Wall of Shame

More than a cracked pipe  A customer discovered a water leak and called us in to investigate. We found this small section of waste pipe made out of copper had come to the end of its life.    This copper piping has endured many years of harsh chemicals being poured down it, which unfortunately has…

Bad Flue  On our travels around Stevenage, we found this interesting way someone has made good an old flue hole.   They’ve used an old roof slate to patch up the brickwork. These are made for vertical flue installations and also not the most pleasing to the eye.

Twenty Years of Smells One customer called to complain of ‘drainage’ smells coming from the property,  the owner said they’d had been living with the same awful smell for twenty years!  We noticed there was scaffolding up. The owner said over those twenty years, there had been scaffolding up many times. We discovered an unused…

Circulation Problems With all of the dissimilar metals used in heating systems (copper, steel, cast iron, brass, aluminium etc) plus the added water, electrolytic corrosion can take place and ultimately damage your system,  As you can see in these two separate photos, the white speedfit pipe is fully blocked, and the copper pipe is badly…

Boiler Service in Watford A new customer hadn’t had their boiler serviced since installation. Luckily they called Space Heating for a service, and we were able to identify and rectify several faults.  We were horrified to see the installer had fitted the boiler flue upside down.  The flue is one of the most important parts…

Do you know a good plumber? This was spotted on my travels and I just had to take a picture. I don’t know how some plumbers get away with the work they produce. It’s by no means vertical, barely clipped and the branch into the main stack is sagging badly. I’m assuming they charged for…

Found on a routine boiler service An existing customer of Space Heating wanted us to service an existing boiler in a new property they had bought.  On inspection of the flue, it was easy to see it hadn’t been connected to the boiler correctly.  In fact, I could pass a screwdriver through a gap and into…

Stored water in a loft Would you brush your teeth in this? No, not knowingly, but one of my new customers had been.  A cold-water storage vessel (C.W.S.V.) should be fitted correctly and to current regulations.  A lid is a must, not a piece of wood or some polystyrene but a fitted lid which is…

Power Flush We were called to a house where a new boiler was fitted two years before, and the owner was having problems with their hot water.  Every time they had a shower, the water kept going hot and cold. It was the same from every tap; also, when the boiler had fired on full…

Flues in Voids A lot of the things we see by other so-called ‘plumbers’ are often quite amusing, but sometimes they can be dangerous.  On this occasion, we found an incorrectly fitted flue. As you can see, there are no support brackets, and the flue has become detached. Also, the flue route wasn’t fitted to…