They have stacked bathrooms, cast iron soil stacks, risers carrying pipes past each flat and, in some, communal systems. A leak from a shower or bath upstairs lands in the bathroom below, and a leak in a riser can affect several floors. Tell the porter or managing agent first, as the freeholder is usually responsible for pipes that serve more than one flat.

Prince of Wales Drive and the streets around the park also have a number of conversions in the older houses, so if you are not in a mansion block, the advice for terraces above applies.

In the new towers around Nine Elms, water reaches upper floors through booster pumps and the plumbing sits in sealed risers and boxing. Leaks often come from a failed push fit joint, a washing machine hose or a shower seal. A concierge or estate management team usually controls access and the main valves. Report the leak to them, isolate your own water at the valve in your flat, and keep the warranty paperwork for a newer building handy, as some defects may be covered.