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MAINSBREAKEMERGENCY PLUMBING
What to do right nowResponse timesWhat it costsTonight or daylightSend a job that can wait

Everything here is built for the call you make at 2am.

No bathroom refits, no annual services, no sales visits. Mainsbreak answers the phone in the dark, tells you where your stopcock is before you hang up, and puts one of six vans on the road. Last year an address inside town saw one in 38 minutes on average, and 70 out in the valley.

Answering now

Bernie has the phone until 10pm. Dermot takes it after that.

(555) 014-0911
What to do right now Response times

Call-out $240 between 6pm and 7am and all weekend, $140 in weekday daytime. Both cover the drive and the first hour on site, and you sign the price before anything comes apart.

A wet street at night under streetlights
  • Master plumber lic. #000000 (sample)
  • $2m liability, certificate in every van
  • Six vans, nine plumbers
  • Answering every night since 2011
  • 4.9 from 384 reviews (sample)

Six reasons people ring us in the dark

These are the only jobs we take at night, because they are the only ones where an hour costs you money. The bands below are what similar jobs came to last year, call-out included. Sample figures for a concept site.

  • Burst pipe or burst main

    Isolate, cut the failed section out, repair in copper or run new pipe past it. Most houses have water back on inside two hours.

    Usually $380 to $760 at night

  • Flooding

    Pump first, then find where it came in. Every van carries a submersible pump, 60 feet of hose, a wet vacuum and two blowers.

    Usually $420 to $1,100

  • Sewage backing up

    Jet the line, put the camera down it, and give you a photograph of what was actually in there so you can argue with a landlord or an insurer.

    Usually $340 to $690

  • Frozen pipes

    Thaw it with an electric kit, not a torch, then check the whole run for splits before the water goes back on. Lagging fitted the same visit.

    Usually $240 to $420

  • No water at all

    Stopcock, airlock, failed pump or the street. We work out which one it is on the phone first, and if it is the utility you pay nothing.

    Usually $140 to $360

  • No hot water or no heat

    Give us the fault code and we bring the part. Pumps, diverters, thermostats and expansion vessels live on the van, so most are fixed on the first visit.

    Usually $240 to $580

What to do right now, while we drive

Pick what is happening. You get the three things worth doing before anyone arrives, where the shutoff hides in your kind of house, and how long we will be. It is the same script the dispatcher reads down the phone, and it has saved more floors than anything else we do.

Water spraying, dripping through a ceiling, or a wet patch spreading

We come out now. Every minute of water is about a bucket into your floor.

Three things to do before the van gets there

  1. Shut the water off at the main

    Turn it clockwise until it stops. If the handle is seized, leave it. Do not lever it with a wrench, that is how a seized valve snaps. Tell us on the phone and the van brings a key.

  2. Open every cold tap downstairs

    That drains the pipework above the leak into the sink instead of into your ceiling. Leave them running until we arrive. Leave the hot taps alone.

  3. Cut the power to that room

    Switch the circuit off at the panel before water reaches a socket or a light fitting, then keep out. Put a bucket and a towel down only if you can do it dry footed.

On the van for this job: Press fittings for copper, plastic and lead, pipe freezing kit, wet vacuum, floor blowers

Where your shutoff is

On the street-facing basement wall, within a couple of feet of the floor, right where the supply comes through and next to the meter.

Look for a red or yellow wheel, or a lever at ninety degrees to the pipe. It is usually behind whatever got stacked in front of it.

34minutes, typically

Two vans park here overnight. Tonight you get a real arrival time on the phone before you hang up, and a text when the van leaves.

(555) 014-0911

Sample times for a concept site. On a real build these come from your own dispatch log.

Thirty-eight minutes in town, seventy outside it

Measured door to door across 1,870 calls last year, not the best night we ever had. If your address is going to take longer than the number below, you are told that on the phone rather than after you have waited an hour.

  • Colworth

    34 min

    Two vans park here overnight, one north of the river

  • Stoneford

    38 min

    Van 3 sits on the east side from midnight

  • Tulley Green

    42 min

    Straight down the valley road, no traffic after 11pm

  • Ambervale

    55 min

    Add a few minutes when the river bridge is closed

  • Nantwick

    63 min

    Van 5 covers this side on Friday and Saturday nights

  • Larkhill

    70 min

    Add ten minutes in snow, and we will say so on the phone

  • Cawdor Flats

    77 min

    If it is going to be nearer ninety, you hear that first

  • Sedgely

    85 min

    The far edge of the patch, and still covered every night

Past Sedgely we will still come out, and we will still quote you an honest time first. On a bad night in February that can be two hours, and you deserve to hear it before you say yes rather than after.

