General plumbing covers everything that carries water around your house and everything that takes it away: taps, toilets, waste pipes, valves, pressure problems and leaks. The skill is usually diagnosis rather than the repair itself – most plumbing faults present a long way from where they actually are.
What counts as general plumbing
It is the work that does not fit neatly into heating, hot water or bathrooms: the individual failures that make a house annoying to live in. A tap that has started to drip. A toilet that refills every twenty minutes. A waste pipe that empties slowly and smells. An outside tap that will not shut off. A stopcock that has seized solid, discovered at exactly the moment you needed it.
None of these are large jobs and most of them are cheap to fix. What makes them frustrating is finding someone to do them. A lot of firms have quietly stopped taking small work because a two-hour job earns less than a boiler installation. We still do it, because the person with the dripping tap today is the person with the failing boiler in three years, and because small jobs are how you find out whether a company is any good.
The other reason is that small plumbing faults are rarely as small as they look. A tap that drips is wasting water and staining the basin, but a tap that has started to weep from the body is water getting into a cabinet you cannot see. A toilet that runs continuously puts a surprising volume through the overflow. A waste that gurgles is telling you something about the vent on the soil stack.
The jobs we get called out for most
| Job | What is usually actually wrong |
|---|---|
| Dripping tap | Worn ceramic cartridge or perished washer – a small part, provided the tap is a make that parts still exist for |
| Tap weeping from the base | Failed O-rings in the body, or a loose back-nut letting water under the sink unnoticed |
| Toilet running constantly | Failed flush valve seal or a float valve set too high – the cistern is overfilling and discharging into the pan |
| Toilet flushing weakly | Partly blocked rim channel, a failed dual-flush mechanism, or a syphon on its way out |
| Slow or smelly waste | Trap full of debris, or a longer blockage further down. The smell is almost always a dry or siphoned trap |
| Gurgling when another appliance drains | Venting problem on the stack – water is pulling the trap seal out of a nearby fitting |
| Low pressure at one outlet only | Blocked aerator, partly closed isolation valve, or a scaled-up flexible tail |
| Low pressure everywhere | Mains, stopcock, or a pressure-reducing valve. A different problem entirely – see low water pressure |
| Damp patch on a ceiling | Rarely where you think. Water travels along joists before it appears |
Turn the stopcock off first and investigate second. Guessing wrong about where a leak is coming from while water is still running costs far more in damage than it saves in time. If you do not know where your stopcock is, that is worth resolving today rather than in an emergency – see find your stopcock.
Why diagnosis is most of the job
Water does not appear where it leaks. It runs along the underside of a floorboard, follows a joist, drops through a ceiling rose because that is the first hole it comes to, and puts a stain on a ceiling three metres from the actual fault. A plumber who opens up the ceiling under the stain and finds nothing has learned something useful, but you have paid for a hole.
So the first part of most calls is establishing what is actually happening. That means understanding when the water appears – only when the shower runs, only when the heating is on, continuously, or only after heavy rain, which means it is not plumbing at all. It means isolating sections and watching. Where the source genuinely cannot be found by reasoning, leak detection equipment finds it without opening the building up speculatively.
The same applies to blockages. A sink that drains slowly on its own is a trap. A sink that backs up when the washing machine discharges is a shared branch. A whole ground floor backing up is the drain, which is a different job again and may be the water company’s responsibility rather than yours.
What we will and will not do
We will take on small work, we will tell you if a job is not worth doing, and we will tell you when something is genuinely someone else’s problem – a drainage issue on a shared run, a water company responsibility on the supply side, or a job that needs a specialist we are not.
- We will give you the option to repair rather than replace where a repair is sensible. Not every dripping tap needs a new tap.
- We will tell you when a repair is false economy. A twenty-year-old tap with obsolete internals is not worth two visits.
- We will not quote a price for a job we have not seen beyond genuinely standard work. A figure invented over the phone is a figure that changes on the doorstep.
- We will not create work. If the fix is a fifty-pence washer, that is what you will be told.
Something dripping, running or backing up? Call and describe it – most plumbing faults are recognisable from the description.
Questions we get asked about this
Do you do small jobs?
Yes. A lot of firms have stopped, which is exactly why we still do. If it is genuinely a fifteen-minute job we will often pick it up alongside other work in your area, which keeps the cost sensible for both of us.
How do I know if a leak is urgent?
If water is running and you cannot stop it, it is urgent. If it is a slow drip into a bucket, it can usually wait for a booked visit – but do not leave it indefinitely, because slow leaks cause more damage to joists and plaster over months than a burst does in an hour.
Can you fix a tap, or do I need a new one?
Often a repair is possible – ceramic cartridges and washers are stocked for common makes. Where the tap is an obscure import or the body itself is worn, replacement is the honest answer and we will say so rather than charging you for a repair that will fail again.
My drains smell. Is that a plumbing job?
Usually, and usually the cause is a trap that has dried out or been siphoned empty – most often in a rarely used bathroom or a washing machine standpipe. Running the tap for thirty seconds refills it. If the smell comes back quickly, there is a venting problem and that is worth looking at properly.
Do you work on older properties?
Constantly. Norfolk has a lot of them and they come with their own quirks – lead supply pipes, imperial pipework, cast iron waste, gravity systems and thirty years of undocumented alterations. It changes the approach but it is entirely normal work.
Will you tell me if a job is not worth doing?
Yes. It happens regularly, particularly with old sanitaryware and obsolete fittings. You will get our honest view and the decision stays yours.
What happens when you call
Call and describe it
You speak to an engineer, not a call centre. Most jobs can be narrowed down on the phone.
We look at it properly
A real diagnosis before a price, and a straight answer if it is not worth doing.
A written quote
Itemised, so you can see what you are paying for.
The job, and the paperwork
Certificates where the work needs them, and what will need attention next.
Where we do this work
Across Norwich and the whole of Norfolk. If you are on the edge of the county, call and ask — we will tell you honestly whether we are the right people.
- Norwich
- Wymondham
- Dereham
- Attleborough
- Aylsham
- North Walsham
- Cromer
- Diss
- Loddon
- Long Stratton
- Watton
- King's Lynn
Need this doing?
Call and describe the problem — you will speak to an engineer, not a call centre. Written quotes, no estimates over the phone.