Dear neighbour — if there's water where it shouldn't be, or the boiler has gone cold on a bitter night, don't stand there worrying at it alone. Ring the number below, any hour, and you'll be put through to a local plumber covering Limavady and the Roe Valley round about.
A word of honesty before anything else: this is a call-connection line, not a plumbing firm. Nobody at this end holds a spanner — the number simply puts you through to a local, independent plumber, and you can ask them whatever you like before agreeing to any work.
Call nowTap to ring — a real person answers, no forms, no waiting on a callback.
These are the questions that come up whenever a neighbour's plumbing goes wrong. Read the short answer first and do that; the rest of each note fills in the detail while help is on the way.
Under the kitchen sink, in nearly every house we know. Find the brass valve on the pipe coming up from the floor and turn it clockwise until it stops.
That little valve is the stopcock, and it shuts off every drop of mains water coming into the house. In the terraces along and behind Main Street it's almost always low down at the back of the sink cupboard, keeping company with the washing-up liquid and whatever else has collected there over the years. In bungalows, extensions and the newer estates it wanders a bit — try the hall cupboard, the utility room, the garage, or under the stairs, wherever the incoming pipe first shows itself.
Out in the townlands toward Feeny, Drumsurn or Dungiven, where the supply often comes in on a long run from the road, there's usually an outside stop valve too, under a small metal or plastic lid near the boundary. One caution from experience: a stopcock untouched for twenty years can be seized solid. Firm, steady pressure with a cloth for grip is fine; heaving on it until the spindle snaps is not. If it won't move, leave it be and ring. And do yourself the kindest favour going — find yours tonight, while the floor is still dry.
Once is nothing; again and again means water is escaping somewhere. Top it up once through the filling loop — if it drops again within days, have it looked at rather than topping up forever.
Most sealed-system boilers like to sit at roughly 1 to 1.5 bar when cold — the gauge on the front tells you where you stand, and the manual gives the exact range for your model. Below about 1 bar the heating turns sluggish or cuts out, and repressurising through the filling loop is honestly a job most households can do themselves; follow the manual line by line and you'll manage it before the kettle's boiled.
What matters is the pattern. Pressure that keeps sliding away over days or weeks means the system is quietly losing water — often a weep at a radiator valve or a hidden joint — and every top-up is just feeding the leak. And a note for the countryside: a great many homes out this way run on oil-fired boilers rather than gas, as much of rural Northern Ireland has no gas main at all. Oil systems have their own moods — a run tank, a blocked filter, an airlock in the fuel line — so tell the plumber which kind of boiler you have when you ring; it saves everyone a guessing game.
Shut the stopcock first, then thaw gently — hairdryer on low, warm towels, patience. Never a naked flame, never boiling water straight onto the pipe.
Our winters in the Roe Valley are more damp than truly bitter, and that's precisely the trap — a soft grey fortnight, then a hard frost slides down off Binevenagh overnight and any pipe in a loft, garage, outbuilding or outside wall that never got its lagging is suddenly a solid stick of ice. A tap that won't run, or barely dribbles, in freezing weather is the classic first sign.
Turn the water off at the stopcock before you thaw anything, because you don't yet know whether the ice has already split the pipe — frozen water expands, and the flood only arrives once it melts. Then bring heat in gently: a hairdryer on its lowest setting, towels wrung out in warm water, or simply warming the room. Farms and older houses out toward Feeny and Dungiven, with their long exposed supply runs and cold outbuildings, feel it hardest — lagging those runs in autumn is the cheapest bit of plumbing you'll ever pay for. If a pipe has already split, keep the water off and ring; thawing a burst pipe with the mains on just books your flood in for an hour's time.
Old pipework in the town, exposed pipework and oil boilers in the country. Both are entirely manageable if you catch trouble early.
Limavady's housing tells two stories. In the older terraces around Main Street and the streets running off it, the pipework has often been patched and part-modernised in stages over many decades — mixed metals, tired joints, the odd ancient soil stack. None of that means calamity; it means a persistent drip, a damp patch creeping up a wall or a gurgling drain deserves attention sooner rather than later, because in an old house one weary joint usually has cousins.