The after-hours rate, printed where you can read it at 2am

There are two rates and no third one. Nobody here has ever invented a holiday surcharge, an emergency premium or a fuel levy on the invoice.

Nights, weekends and holidays

6pm to 7am, all day Saturday and Sunday

$240

Call-out, then $145 an hour

Weekday daytime

7am to 6pm, Monday to Friday

$140

Call-out, then $110 an hour

  • The call-out covers the drive and the first hour on site. After that we bill in 15 minute blocks, and the clock stops when the water does.
  • Parts at trade price plus 12 percent, itemised on the invoice. You see the part number and what we paid.
  • You get the price on a phone screen and sign it before anything comes apart. It does not move afterwards unless you ask for more work.
  • Nothing to pay for the call itself, for being talked through your stopcock, or if we stand the van down before it leaves.
Valves and pipework on a dark wall

Sample rates. On a real build these are your numbers, and they update in one place.

What we roll a van for, and what is cheaper in daylight

Roughly a fifth of the calls that come in after midnight can safely wait until seven, and waiting saves the caller a hundred dollars. We would rather say so than take the money.

Call tonight

  • A leak you cannot stop, or water coming through a ceiling
  • Water standing in any room, or rising
  • Sewage coming back up a drain, a toilet or a shower
  • No water at all, once the kitchen tap check says it is inside the house
  • Frozen pipework, because the split shows up on the thaw
  • No heat at all with someone elderly, very young or unwell in the house
  • Any smell of gas near a boiler, alongside the gas emergency number
(555) 014-0911

Book it for the morning

  • A dripping tap or a toilet that will not stop filling
  • A drain that is slow but still draining
  • A boiler that works but bangs, or a radiator that will not warm up
  • A leak you have already isolated with the water off
  • Anything you have been meaning to sort out for a month
  • A bathroom, a kitchen or a heater you want replaced
Send it to the morning list

Not sure which column you are in? Ring anyway. Being told it can wait is free, and it is about one call in five.

Three calls from last month, with the clock on them

Emergency plumbing has no photo gallery worth looking at, so here is what proof looks like instead: what we walked into, what it looked like when we left, and every timestamp in between. Sample jobs for a concept site.

Cutting into a mains pipe in an open trench

Tuesday, 01:14. Stoneford.

Burst main under a hallway floor

What we walked into
Water lifting the hall floorboards and a meter spinning fast enough to hear. The stopcock outside had been paved over in 2019.
What it looked like when we left
New run in MDPE from the boundary to the house, laid in a new duct, the old lead line capped and abandoned.
  • 01:14Call taken, water shut off at the kerb by the caller
  • 01:19Van 2 left Colworth
  • 01:53On site, leak traced under the hall
  • 03:40Water back on for the house

$685 including the night call-out

Standing water across a dark basement floor

Saturday, 23:40. Colworth.

Sewage backing into a ground floor shower

What we walked into
Two inches in the shower tray and the downstairs toilet at the rim. Six people in the house and a kitchen that had been running a dishwasher all evening.
What it looked like when we left
Line jetted clear to the main, the chamber washed down, and a camera run that found roots at 41 feet.
  • 23:40Call taken, all drains shut down in the house
  • 23:44Van 4 left Stoneford
  • 00:11On site, outside chamber found full
  • 01:35Line running clear, camera survey sent by text

$520, camera survey included

Gloved hands working a pipe joint by lamplight

Sunday, 04:05. Larkhill.

Frozen pipe, split, in a crawl space

What we walked into
Minus nine outside, no water upstairs, and a caller who had been about to put a heat gun on it. We talked her out of it on the phone.
What it looked like when we left
Two splits cut out and replaced, the whole crawl space run lagged, and a trickle left on the coldest tap.
  • 04:05Call taken, main shut off while still on the phone
  • 04:12Van 1 left Colworth
  • 05:22On site, ice located with the thermal camera
  • 07:05Pipework repaired, lagged and tested

$410 including lagging

A plumber on a night call, lit by a work lamp

Nine plumbers, six vans, and you are told which one is coming

Dermot Vardon started this in 2011 with one van and his own phone on the pillow. The phone is still one handset, it just moves between two people now. Nobody is ever sent to a house without their name being said out loud first.

