Our domestic work covers oil and gas heating, hot water and cylinders, bathrooms, water treatment, emergencies and everyday plumbing. What dominates in this county is oil, hard water and older housing, and the services reflect that.
Where to start
If you know what you need, the sections above take you straight there. If you do not, these are the questions that most often bring people here:
| If this is happening | Start here |
|---|---|
| No heating and no hot water | No hot water, or oil boiler repair if you are off-grid |
| Heating works, no hot water | No hot water – usually a valve or a thermostat |
| Boiler pressure keeps dropping | Expansion vessel failure – check the outside pipe first |
| Water escaping and you cannot stop it | Emergency plumber – stopcock off first |
| Water appearing and you cannot find the source | Leak detection |
| One radiator cold | Radiators – bleed it and check the TRV pin first |
| Weak shower | Shower installation – descale the head first |
| Kettle furring, scale everywhere | Water softeners |
| Thinking about a new boiler | Oil or gas boiler installation |
| Planning a bathroom | Bathroom renovations |
Boiler pressure, cold radiators, weak showers and boilers down in a cold snap all have a check you can do yourself in a few minutes. They are in the linked pages, and they resolve a genuine proportion of calls.
What dominates domestic work in Norfolk
Oil heating
An estimated 35.6 per cent of Norfolk domestic property has no mains gas connection, around 2.6 times the Great Britain average. Oil boiler servicing, repair and replacement, plus tanks and supply pipework, is the largest single part of what we do.
Hard water
The county sits on chalk. Scale forms on every surface that heats water, which means boiler heat exchangers, cylinder coils, immersion elements, combi plate exchangers, tap cartridges and shower heads. It is why water treatment comes up far more here than it would elsewhere.
Hot water systems
A lot of Norfolk housing has a cylinder rather than a combi, because the properties are larger and the hot water demand is higher. That brings unvented cylinders, G3 requirements and the discharge pipework that so many existing installations get wrong.
Older housing
Solid walls, suspended timber floors, imperial pipework, gravity systems and decades of undocumented alterations. Entirely normal work, and it means a quote that allowed nothing for finding something is an optimistic quote.
For landlords
Rented property brings obligations that owner-occupiers do not have, and several of them are legal duties with real consequences:
- Annual gas safety check, with the record to tenants within 28 days – see landlord gas safety certificates.
- Carbon monoxide alarms in any room used as living accommodation with a fixed combustion appliance – including oil and solid fuel, not just gas.
- Smoke alarms, one per storey.
- Electrical installation condition reports every five years.
- Legionella risk assessment, as duty holder.
- Oil servicing, which has no statutory requirement and is exactly why it gets missed. An oil-fired let with no service history is a liability with insurers regardless.
For portfolios, getting these onto one managed calendar is the change that makes the difference – see landlords and letting agents.
How we price and quote
- Describe it on the phone. A great deal can be established from a good description, including sometimes that you do not need us.
- We survey anything beyond routine work. A quote given without seeing the job is a quote that will change.
- Written and itemised, so you can see what you are paying for.
- Anything found later is discussed before it happens, not added to an invoice.
- No pressure. A decision of any size should not be made on a doorstep.
We do not publish price figures, and the reasoning is set out at what things cost. What we will tell you is that on almost any job, the difference between two quotes is not the appliance or the fitting – it is the work around it.
Not sure which service you need? Call and describe the problem. We will point you at the right thing, including when it is not us.
Questions we get asked about this
Do you do small jobs?
Yes. A lot of firms have stopped taking them, which is exactly why we still do. Small jobs are also how people find out whether a company is any good.
How quickly can you come out?
For genuine emergencies, as fast as we can, and we will tell you realistically rather than optimistically. For booked work it depends on the diary and where you are in the county.
Do you work on systems you did not install?
Almost all of them are. It makes no difference to how we approach the work, and we will tell you honestly what condition something is in – including when that is bad news.
Can you help if I am a landlord with several properties?
Yes, and getting them onto a single renewal cycle is usually the change that makes the calendar manageable. See the landlords and letting agents page.
Will you tell me if I do not need you?
Regularly. Several of the guides on this site exist because the same questions come up on the phone, and if reading a page saves you a call-out that is a good outcome.
Why is there so much about oil?
Because in this county oil is the mainstream rather than the exception, and there are fewer engineers who genuinely specialise in it than there are in gas.
What we cover
Oil heating
Gas
Hot water
Central heating
Plumbing
Bathrooms
Need this doing?
Call and describe the problem — you will speak to an engineer, not a call centre. Written quotes, no estimates over the phone.