Plumbing in City Centre & Harbourside

Bristol’s city centre covers the shopping streets around Broadmead and Cabot Circus, the Old City and Corn Street, and the Harbourside around the Floating Harbour. People live here mostly in flats, whether in converted warehouses and office buildings or in modern blocks built along the water. Mixed in are bars, cafés, offices and shops, many on the ground floor of residential buildings. Hotels, student blocks and offices converted to homes have added many more residents in recent years. Our office is on Stokes Croft, on the northern edge of the centre, so we’re never far away. Parking can be tight, so it helps to tell us about loading bays or building car parks.

Plumbing in a block of flats works differently from a house. Water often reaches each flat through a shared riser, waste goes into a common stack, and the stop tap may be inside a cupboard, under the kitchen sink or in a service corridor. A small leak can affect the ceiling below within minutes. In older converted buildings, new bathrooms have often been fitted where there was never plumbing before, so waste routes can be long and shallow. Hard water from Bristol Water leaves limescale in taps, shower valves and appliance connections, which is behind a lot of the dripping and sticking we’re called out for. Noisy pipes and water hammer are also common in larger buildings.

Common City Centre & Harbourside jobs

• Leaks into the flat below
• Blocked kitchen and bathroom waste in apartments
• Low pressure and noisy pipework in blocks
• Shower and tap repairs
• Commercial kitchens and staff toilets

Businesses in the centre

If you run a café, bar, shop or office, a blocked toilet or a leaking pipe can close you for the day. We can often attend the same day and work around opening hours where we can. Grease is the usual culprit in food businesses, so keep sinks scraped and check that grease traps are maintained. For drains that block again and again, high-pressure water jetting can clear build-up the plunger can’t reach. See our commercial plumbing page for more on work for businesses. If you manage a building, we can also look at problems in individual flats on behalf of the management company. Residents can call us direct for anything inside their own flat, from a dripping tap to a toilet that won’t flush.

Plumbing services in City Centre & Harbourside

• Emergency plumbing: burst pipes and serious leaks, aiming to arrive within the hour
• Blocked drains: sinks, toilets, gullies and manholes
• Leak repair: pipes, joints and appliance connections
• Radiators and heating: valves, cold spots and system pressure (no gas work)
• Taps and toilets: drips, running cisterns and replacements
• Bathroom and kitchen plumbing