  • Van 1

    Dermot Vardon, master plumber

    Takes the handset from 10pm

  • Van 2

    Zoran Draganov

    Mains, lead replacement, water utility liaison

  • Van 3

    Lorne Gaskell

    Drainage, jetting and camera surveys

  • Van 4

    Saskia Denholm

    Gas safe, heaters and heating faults

  • Van 5

    Shaun Brindell

    Leak detection and pipe freezing

  • Van 6

    Amira Kassab

    Apartments, risers and commercial buildings

The dispatch desk and its screens overnight
The desk the night phone rings on, in Colworth
A crew working under lights on a wet street at night
A mains repair on the Stoneford road, 3am in January

Three people who were awake when they wrote these

01:07 call

Ceiling coming down at one in the morning and a woman called Bernie told me exactly which cupboard the stopcock was in before she had even taken my address. The van was here in half an hour and the man took his boots off in a flooded hallway, which I still think about.
Hattie Broughton, Stoneford. Sample review.

03:22 call

They came out at three on a Sunday for what turned out to be a stuck valve I could have opened myself. He showed me how, wrote down where it was, and charged me the call-out and nothing else. Second time I rang them it was a real burst and I did not ring anybody else.
Gideon Quayle, Nantwick. Sample review.

05:02 call

I manage 40 units and every other firm sends whoever is free. Mainsbreak text me the van number and the name before they leave the yard. When a riser let go at five in the morning I knew who was walking through the door.
Rhona Malpass, Colworth. Sample review.

How a night call actually goes

  1. 1 A person picks up

    Bernie Sowle takes the phone until 10pm and Dermot has it after that. No menu, no answering service taking a message for the morning. You will be asked three things: where you are, what you can see, and whether the water is off.

  2. 2 You get a van number and a time

    Before you hang up you are told which van is coming, who is driving it and roughly when. You get a text when it leaves the yard and another if the time moves. If we are going to be an hour, we say an hour.

  3. 3 You get the price before anything comes apart

    The plumber looks, then writes the price on a phone screen and you sign it. Call-out, hours, parts, all separate. If a floor has to come up to find it, you hear that and what it costs before a single board moves.

The seven things people ask while they wait

Mostly asked at two in the morning, standing in a hallway, so the answers are short.

Why is it $240 at 2am and $140 at 2pm?

Because at 2am one plumber is out of bed, a second is on the phone, and nothing else can be scheduled around it. The daytime rate is what a booked-in job costs when it fits the round. Both numbers are on this page so nobody has to ring and ask.

What if I call you out and it turns out not to be an emergency?

You pay the call-out and nothing more, and we tell you plainly what it was. About one night call in five is a stuck valve, an airlock or the water utility, and we would much rather sort those in five minutes than pretend they were something bigger.

I rent. Who pays for this?

Your landlord almost always does for anything structural or for the supply itself. Call us anyway. We will attend, stop the damage, and invoice the landlord or the managing agent directly if you give us the name on the phone.

Will you deal with my insurer?

We send you photographs, a timestamped job sheet and an itemised invoice within 24 hours, which is what a claim needs. We will talk to a loss adjuster on the phone if it helps, but we do not handle the claim for you.

Do you actually fix it that night, or just stop the water?

Both, on most calls. The vans carry press fittings for copper, plastic and lead, boiler spares, pumps and jetting gear, so around four in five night jobs are finished before the plumber leaves. Anything that needs a floor up or a part from a merchant is made safe, priced, and booked for the first slot in the morning.

I cannot get to the stopcock, or nobody can let you in.

Say so on the phone. We carry kerb keys for the outside stop tap, so we can cut the supply at the boundary without going inside. For apartment buildings, tell us if the riser cupboard is locked and we will get the caretaker moving while the van is on the way.

What is the warranty?

Two years on our labour, and the manufacturer term on parts, which is normally one to five years. If the same joint fails again inside that time, the return visit is free whatever hour it happens at.

If it can wait until morning, put it here

This list is read at 6:30am with the first coffee, and everyone on it gets a call back before 8. Daytime call-out is $140, which is a hundred dollars less than ringing us now.

If water is moving and you cannot stop it, close this and call instead.

(555) 014-0911
MAINSBREAKEMERGENCY PLUMBING

Emergency plumbing for Colworth and the valley towns, every night since 2011. Six vans, one phone, no answering service.

Calling us

Emergency line, 24 hours: (555) 014-0911

Yard: 14 Pallister Way, Colworth

Colworth, Stoneford, Tulley Green, Ambervale, Nantwick, Larkhill, Cawdor Flats, Sedgely

Licensing

Master plumber lic. #000000 (sample)

$2m public liability, certificate in every van

Two years on labour, manufacturer term on parts

Response times, prices and reviews on this page are sample figures

Mainsbreak is a concept brand created by MigrateLab for illustration.

Call now (555) 014-0911