What happens during an incident
The type of incident will determine how we can support you and what happens next. We’ll do our best to resolve the issue and restore your water as soon as possible.
Minor incidents
We’ll send an engineer to investigate within four hours of becoming aware of a minor incident. Minor incidents include supply interruptions affecting only a small number of customers.
Major incidents
We’ll send our dedicated team out immediately. If needed, we’ll make sure there’s a coordinated response, working with authorities. Major incidents include supply interruptions, water quality, and flooding (burst main). These incidents affect a large amount of customers.
Our incident response service
Find out more about how we respond to minor and major incidents.
Keeping you up to date
We’ll update our website and social channels with regular updates. If we've got your number and your supply is affected, we'll send you a SMS/ text message. We'll send you updates on the incident as often as we can.
You can contact our customer care team 24/7 if you need extra support during an incident. We're available on Facebook, X, WhatsApp, and webchat. You can also call us on 0800 316 9800 and sign up for SMS/text updates.
Returning your water supply
We aim to have your water back on within 12 hours.
Major incidents can be complex when undertaking repair work in congested areas.
In all circumstances, we aim to re-route water supplies. However, we might not be able to re-route water as quickly as we’d like.
During both minor and major incidents, we may use tankers to keep you in supply.
Support on the ground
For major incidents, we’ll send our customer representatives if needed. They’ll be available to answer your questions and provide support.
We’ll let you know if we’ll be onsite in our online updates. We'll be wearing Thames Water branded Personal Protective orange clothing.
You can also check it's us as we'll be carrying Thames Water identification badges. For extra security, we also offer a doorstep password scheme.
In the event of a water quality incident, we’ll notify you if you're affected. We'll also provide information on our website on how to use your tap water during the incident
Providing bottled water
If your supply isn't returned within 12 hours, we'll arrange for an alternative. This includes bottled water stations. Bottled water stations will be set up locally to the incident in an accessible area. We'll let you know about these on our website and social media.
Delivering bottled water
During incidents, we'll deliver bottled water to eligible Priority Services (PSR) customers. We'll deliver water within 24 hours of an incident. Timescales will depend on the scale of the incident, but we’ll provide water as soon as possible.
If you're not on our PSR, you can call us on 0800 316 9800. We can help if you have an injury or short-term illness preventing you from leaving the house for water. We'll do our best to deliver bottled water to you if possible.
Short-term illness or injury is for less than two weeks. If it's longer, register for Priority Services for extra help during incidents. Carers, friends, or family can register on behalf of someone else. Please note applications can take time to process. Registering during an incident won't mean support is provided immediately.
In major incidents we may need to prioritise bottled water delivery. If you’re on dialysis or medically dependent on water, we’ll always ensure that we’ll get to you first.
We'll then prioritise customers who are:
- Living with a chronic / serious illness
- Mobility impaired
- Living with dementia
- Blind
- Aged over 90
- Recovering from hospital treatment
Over 94% of the time we're then able to deliver to PSR customers who are:
- Partially sighted
- Have children under the age of five
- Between 80-90 years old
If you're on our PSR for communication support only, for example, we're unable to deliver water to you. Bottled water will however be available from bottled water stations.
We can help if you're unable to leave the house to collect bottled water due to a short-term illness or injury. Please call our dedicated PSR phone number that was provided when you signed up for PSR.
How we can support other issues
We go through how we'll support non-household customers and issues not related to incidents.
Other issues
Problems can occur that aren’t due to incidents on our network. These will have different timescales for completion.
If you’re affected by sewer flooding, please call our customer care team on 0800 316 9800. For leaks or faults with your internal stop tap, visit our leaks web page. Other issues such as blockages, site issues, manhole covers, or pollution, can be reported online.
Supporting non-household customers
We’re committed to supporting non-household customers such as shops during an incident. This complies with Part E of the Wholesale Retail Code; Operational Terms.
You may be eligible for a payment, paid by the retailer if we fail to return your water supply. This is in line with the commitments in the Guaranteed Standards Scheme. Full details of how we manage incidents can be found in our Wholesale Service Offering.