Plumbers & electricians in Brockley

The district runs from Brockley Cross and the railway down through Crofton Park, with Hilly Fields on the ridge between Brockley and Ladywell and Telegraph Hill rising away towards New Cross. What fills the gaps is remarkably consistent. Once the railways arrived the fields were sold off for building, and what went up was bay fronted terraces and semi detached villas, mostly between the eighteen sixties and the end of the century.

Houses built in rows, by one builder, in one push, get plumbed in one push as well. Drainage, supply and layout repeat down the length of a street, and so do the faults. Much of the area sits inside the Brockley and Ladywell conservation areas, which is part of why the frontages still look original, and part of why so much of what is buried under the front paths has never been dug up and looked at.

Why your water goes off when a neighbour has work done in Brockley

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When these terraces went up it was normal, and cheaper, to take one service pipe off the main in the street and tee each house off it as the row progressed. One connection, one trench, one pipe under the front gardens, with a branch coming up into each house. A great many are still in service, often still in lead. You rarely find out on purpose. You find out because there is no stop tap in the footpath that belongs only to you, or the one you find turns off three houses as well, or a floor comes up and the pipe arrives from the party wall rather than the front.

Living on a shared run is quiet until something needs doing, and then it is not quiet at all. A neighbour has a bathroom fitted and your water goes off for an afternoon with no warning. You turn your own supply off to change a tap and get a knock at the door. Flow is shared as well as control, so a weekday morning with the whole row showering feels different from a Sunday afternoon. The hardest version is a leak on the shared length itself, because it belongs to nobody obvious. It is not inside anyone’s house, it sits past the water company’s boundary, and in law it is the joint responsibility of every property fed by it. Water rises through a front path, everyone agrees something ought to be done, and months go by.

What actually ends it is separation: a new individual supply, run in modern plastic from a fresh connection on the main to its own boundary stop tap and then in to its own stopcock, with the old tee capped off. That is an application to the water company for a new connection rather than something a plumber can simply go and do, and the excavation is where the money goes, so it is worth timing with other work that opens up the front. If the shared run is lead, ask about replacement help first, because who pays for which section is not obvious. What is not worth doing is clamping the old pipe again. A repair on a hundred year old common run buys time and nothing more.