Head out of town and the picture changes. In the townlands toward Feeny, Drumsurn and Dungiven you'll find long supply runs from the road, unlagged pipes in outbuildings, septic tanks instead of mains drainage, and oil-fired heating almost as standard. Down on the coastal flats at Magilligan and Bellarena, the wind off the lough finds every gap in an exposed pipe run. Different problems, same principle: the plumber this line connects you with works across both sorts of property, and it genuinely helps to say which sort yours is when you ring.
Limavady itself and the towns, villages and townlands of the Roe Valley around it. Just outside the list below? Ring anyway — coverage flexes with the plumber's day.
From the town out along the valley to Dungiven and Feeny, down the road to Ballykelly, Greysteel and Eglinton, and out over the flats to Bellarena and Magilligan — ring the number at the top of the page and you'll be put through to a plumber covering your patch.
No theatre and no patter — three plain facts, neighbour to neighbour.
Pipes don't burst at convenient times, so the line doesn't keep office hours either — nights, weekends and bank holidays included.
You're connected to an independent local plumber covering Limavady and the Roe Valley — not a national call centre squinting at your postcode on a map.
No made-up arrival times, no guessed prices, no imaginary five-star anything. You'll be told plainly what happens next, and the deciding stays with you.
Each guide reads like a letter from a neighbour who's been through it — the answer first, then the why, written for someone standing in a wet kitchen.
Stopcock, taps, electrics — the first five minutes in the right order, and how to tell whose pipe it is.
Read the letter →Pressure that keeps dropping, no heat, error codes, oil-fired quirks — and exactly what to do if you smell gas.
Read the letter →What's worth trying yourself, what must never go down a sink, and when it's NI Water's sewer, not yours.
Read the letter →How charging really works, honest national ballparks, and the questions that keep a bill from surprising you.
Read the letter →Pressure, thermostat, tripped switch, immersion — the calm checklist before you declare the boiler dead.
Read the letter →How to thaw a pipe gently without splitting it, and the autumn lagging that spares you the whole drama.
Read the letter →Damp patches, ceiling stains, pressure that keeps sagging — and the one stopcock test that settles it.
Read the letter →Including the two things this line honestly can't promise you.
We'd love to tell you, but we'd be inventing it — the price hangs on the job, the parts, the hour of the night and the plumber's own rates, which this line neither sets nor knows. The habit that protects you is asking for a price, or a call-out fee plus hourly rate, before any work starts. Any decent tradesperson takes that question kindly.
It depends where the plumber is when you ring and what's already booked in — a house off Main Street in Limavady is a shorter run than a farmhouse out past Feeny or along the flats at Magilligan. You'll get an honest estimate on the call itself, not a number of minutes plucked from the air to win your business.
Stopcock first, before anything else — turn it clockwise until the flow dies. Then open the cold taps to empty the pipework, and if water has gone anywhere near sockets or light fittings, switch the electricity off at the consumer unit, provided you can reach it without standing in water. Once the house is quiet again, put the kettle on and make the call.
In general across the UK, the landlord looks after the fixed plumbing and heating — the boiler, the pipework, the water systems — while tenants are expected to report trouble promptly and to pay for damage they've caused themselves. Rules vary, so check your tenancy agreement or ring your landlord or letting agent before arranging work if you're in any doubt.
That one skips the plumber entirely. Get everyone out of the house, don't flick a single switch or light anything, and once you're outside at a safe distance ring the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999. They deal with it day and night, and you only go back in when they've said it's safe.
Kitchen sink cupboard first, right at the back where the pipe comes up from the floor. After that, try the hall cupboard, the utility room, the garage or under the stairs — wherever the mains pipe first enters the house. Plenty of homes also have an outside stop valve under a small lid near the boundary. If yours is seized, don't force it until it snaps; ring and the plumber can talk you through it while help is arranged.
One call, any hour, and you're talking to a local plumber who covers Limavady town and the whole Roe Valley alike. From a neighbour in the Roe Valley — you'll manage this.
Call now