Who to call at 2am in Manchester

At two in the morning, most problems feel like emergencies. Some of them are. This guide is for the moment when you are standing in a kitchen or a hallway in Manchester, wondering whether to ring someone now or wait until it is light. We run a 24-hour line across several trades, so we have a reasonable view of what turns up at that hour and what genuinely needed us.

What counts as an emergency

The honest test is whether waiting makes it worse, or makes it dangerous. By that test, these are emergencies:

• Water you cannot stop: a burst pipe, a leak through a ceiling, or a toilet or drain backing up into the house.
• A roof leak in heavy rain with water reaching electrics or coming through in volume.
• Electrical faults that involve heat, smell or smoke: a burning smell from a socket or the consumer unit, or lights and sockets that keep failing and will not reset.
• Any broken window or forced door that leaves the property open, particularly at ground level.
• Being locked out, or locked in, especially with a child, a pet or a cooker involved.

What to do first, before you ring anyone

Water: find the stopcock and turn it off. Open the cold taps to drain the pipes. Move belongings and keep away from electrics. Our guide on what to do when a pipe bursts has the detail.

Electrics: stop using whatever is warm or smells. Do not open the consumer unit. If there is smoke or flame, call 999 before anything else.

Glass and doors: keep people and pets away from broken glass. Photograph the damage before you clear it. If it was a break-in, call the police on 101 or 999 first and do not touch the point of entry.

Roof: buckets under drips, belongings out of the way, and stay off the roof.

None of these involve repairing anything. They are about stopping the damage growing while help is on the way.

What a callout involves

When you ring our emergency line, a person answers. We ask what is happening, where you are, and whether anyone is at risk. We tell you what to do in the meantime if there is something useful you can do.

The pricing page explains how our pricing works.

In an emergency, arrival is within 60 minutes.

The first job on arrival is to make things safe: stop the water, isolate the circuit, board the opening, open the door. Then we assess whether a permanent repair is possible there and then, which it usually is for plumbing, locks and single glazing, or whether it needs parts or daylight, which is usually the case for sealed units and roofs.

One number for every trade

The reason we run several trades under one name is that emergencies do not respect trade boundaries. A burst pipe becomes an electrical problem when it reaches the lights. A break-in needs a locksmith and a glazier. A roof leak needs a roofer and, once it is dry, a decorator. Ringing one number that can send the right person, or two people, is simpler at 2am than working out who to call for which part.

The six emergency services we run around the clock are the emergency plumber, the emergency electrician, the emergency locksmith, the emergency glazier, emergency boarding up and emergency roof leak response. If you are not sure which you need, ring 07893 933403 and describe the problem. Working that out is our job, not yours.