Emergency plumber, Zeist
A plumber in Zeist who works in English and prints the price
Describe the problem in English, on the phone or in writing, and nobody sends you off to find the Dutch word for it first. What coming out costs and what an hour costs are printed further down this page instead of waiting on your doorstep. All four places of the municipality, 07:00 in the morning through to 22:00 at night, Sunday included.
Phone answered
07:00 to 22:00, every day
Travel time
usually 40 to 80 minutes
Call-out charge (voorrijkosten)
€ 25 on top before 08:00, after 18:00 and on Sundays
First of all
What you can do right now
Three moves that hold the damage where it is until somebody rings your bell. None of them takes a minute, and between them they regularly save more than the whole visit costs.
Close the main water valve
Look for the water meter, and the valve is beside it. Dutch houses keep both in the meterkast: a tall, narrow cupboard built into the wall by the front door, or tucked under the stairs, holding the water, gas and electricity connections together. Older properties here sometimes put it below a hatch in the hall floor, down in the crawl space (kruipruimte). A quarter turn of the lever and the flow stops. The fault is still there, but it has stopped growing, and growth is the part of the bill you can still influence.
Take the circuit for that room out at the consumer unit
Water standing on a floor, or a wall going dark with damp, and the electricity in that room is the first thing to lose. The consumer unit (groepenkast) shares the cupboard with the water meter. One circuit, and not the main switch: whoever arrives will want a lit hallway to work in. Leave wet plugs where they are until that circuit is dead. Water running down from above? Take the circuit for the room underneath it, which is the one at risk.
Take two photographs and put a bucket under it
One picture of the damp itself, one of the meter cupboard, or of the display if an appliance is showing a fault code. Send them with your WhatsApp message. A stain has a shape, and its shape usually distinguishes a pressurised supply pipe from a waste that only leaks in use, and both of those from a roof. That distinction decides which equipment leaves the workshop.
Can this wait until tomorrow?
Then there is no reason to sit in a queue. Put your number in the form with a line about what is going on, and the call back comes at an hour you name yourself. Write it in English.
Amounts
What it costs
Dutch emergency plumbing has earned its reputation for figures that surface only once a van is parked outside. Everything stands here instead, in the figures the invoice will repeat.
All rates and how time is counted
If the job takes longer than estimated.
On the doorstep you are told what looks necessary and roughly what that comes to. Should the job turn out bigger, you hear it while the panel is still off, not two weeks later on paper. Nothing past € 400 happens until you have said yes to it.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Call-out charge | € 45 |
| Hourly rate | € 65 to € 85 |
| Out-of-hours surcharge | € 25 |
| After the first hour | per 15 min |
| Parts | separate |
One call-out charge covers the visit. Tap and sanitary work bill at the lower hourly figure; jetting, camera work and boilers at the higher one. A flat amount joins the bill before 08:00, after 18:00 and on Sundays, never a percentage of anything. Quarter hours are counted after the first hour, and every part gets its own line.
Area covered
Where we come, and how long it takes
Four places inside one municipality. The range beside each of them is the range you get quoted on the phone, not the fastest run anyone ever managed on an empty road.
Not sure whether this counts as an emergency?
Water standing on a floor, nothing working at all, a drain backing up over the rim: ring. Anything that can stay as it is until tomorrow can go through the form, and it will be at the top of the list early in the morning.
Problems
What people call us for
Leak repairA patch that keeps growing, a puddle by the meter cupboard, or a bill that does not add up.
Blocked drains and sewerWater standing still, a gully overflowing, or the same blockage for the second time.
Boiler and central heatingA code on the display, radiators that stay cold, or hot water that never arrives.
Taps and toiletsSmall work that grows expensive while it waits: dripping, running, smelling.
Will someone understand me if I call in English?
Yes, spoken and written. One tip that helps more than vocabulary: name the room and the object rather than the component. "Water coming through the kitchen ceiling" gets a van loaded correctly; a technical term that one of us has to translate does not. Knowing the Dutch word is a bonus, never a requirement.
Until what time can I call?
The phone is live from 07:00 in the morning until 22:00 at night, Sundays as well. After that nobody answers, and saying so plainly beats the alternative: a number advertising round-the-clock cover that parks you in a queue at two in the morning costs you sleep and gains you nothing. Record a message and yours is the first number dialled once the next day opens.
What am I paying for the call-out?
€ 45 for the visit, charged once, not per direction of travel. After that the rate runs from € 65 to € 85 an hour according to the type of work, with € 25 added outside office hours (before 08:00, after 18:00 and on Sundays). Dutch invoices label that first line voorrijkosten; what is unusual is not the charge, it is finding out about it on the doorstep. Every figure includes VAT (btw).
How quickly can someone be there?
Normally 40 to 80 minutes, though it moves with the village and with whatever is already running. Austerlitz sits further up the ridge than the rest and takes longer accordingly. Ask when you ring and you are given the range that applies to your address at that hour, rather than the best figure anyone ever managed. If it slips, you hear about the slip as soon as we do, so you can decide whether to keep waiting.
Do you work in my area?
Zeist, Den Dolder, Austerlitz and Bosch en Duin, which together make up the gemeente of Zeist. Staying that small is deliberate: an area you can cross in half an hour is an area whose travel times you can promise without crossing your fingers. Sitting just past the boundary is no reason not to ring; the answer takes under a minute either way.
How do I pay, and do I get an invoice?
Afterwards, either through a payment request (betaalverzoek) sent by text or WhatsApp that opens straight into your banking app, or on an invoice with a fortnight to pay. Cash plays no part in it, and no deposit is taken against work that has not happened yet. Hours and components appear as separate lines, which is the format a landlord or a claims handler expects to receive.
What if the problem comes back?
Everything repaired carries a three-month guarantee, so the same failure at the same point brings us back with no call-out charge. What it does not stretch to is a fresh blockage somewhere else along the pipe, or a second leak in a run that was already at the end of its life. In that second case you will have been told so on the first visit, with the reasoning attached.
Not urgent
Leave us your number
This is for anything that can keep until tomorrow. Standing water, or nothing working at all, belongs on the phone instead: nobody watches this form all evening. English is fine.