Emergency plumber in Tower Hamlets and Canary Wharf

In a tower, mains pressure alone will not reach the upper floors. Water is pumped up by booster sets or stored in tanks, then fed down to each flat. When a booster pump fails, the top floors lose water or pressure first. If your neighbours on lower floors have water and you do not, it is the building's system, so call the concierge or managing agent.

Inside your flat, the stop valve is often in a utility cupboard, by the hot water cylinder or behind a panel in the kitchen. Find it before you need it. Newer flats use push fit plastic pipe and flexible connectors, and a common emergency is a failed connector under a sink or behind a washing machine. Leaks run along the slab and appear in the flat below or in a corridor.

If water is coming into your flat from above and you cannot get a response, isolate your own water, switch off electrics near the leak, contain the water and keep calling the building management. For a real emergency where water is pouring into electrics and you cannot make it safe, call 999.

Converted warehouses along the river have pipes running through thick walls and long ceiling voids. A leak may surface far from its source. Many have communal plant rooms and controlled access, so the managing agent's out of hours number is usually the first call for anything beyond your own flat.

Flats in these buildings often share walls and floors with commercial units at ground level, and some still have older iron pipework in parts of the building. A leak may need the managing agent, the freeholder and a neighbouring business to cooperate before it can be traced. Take photos and keep a record of who you told and when, as it helps if responsibility is disputed later.

On council and housing association estates, report leaks and loss of water to the landlord's repairs line. If you are a leaseholder, communal pipes and pumps are usually the freeholder's, and the pipes serving only your flat are usually yours. In the Victorian streets of Bow, the usual terrace problems apply: shared supply pipes, frost in lofts and blocked drains under the back yard.