Gas Safe registered
BR7 BR3
Gas Safe and G3 qualified engineers across BR3 and BR7, 24 hours a day.
Answered 24 hours a day by a technical customer service member.
If there is a cylinder, there is an immersion heater, and it is both a backup and the fastest test we have.
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 Chislehurst, 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 BR7. They say Chislehurst Common, or Bickley, or Park Langley.
Names we hear on BR3 and BR7 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.
Most people do not know where the switch is.
BR7 and BR3 are large interwar and Victorian detached houses on generous plots, and almost all of them store their hot water. Where there is a cylinder there is an immersion heater: an electric element in the side of the tank, wired to a switch that is usually in an airing cupboard, a landing or a utility, and very often behind something.
It is a backup and nobody uses it. On the night a boiler fails, the immersion will give you a full tank of hot water in about an hour and a half. It costs more to run than gas and it is not a repair, but it is the difference between a household with hot water tonight and one without.
It is also the fastest diagnostic we have. Switch it on and wait. If the tank heats, the cylinder, the thermostat and the element are all sound and the fault is on the boiler side. If the tank stays cold with the immersion running, the problem is in the cylinder itself. That is half a diagnosis done before anybody arrives, and it costs nothing.
Find the immersion switch now rather than in a cold snap. It is often on a wall outside the airing cupboard, sometimes behind a coat, and occasionally in a fused spur nobody has touched since the house was built. Ten minutes today saves a cold evening later.
The commonest call from BR7, and the immersion test narrows it in an hour.
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.
Which of the three it is can usually be established before we arrive. If the immersion heats the tank, the cylinder is sound and the fault is the valve or the boiler side. If it does not, the element or the cylinder thermostat is the candidate. Tell us which happened and the visit starts an hour ahead.
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.
And to the immersion element as well.
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. In a Chislehurst or Beckenham house that kept its cylinder it lands on the coil inside the tank, and on the immersion element too, which is why an element that has been sitting unused for a decade sometimes fails the first time it is asked to work.
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.
On a stored system there are two appliances with two service lives, and the immersion test is what tells you which of them actually failed. A cylinder near the end of its life will empty a new boiler's warranty period without the boiler being at fault, and a sound cylinder is worth keeping when a boiler is replaced.
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 Crystal Palace and Blackheath and Greenwich. 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.
Find the immersion switch before you ring
If it heats the tank, your cylinder is fine and the fault is on the boiler side. If it does not, it is the other way round. That one test saves a diagnosis and gets you a hot bath tonight either way.
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.
It is an electric element in the side of your hot water cylinder, with its own switch, and yes. On the night a boiler fails it will give you a full tank in about an hour and a half. It costs more to run than gas and it is not a repair, but it is the difference between hot water tonight and none.
Switch it on and wait. If the tank heats, the cylinder, its thermostat and the element are all sound, so the fault is the diverter valve or the boiler side. If the tank stays cold while the immersion runs, the problem is in the cylinder itself. That is half a diagnosis before anybody arrives.
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.
Because an unvented cylinder is a pressurised store and the work is notifiable. It 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 often turns into two visits from two trades. Our engineers hold both, so it is one visit and one charge.
Yes, and every other major make, including the ones most firms will not touch. Those two are what we open most in BR7 and BR3, usually system boilers feeding a cylinder. Sime and Remeha turn up in the bigger plant. If your boiler is showing a fault code, the brand pages explain what it means for your make.
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. If you have a cylinder we will tell you how to get the immersion on while you wait, so the house has hot water either way.
Every major make, and the fault code pages often name the part before you ring.
The large houses run system boilers feeding a cylinder, and here that is mostly Worcester Bosch, Vaillant and Ideal, with Baxi still common on installations from the nineties that were never touched. The flats around Beckenham Junction run combis.
We also work on the makes most firms will not. Sime and Remeha turn up in the bigger plant, and parts for both are still obtainable.
If your boiler is showing a code, the make decides what it means. A Worcester Bosch EA and an Ideal L2 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.
