Bathroom Repairs
Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire & Cambridgeshire
Bathroom repairs across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. Leaks, failed seals, dripping taps, shower valves, toilets and extractor fans. Call 01462 506 374 or book a slot.
The most useful thing on this page: is it a leak or a seal?
If you have a stain on the ceiling below a bathroom, the single question that decides everything is whether water is escaping from a pipe or getting past a seal. They cost very different amounts to fix, and a lot of people pay for the wrong one.
The way to tell them apart is when it wets.
- Continuous, whether or not anybody is using the bathroom: a supply pipe. Pressurised, so it leaks around the clock.
- Only when something discharges, so after the bath empties or while the basin drains: a waste pipe or a trap.
- Only while the shower is running, and worse the longer it runs: a sealing failure. Water is getting past the silicone, the grout or the tray edge and running behind the finish.
Tell us which of those three it is when you ring and you will get a far more useful answer, because the third one is not a plumbing job at all. It is a waterproofing job, and no amount of tightening pipework will fix it.
There is no British Standard setting out a diagnostic procedure for this. It is engineering practice and we are presenting it as such. What the standards do say is why it matters: BS 5385-4:2015 requires that in frequently wetted areas the structure behind the tiles is watertight and tanked, and that plaster and plasterboard are unsuitable there. Where a shower has been tiled straight onto plasterboard, a failed seal does not just wet the wall. It destroys the board.
Silicone and grout, and why redoing it usually fails
It is porous by nature and it was never the thing keeping water out. The waterproofing sits behind the tiles. If somebody has told you your leak will be solved by regrouting, ask them what is behind the tiles.
Typically where the bath or tray meets the wall, because the bath moves when you get in it. Filling it while it is empty and then getting in tears the seal on day one, which is why we fill a bath before sealing it.
Cured sealant is effectively a release surface, so a fresh bead over the top adheres to almost nothing and lifts within months. The old material has to come out completely, the joint has to be cleaned back and dried, and only then does the new bead go on. That is the whole job, and it is why a proper reseal takes longer than people expect and lasts years rather than weeks. This is manufacturer and practice guidance rather than a British Standard, but it is consistent across the sealant manufacturers.
What very hard water does to a bathroom
Every supply zone we work in is well above 200 mg per litre, and most are above 300, which is the classification for very hard. Hitchin is published at 368 and Stevenage at 320.
The failures follow from that.
The commonest single repair we do. Scale builds inside the cartridge, the thermostatic element stops responding properly, and the shower starts running hot then cold, or refuses to reach temperature. It is almost always a cartridge rather than a whole valve, and knowing that is worth a few hundred pounds. We will tell you which it is before ordering parts.
A dripping modern tap is usually a cartridge, not a washer. Scale on the disc faces is what stops them seating.
Blocked nozzles are routinely mistaken for a pressure problem. If the spray pattern is patchy rather than weak all over, it is scale.
Screens etch permanently if scale is left to dry on them repeatedly. Once it has etched, it cannot be cleaned off, only replaced.
What is repairable and what is not: cartridges, discs, seals and heads are all replaceable parts. Etched glass, scaled up chrome that has pitted, and a valve body that has scaled internally past the serviceable parts are replacements.
The rest of the everyday list
Continuous trickle into the pan is a flush valve or a float valve, not usually the cistern. A weak flush on a modern dual flush is often the valve seal rather than anything structural. A toilet that rocks needs the pan refixing before it cracks the waste connection.
A basin that drains slowly is nearly always the trap and it is a ten minute job. A smell from a waste that runs freely is a dry or failed trap seal, not a blockage. Run the tap and see if it goes.
Doors that drop, rollers that seize, and magnetic seals that no longer meet. All replaceable parts, and worth doing before the leaking runs into the floor.
This one is a regulation rather than a preference. Approved Document F sets a minimum intermittent extract rate for a bathroom of 15 litres per second, and in a room with no openable window the fan must keep running for at least 15 minutes after the room is vacated. A fan that hums but does not shift air is failing that, and it is the usual cause of black mould around a bathroom ceiling that people blame on damp.
When a repair is the wrong answer
We will say so. If the tiles are tiled onto plasterboard in a shower, if the tanking was never done, or if a tray has been leaking long enough to have wet the floor structure, then resealing it is spending money to delay a bigger bill. The honest answer there is a proper refit or a wet room, and we would rather tell you that than take payment for a seal that will fail again.
Equally, most of what comes through as a bathroom emergency is a cartridge, a trap or a flush valve, and it is an hour’s work. We will tell you that too.
Book a repair
Call 01462 506 374 and tell us when the water appears, which tells us most of what we need. Or send us the details. Across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire.
Frequently asked questions
Is it worth repairing or should I refit the whole bathroom?
If the layout works and the problem is one failed item, a leaking valve, a cracked tray, failed grout or a tired seal, repair it. A refit is worth it when the layout is wrong, the tiling is coming away in more than one place, or you are chasing the same leak for the third time.
My shower has gone cold or the temperature keeps swinging. Why?
Usually a thermostatic cartridge that has scaled up, which is common in a hard water area, or a pressure problem where another outlet is being used at the same time. Both are repairs rather than replacements in most cases.
There is a damp patch on the ceiling below the bathroom. Where is it coming from?
It is not always a plumbing leak. Very often it is the shower tray or the wall junction letting water past a failed seal, which looks identical from below. We trace it properly rather than pulling a ceiling down on a guess.
Can you match my existing tiles?
Sometimes, and honestly often not, because ranges get discontinued and batches vary in shade. If you have spares from the original job, keep them. If not, we will tell you where a repair will be visible before we start rather than after.
Do you repair leaking toilets and cisterns?
Yes. Running cisterns, failed flush valves, leaking pan connectors and rocking pans are everyday work, and most of them are done on the first visit.
Will you have to take tiles off to fix a leak?
Not always, and not as a first move. A lot of bathroom leaks are at a fitting, a trap, a waste connection or a seal, and those are reachable without touching the tiling. Where the leak is genuinely behind the tiles we will say so before we start and agree with you how it is going to be made good, rather than opening a wall and then having the conversation.
Areas we cover
We carry out bathroom repairs everywhere we work.
- Hitchin
- Stevenage
- Letchworth
- Baldock
- Royston
- Biggleswade
- Sandy
- St Neots
- Bedford
- Luton
- Dunstable
- Harpenden
- St Albans
- Welwyn Garden City
- Hertford
- Ware
- Hemel Hempstead
- Hatfield
- Potters Bar
- Cambridge
- Shefford
- Stotfold
- Arlesey
- Knebworth
- Flitwick
- Ampthill
We work across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire from our base in Stevenage. If your village is not listed, ring 01462 506374 and we will tell you honestly whether we reach you.
Related: bathroom installations, shower installation, wet rooms, leak detection and blocked sinks and drains.
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Vantage Plumbing and Heating covers Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and the surrounding areas. Call and talk to an engineer, or send us the details and we will come back to you with a price.
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