What to expect
From the phone call to the paperwork, with nothing hidden in between.
Letting a stranger into the house to take a floor up requires a certain amount of trust. This page sets out exactly how a job runs here — what you will be asked, how it gets priced, what happens on the day and what you are covered for afterwards.
How a job is priced
There is no menu on this site, and that is deliberate rather than evasive. A boiler service on a well-kept five-year-old combi and a boiler service on a neglected twenty-year-old system with a sludged heat exchanger are not the same piece of work, and quoting both at the same number means one of the two customers is being overcharged.
So: describe the job, or send photographs. Small and routine work can usually be priced on the phone. Anything larger — a boiler change, a bathroom, a cylinder, a commercial kitchen — is looked at first, because the existing pipework, flue, pressure and controls decide the job as much as the new appliance does. Either way you get the number before the work is booked, not after it is finished.
Leak detection is the one job with a standing rule attached, and it is the firm's own: find the leak, or there is nothing to pay.
Before the visit — four things that help
Find the stopcock before you need it
Usually under the kitchen sink or in a downstairs cupboard, sometimes outside under a small metal cover near the boundary. Turn it off and on once a year so it does not seize. Knowing where it is turns a burst pipe from a catastrophe into an inconvenience.
Photograph the data badge
The plate on the underside or inside the boiler door gives the make, model and serial number. One photograph saves a phone call and sometimes a visit, because the right part can be checked before anyone sets off.
Note what the display says
Fault codes are not decorative. F-something, E-something, a flashing light pattern or a pressure reading tells an engineer far more than “it is not working”.
Clear the access
Emptying the airing cupboard, moving the bath panel or shifting what is stacked in front of the boiler before the visit is ten minutes of your time rather than ten minutes of engineer’s time.
On the day
- 01
Arrival and a look at the whole thing
The symptom you rang about gets looked at, and so does whatever is around it — the pressure, the controls, the pipework and the state of the system. Most of the faults that come back were visible on an earlier visit and nobody mentioned them.
- 02
Diagnosis before parts
The cause gets established rather than guessed at. Swapping parts until something works is an expensive way to fault-find, and it is how a £90 problem becomes a £400 one.
- 03
A price before the work
You are told what the job is, what it takes and what it costs before it starts. If something unexpected appears once a panel is off — and on older systems it sometimes does — the work stops and you are told before anything else happens.
- 04
The work, and the house looked after
Dust sheets where they are needed, floorboards lifted properly and put back, and the site left as it was found. One customer’s review put it better than any marketing line: it was like he was never here.
- 05
Tested, demonstrated, explained
Gas appliances are commissioned and tested properly, controls are set up with you rather than left in a manual, and you are shown what was done and what to watch for.
Afterwards
Workmanship on plumbing work carries a twelve-month guarantee — the firm's own standing commitment — and if something needs a second look you ring the same number and speak to the same people. Manufacturer's warranties on new appliances are registered on your behalf at installation, and those depend on the annual service being kept up, so it is worth putting the date in the diary while it is fresh.
If it is urgent
Water coming through a ceiling: turn the stopcock off, then ring. Heating out in a cold snap with a baby or an elderly relative in the house: say so when you ring, because it changes where the job sits in the day. And if you can smell gas, ring the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999 before you ring any plumber.
What you are entitled to ask for
- The engineer’s Gas Safe ID card at the door, before any gas work starts — and to check it on the Gas Safe Register
- A clear price for the job before it begins, and a fresh conversation if the scope changes
- A copy of the public liability insurance certificate before a large job
- The paperwork: a gas safety record where one applies, and a service recorded properly for your warranty
- A straight answer about whether a repair is worth doing, or whether replacement is the better spend
Ready when you are.
Ring 01483 235549 or email info@guildford-plumbing.com — Mon–Fri, 7.30am–6pm · closed Saturday & Sunday.