Northumbrian Water Contact Number - Phone, Emergency Line & Opening Hours

Northumbrian Water contact number

The Northumbrian Water contact number for bills, accounts and general enquiries is 0345 733 5566, open Monday to Friday 8am to 7pm and Saturday 8am to 1pm excluding bank holidays. Calls are charged at the standard UK local rate and are usually included in inclusive minutes bundles on mobile and landline plans, so most customers will pay nothing extra to ring it.

Northumbrian Water supplies water and sewerage across the North East of England — County Durham, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and parts of North Yorkshire — serving roughly 2.7 million customers. The same parent company, CK Hutchison Holdings, also trades as Essex & Suffolk Water in the South East: a separate customer base on a separate phone line, although emergency response is coordinated across both brands.

If you only need to read your meter or pay a bill, you can skip the queue entirely by using the two automated lines, which are open round the clock and free to call: 0800 032 3417 for payments and balance checks, and 0800 032 3418 to submit a meter reading. Both are 24/7 and do not require speaking to an agent.

Source: Northumbrian Water published contact directory (nwl.co.uk), verified June 2026. Calls to 0345 numbers cost the same as a normal landline call; 0800 numbers are free from any UK landline or mobile.

Before you dial, have your account number ready: it is printed at the top of your most recent water bill and at the bottom-right of any direct debit confirmation letter. The advisor will also ask for the property postcode and, if you are metered, the latest reading — taking 30 seconds to write these down before calling avoids a five-minute identity check on the line.

Northumbrian Water emergency number

The Northumbrian Water emergency number depends on the type of emergency. Call 0800 393 084 for a leak or burst pipe, 0800 328 7648 if sewage is backing up in your home or garden, and 0345 717 1100 if you have no water at the tap. All three are answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week including bank holidays, and the two 0800 numbers are completely free from any UK landline or mobile.

You do not need to be a Northumbrian Water customer to report a problem. If you have spotted water bubbling up through the road, a soft patch in a verge, or pressure dropping across a whole street, ring 0800 393 084 even if you live outside the supply area — Northumbrian Water will route the report onwards if it turns out the leak belongs to another network. Reporting early is the single best thing the public can do to keep the company's leakage figures on track with Ofwat's 5-yearly performance targets.

Before calling, do a 30-second check to see whose responsibility the issue is. Northumbrian Water owns the mains up to the boundary of your property, plus the public sewer; anything beyond the outside stop tap — pipes under your garden, the cold-water tank in the loft, taps and toilets — is the homeowner's responsibility and a job for a plumber, not the water company. If you are not sure where the boundary lies, our guide on what to do when there's no water in the house walks through the diagnostic steps.

Other ways to contact Northumbrian Water

Northumbrian Water offers several alternative channels if you would rather skip the phone queue. Most routine tasks — submitting a meter reading, paying a bill, updating your details or setting up a direct debit — can be completed without speaking to an advisor through the My Account portal on the Northumbrian Water website, which is open 24/7.

The website also runs a WhatsApp service for non-urgent queries: you scan the QR code on the contact page, message your question, and an advisor typically replies within 12 hours. It is a useful option for parents juggling young children, customers with anxiety around phone calls, or anyone who needs a written record of the answer.

Northumbrian Water postal address

For written complaints, Subject Access Requests and any other formal correspondence, write to the head office in Durham. Always include your account number and a daytime phone number so the customer relations team can follow up; queries sent in by post are not handled in real time and tend to take longer than a phone call or email.

Northumbrian Water Ltd
Northumbria House
Abbey Road
Durham
DH1 5FJ

Northumbrian Water or Essex & Suffolk Water?

Although Northumbrian Water and Essex & Suffolk Water sit under the same parent company, they are run as two distinct customer bases with separate phone lines, separate bills and separate online portals. Calling the wrong one is the single most common reason customers say they could not get through — you will be politely redirected, but it adds 10 minutes to your call.

If you live in the North East of England (Durham, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, parts of North Yorkshire), you are a Northumbrian Water customer and your billing line is 0345 733 5566. If you live in Essex, parts of Suffolk or north London, you are an Essex & Suffolk Water customer and your line is 0345 782 0111. The simplest way to confirm is to look at the logo on the top of your most recent bill.

Source: nwl.co.uk and eswater.co.uk contact directories, verified June 2026. Sewer flooding in the Essex & Suffolk Water area is handled by Anglian Water (03457 145 145) or Thames Water (0800 316 9800) depending on the postcode.

How to make a complaint to Northumbrian Water

Northumbrian Water follows the three-stage complaints process required of every English water company by Ofwat and the Consumer Council for Water. In most cases a single phone call to 0345 733 5566 or an email to [email protected] resolves the issue at the first stage, and the company aims to send a substantive reply within 10 working days.

Step 1 – Raise the issue. Ring 0345 733 5566, email [email protected] or write to the Durham head office. Quote your account number, the property postcode and a clear description of what went wrong and what outcome you would like. Keep a note of the date you complained and the name of the advisor.

Step 2 – Request a formal review. If you are unhappy with the first response, ask in writing for the complaint to be escalated to a team manager. Northumbrian Water has another 10 working days to come back with a final answer, and if it does not, you can ask for a deadlock letter.

Step 3 – Escalate externally. Once you hold a deadlock letter, or eight weeks have passed since you first complained, the Consumer Council for Water (CCW) will review your case for free. For issues CCW cannot resolve, the final route is the Water Redress Scheme (WATRS), an independent adjudicator whose decision is legally binding on Northumbrian Water but not on you — you keep the right to reject it and go to court.

If your complaint is about the size of your bill rather than the service you received, it is worth checking first whether you are eligible for support. Our WaterSure scheme guide explains the national cap available to low-income metered households, and the UK water rates guide shows how the bill is calculated so you can spot a charge that looks wrong.

Northumbrian Water contact FAQ

Useful Northumbrian Water and UK water guides

If you came looking for a phone number and now want to dig further, our other guides cover Northumbrian Water itself, the wider UK water market and the practical questions that often follow a call to customer services — from setting up a meter to understanding why your bill went up. The starting point is the supplier overview, which links to the rest of the cluster.

• Northumbrian Water: tariffs, login and moving home — coverage area, charges and how the supplier ranks against the rest of the UK water market.
• Essex & Suffolk Water — sister company under CK Hutchison, different supply area and phone numbers, shared emergency response team.
• All UK water suppliers — find the right water company for your postcode and compare contact numbers across all regional monopolies.
• UK water bills explained — average costs, metering rules and the regulators that set what you can be charged.
• How to read your water meter — step-by-step guide so you can give the right figure when you ring the automated reading line.
• WaterSure scheme — national cap on metered bills for low-income households with high essential use.
• No water in the house? What to check first — whose pipework is whose, and the order in which to ring Northumbrian Water versus a plumber.