Bromley High Street Shop or Restaurant Leak: First Steps

If your shop or restaurant on Bromley High Street has a leak, shut the unit’s stopcock first (usually in a back-of-house cupboard, under the staff sink or by the meter), switch off the electrics for any area the water is reaching, and move customers and staff away from it. Then tell your landlord or centre management, because in a parade or near The Glades the leak may be coming from, or going into, someone else’s space. Who pays for the repair depends on where the fault is and what your lease says; faults in the public sewer or the water main in the street are Thames Water’s.

The first ten minutes in a Bromley unit

Commercial leaks cost money in a different way to house leaks. The damage matters, but so does every hour you are closed. Do these in order.

1. Turn off the water at the unit’s stopcock. If you cannot find it, check under the staff sink, in the cleaners’ cupboard, by the water meter or behind an access panel in the toilet.
2. Switch off the electrics for the affected area at the distribution board. If water is near the board itself, do not touch it.
3. Move customers and staff out of the area. Put out a wet floor sign or close the door.
4. Turn off dishwashers, glass washers, coffee machines and any water heater on the same supply.
5. Put buckets under drips and move stock off the floor.
6. Ring building or centre management if you are in a managed block or shopping centre.
7. Photograph the leak, the damage and the time on your phone.
8. Call a plumber and say it is a business, so they know to bring commercial fittings.

Who is responsible: you, the landlord or Thames Water?

This is where Bromley’s mix of buildings matters.

Older High Street buildings. Many shops sit under flats or offices, with original pipework running through ceilings and shared waste stacks. A leak above your shop ceiling may be from the flat upstairs. You still turn off what you can, but the flat’s occupier or the freeholder may need to isolate their supply.

Units in or near The Glades. The Glades opened in 1991 and has about 135 stores. Large managed centres like this usually have their own risers, plant rooms and maintenance staff. Tell centre management straight away: they may control the isolation valves and need to protect neighbouring units, and the lease often says who may carry out work.

Your lease decides internal plumbing. Some leases put all internal plumbing on the tenant, others keep it with the landlord. Read the repairs clause before the bill arrives.

Thames Water handles public sewers and mains. Thames Water manages the public foul and surface water sewers and the water mains in Bromley. If water is coming up from a road, or several shops are blocked at once, it may be theirs. Since 1 October 2011 drains shared by two or more properties are also the water company’s responsibility.

Blocked drains in restaurants and cafes

Thames Water says fat, oil and grease are a major cause of blocked drains. In a commercial kitchen they come from pans, fryers and plate scrapings, and they set hard in the pipes as they cool.

Signs your kitchen drain is going:

• sinks and floor gullies slow to empty after service;
• a bad smell from the gully or grease trap;
• gurgling when the dishwasher pumps out;
• water backing up into the lowest sink.

If it is blocked during service, stop running water into that drain. Every sink load and dishwasher cycle adds to what will back up on to your floor. Switch the dishwasher off and wash up by hand in a sink on a different run, if you have one.

Prevention matters more than the call-out:

• empty and clean the grease trap on a schedule, and keep a log;
• scrape plates into the bin, not the sink;
• collect used cooking oil for proper disposal;
• fit sink strainers and empty them;
• never pour fat down a drain with hot water and washing-up liquid. It only moves the problem further down the pipe.

Keeping the toilets open

A blocked customer toilet is often the first thing a reviewer notices. If one toilet overflows, close it, turn off the small isolation valve on its feed, and keep the other open. If all the toilets and sinks back up together, the blockage is further down the drain and needs rodding or jetting.

What we need from you when you call

• The address and the postcode, and where to park or unload.
• What is leaking or blocked, and whether the water is off.
• Your opening hours and whether you need to trade tonight.
• Whether access needs the landlord or centre management.
• Who can authorise the work and how you want to be invoiced.

We agree the price with you before any work starts. If an insurer is involved, we write up what failed, why, and what we did, so your claim is easier to make. Our insurance help page explains what that looks like.

When to call us

Call if water is coming through a ceiling, a pipe has burst, a drain is backing up into the kitchen or the toilets are out of action. We cover commercial plumbing in Bromley, including blocked drains in Bromley. See all our commercial plumbing services and the Bromley area page.

Any gas appliance, including a gas water heater or range, needs a Gas Safe registered engineer. We do not work on gas. If you smell gas, get everyone out and call National Gas Emergency on 0800 111 999.

Need a plumber now?

Call 07868 281022 and tell us your postcode, what is leaking or blocked, and whether the water is off. Tell us it is a business so we come prepared.