Help and support

For any reported problems in your area you can use our online tool Up My Street. It's quick and easy to use, type in your postcode or the problem location and you can keep an eye on our progress. If there isn't an existing problem, you can report it to us and our team will investigate this for you as soon as they can. 

For our wider scaled incidents you can find live updates here. We’ll keep you updated regularly until everything has been resolved. 

If your supply is impacted we will find different means to help minimise the disruption. 

Where we can we'll always put temporary measures in place like providing you with water from another area by re-routing the water around our network of pipes. You may also notice our water tankers in your area, helping to keep your taps flowing by restoring your water supply whilst we complete our repairs. 

If you are a Priority Services customer and your water is likely to be off for over 12 hours, then we will try to make water available using different means and this may include delivering bottled water to your home.

For our wider scaled incidents, we may work with your local authority to set up a bottled water collection point. 

For incidents which leave a large number of our customers without water for a significant amount of time, we will try to work with your local authority to set up a bottled water collection point.

We work hard to choose an accessible and safe location for those affected and you might spot our United Utilities vans in the area whilst we work to set everything up. Once we have everything set up we'll let you know the location by working with your local council and announcing it on our social media pages and website. 

For example, during an incident with our water network in Blackburn and Darwin in 2022 a number of our customers were left without water for more than 24 hours. We worked with the local council to find appropriate locations for bottled water stations and set up these stations at a local football club, supermarket and other locations to act as collection points for bottled water.

If we are carrying out an emergency repair and you are left without water for over 12 hours, we will proactively pay you £30 - plus another £30 for every additional 12 hour period we leave you without water. 

There is no need to contact us if you have been affected, as we have thousands of data loggers across our region which allows us to be able to track when our customers have no water.

When your supply is interrupted our team work hard to get your water flowing again as quickly as they can, but sometimes it can take us longer than we'd hope. 

Before pumping water back into our network and restoring your supply, we have to carry out checks to make sure the water is clean and safe. Depending on the incident type we will reach out to our affected customers and may arrange an alternative water supply.  

As part of our network sits underground we occasionally have to put extra measures in place, like traffic management, to ensure safety for our customers and workers. To complete underground repairs we often rely on certain equipment and sometimes need to wait for the right equipment to be delivered to the site. 

We work hard to keep all our impacted customers updated if affected by an incident and we will proactively contact you to let you know our progress. During an incident our contact centre can get very busy, and we may add a recorded message onto our phone lines to keep you updated, as well as updating our website. For customers who have provided us with their contact details, you may receive a text or an email from our Customer Incident Team. If you would like to update your personal details, to ensure you are kept updated during emergencies, you can visit MyAccount or alternatively you can call us on 0345 672 2999.

For our Priority Services customers we will aim to contact you to understand how we can help, based on your preferred method of contact and individual circumstances. We offer extra help to our customers who have a medical need for water and so if there is an incident affecting your supply then it is our priority to contact you as soon as we can. You can find out more on how we support our Priority Services customer during an incident here. 

If you're having problems with your water supply and we need to enter your home, all of our employees will be happy to show you their identity card. Their identity card will have their own name on, a reference number and a colour photograph of themselves. 

If you see us in your area, we'll always try to travel in vans which carry the United Utilities logo, as well as wearing clothing with United Utilies on too, so you can easily identify us. 

We also have a social media team that will provide updates via our official social media channels, these are:

• Facebook
• X

If you're unsure if a caller is from United Utilities and would like to check their identity, you can call us 0345 672 3723.