Gas Safe registered
SE24 SW2
Gas Safe engineers across SE24 and SW2, 24 hours a day.
Answered 24 hours a day by a technical customer service member.
A great many houses here were plumbed in microbore, which blocks far sooner than ordinary pipework.
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 Herne Hill, 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 SE24. They say Herne Hill, or Half Moon Lane, or Poets Corner.
Names we hear on SE24 and SW2 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.
If it is thinner than a pencil, that changes everything.
SE24 and SW2 are Victorian terraces and villas, most of them whole houses, and a great many were fitted with central heating during the seventies and eighties. That generation of retrofit very often used microbore: soft copper pipe of eight or ten millimetres, run in long loops to each radiator, instead of the fifteen millimetre pipe used before and since.
Microbore was chosen because it is quick to install in an occupied house. It is also a fraction of the cross-section, so the same amount of magnetite that would barely register in a fifteen millimetre pipe can close it off completely. A system that has never been flushed silts up from the far end inward, and the radiators go cold at the bottom one at a time over years.
It matters most when somebody proposes a new boiler. A modern appliance moves water faster through a smaller heat exchanger and is far less tolerant of debris than the one it replaces, so a new boiler on unflushed microbore will block its own exchanger and the warranty will not cover it. The flush is not an upsell here. It is the condition of the job.
You can check in a minute. Look at the pipe entering a radiator valve. Fifteen millimetre pipe is about the thickness of a marker pen. Microbore is closer to a pencil, and often runs in a soft coil rather than in straight rigid lengths.
The commonest call from SE24, 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.
On a microbore system there is a fourth worth ruling out. Where the circuit is partly blocked the pump struggles to move water anywhere, and the cylinder, being the furthest thing from it in many of these houses, is the first to be starved. That looks exactly like a failing cylinder and is a flow problem.
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.
On microbore it does the damage several times faster.
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. On a stored system it coats the coil inside the cylinder. On microbore the magnetite that comes with it has almost no room to travel, so the same quantity of debris that a fifteen millimetre system carries harmlessly for a decade will close an eight millimetre loop in a fraction of that time. It is the strongest argument for a filter anywhere on our list.
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 microbore the order matters more than the decision. A new boiler fitted to a silted eight millimetre system will block its own heat exchanger quickly and the manufacturer will not cover it, so a flush and a magnetic filter are conditions of the work rather than extras. Where a system is beyond flushing, replacing the pipework is the honest answer, and it is a bigger conversation than a boiler.
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 Dulwich and Clapham and Battersea. 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.
Radiators cold at the bottom?
On thin microbore pipework that blocks years sooner than on ordinary pipe, and a new boiler inherits every bit of it. Tell us the pipe size and we will tell you what a flush can realistically do.
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.
Soft copper pipe of eight or ten millimetres, used widely in seventies and eighties retrofits, run in loops to each radiator. Look at the pipe entering a radiator valve. Fifteen millimetre pipe is about the thickness of a marker pen; microbore is closer to a pencil and often coils rather than running rigid and straight.
Because a modern appliance has a smaller heat exchanger, moves water faster and is far less tolerant of debris than the one it replaces. Fitted to a silted microbore system it will block its own exchanger, and the manufacturer will not cover that. A flush and a filter are conditions of the job rather than extras.
Yes, but with realistic expectations. A power flush clears a great deal from eight millimetre pipe and cannot always clear a loop that has fully closed. We will tell you honestly which we think you have before the work rather than after it.
Almost certainly not. That points at the cylinder side: the motorised valve that diverts to the tank, the cylinder thermostat, or the immersion element. On a partly blocked system it can also be the cylinder simply being starved of flow. Our unvented cylinder repair page explains the cylinder side.
Yes, and every other major make, including the ones most firms will not touch. Those two and Ideal are what we open most in SE24 and SW2, with Baxi and Glow-worm on the installations they replaced. Vokera, Biasi, ATAG, Keston, Ravenheat and Heatline all turn up here too. If your boiler is showing a code, the brand pages explain it.
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 whole houses run system boilers feeding a cylinder, and here that is mostly Worcester Bosch, Vaillant and Ideal, with Baxi and Glow-worm on the installations they replaced. The conversions run combis.
We also work on the makes most firms will not: Vokera, Biasi, ATAG, Keston, Ravenheat and Heatline all turn up in SE24 and SW2, and parts for every one are still obtainable.
If your boiler is showing a code, the make decides what it means. On a blocked system several makes show an overheat or a circulation code that is a symptom rather than a fault. Each brand page lists the codes for that make and what 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.
