Gas Safe registered
SE3 SE10
Gas Safe engineers across SE3 and SE10, 24 hours a day.
Answered 24 hours a day by a technical customer service member.
Where an external flue is not permitted, the answer is usually a lined chimney rather than a different boiler.
No heating or hot water right now? Call 0203 868 6134. We will tell you the earliest realistic slot rather than the one you want to hear.
Two details to start. Add your postcode and whether there is a cylinder in an airing cupboard and we can usually tell you the likely part before we attend.
We cover Blackheath, and the whole of London
Tell us the address and you will get an honest answer about timing.
View areas we coverThree steps. The first one usually tells us most of it.
If a repair is not worth doing, we will say so on the phone. Call 0203 868 6134.
Almost nobody says they live in SE3. They say the Village, or Westcombe Park, or Vanbrugh Park.
Names we hear on SE3 and SE10 calls, and the postcodes around them
Grouped by postcode, because that is the one part of an address everybody knows.
We work right across London, north and south of the river. If yours is not here, ring and tell us the address.
Which is a solution rather than a refusal.
SE3 and SE10 are Georgian and early Victorian terraces around the heath and the park, with conservation area status over most of it and a good deal listed. Maritime Greenwich is a World Heritage Site, and the controls that come with that are real rather than nominal.
The practical consequence is the flue. A modern boiler needs a route for its products of combustion, and on a protected frontage a horizontal flue through the front wall is very often simply not allowed. That is where a great many replacement quotes stop, and where a great many households are told their house is difficult.
It usually is not. These houses were built with chimneys, and an existing flue can be lined to carry a modern appliance vertically to the ridge, out of sight from the street. It is more work than a hole in a wall, it needs the right appliance chosen for it, and it is the reason a boiler can go where somebody has told you one cannot.
A vertical flue up a lined chimney is often better than a horizontal one anyway. It puts the terminal well clear of windows and doors, it removes the plume that annoys a neighbour in a narrow terrace, and it draws more reliably in wind off the heath.
The commonest call from SE3, and it is rarely the boiler.
On a stored system, heating that works and hot water that does not points at the cylinder side. Three usual culprits: the motorised valve that diverts flow to the tank, the cylinder thermostat, and the immersion element. Each costs a fraction of a new appliance and each gets mistaken for one.
In a tall Georgian terrace the other candidate is the secondary circuit. A pump keeps hot water standing ready at the top of the house, and when it seizes the top floor goes cold while everything below stays perfect. It is a pump, not an appliance.
An unvented cylinder is a pressurised store, so working on one is notifiable and needs a G3 qualification on top of Gas Safe registration. Plenty of firms hold one and not the other, which is why a cylinder call so often becomes two visits. Our engineers hold both, so it is one visit and one charge. See unvented cylinder repair.
The one thing a yearly visit genuinely prevents.
London water comes off the Thames and the Lea, both of which run through chalk. It measures roughly 277 milligrams of calcium carbonate per litre, and that figure is much the same across the city.
Where it lands is what differs. In a combi it furs the plate heat exchanger and the hot water goes lukewarm. In a Blackheath or Westcombe Park house that kept its cylinder it lands on the coil inside the tank and in the secondary circuit. Same water, different part, and a scaled coil reads as a failing boiler often enough that boilers get condemned for it.
Age does not decide it. The failed part does.
A pump, a diverter valve, a thermostat or a fan is a repair on almost any appliance, whatever its age. A failed main heat exchanger on a boiler well past ten years is the point where the arithmetic stops working, and we will tell you that rather than sell you the repair.
In a listed or conservation-area house the replacement question is really a flue question, and it should be answered before anything else. Get the route settled first, whether that is a lined chimney or a permitted external position, and the choice of appliance follows from it. Doing it the other way round is how a replacement becomes a problem halfway through.
Our boiler replacement page sets out what a replacement actually involves, including what changes when a stored system is converted, and the costs guide explains what moves the figure.
That answer costs nothing. It is the one most people ring us for. Call 0203 868 6134.
Next door to here we cover Chislehurst and Beckenham and Sydenham and Forest Hill. Everything else is on boiler repair in south London and areas we cover.
These are where we work most, not a boundary. An engineer attends anywhere in north London and south London. Tell us where you are and we will say plainly when we can get to you.
Been told a flue cannot go there?
On a listed or conservation-area frontage that is often true, and it is rarely the end of it. A lined existing chimney is usually the route, and it is worth asking about before a quote is written off.
If you smell gas: do not touch any switches. Open the windows, leave the property, then call the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999. That line is free and open 24 hours. Call them before you call us.
If a carbon monoxide alarm is sounding: get everyone out immediately, then call 999 if anyone feels unwell. Do not go back in until the property has been ventilated and checked.
If the boiler locks out repeatedly: try one reset. If it locks out again straight away, stop. Repeated resets hide a fault that is still there, and on a gas appliance that is not a risk worth taking.
Under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, only a Gas Safe registered engineer may work on gas appliances. Never open the boiler casing yourself.
Yes. The names listed above are the ones we hear most, and they are nowhere near a complete list. We work right across London, north and south of the river. Ring and tell us the address and you will get a straight answer about timing.
Usually not, though the flue route somebody had in mind may well be impossible. A horizontal flue through a protected frontage is often not allowed. An existing chimney can normally be lined to carry a modern appliance vertically instead, out of sight from the street. It is more work and it is not a refusal.
No, and in a terrace it is often better. The terminal sits well clear of windows and doors, there is no plume at head height to annoy a neighbour, and it draws more reliably in wind. The appliance has to be chosen to suit a vertical run, which is the only real constraint.
Almost certainly not. That points at the cylinder side: the motorised valve that diverts to the tank, the cylinder thermostat, or the immersion element. All three cost a fraction of an appliance. Our unvented cylinder repair page explains what is involved.
Usually the secondary circuit rather than the boiler. In a tall terrace a pump keeps hot water standing ready at the top, and when it seizes the furthest point goes first. It is a repair, and worth a service afterwards to stop it recurring.
Yes, and every other major make, including the ones most firms will not touch. Those two are what we open most in SE3 and SE10. Keston and Viessmann suit vertical flue runs, and Heatline, Sime and Remeha turn up in the conversions. If your boiler is showing a fault code, the brand pages explain what it means.
Yes, and on the same visit where the appliance passes, so a let property is not off the market twice. See landlord gas safety certificates. If it has no gas supply we cover electric boilers as well.
The line is answered 24 hours a day by a technical customer service member, not a call centre reading from a script. In the middle of the night we will tell you honestly whether it is a tonight job or a first thing in the morning job.
Every major make, and the fault code pages often name the part before you ring.
The houses that kept a cylinder run system boilers, and here that is mostly Worcester Bosch, Vaillant and Baxi. Where a vertical flue up a lined chimney is the answer the appliance has to be chosen for it, and Keston and Viessmann both make units suited to that.
We also work on the makes most firms will not. Heatline, Sime and Remeha all turn up in the conversions and the smaller Greenwich terraces, and parts for every one of them are still obtainable.
If your boiler is showing a code, the make decides what it means. A Vaillant F75 and a Worcester Bosch EA are different faults with different fixes, and neither of them on its own means a new boiler. Each brand page lists the codes for that make and what actually causes them.
The full list is on our boiler brands page, and general repairs are on boiler repair in London.
Tell us where you are and whether there is a cylinder in an airing cupboard. With those two answers we can usually name the likely part, give you the rate, and book somebody in, all on the one call.
Gas Safe registered. Unvented cylinder qualified. Parts guaranteed for a year. Covering London, north and south of the river, 24 hours a day.
