Plumber in Hurlingham

Ask around Hurlingham and you will find that a good number of homes already have a JoJo tank tucked beside the garage or behind the pool pump. Fewer of them have a system. The difference matters. A tank that has to be switched over by hand, fed by a pump that was never quite matched to the house, gives you stored water and not much else. A properly designed backup gives you something better: a house that carries on as normal when the street supply is off for a few hours, without anyone having to notice, let alone go outside to turn a valve.

On the big stands the job is usually straightforward. A tank of the right size in the right place, a booster pump that keeps the upstairs shower honest, and an automatic switchover valve that moves the house onto stored water the moment the mains pressure drops and back again when it returns. In the complexes of Hurlingham Manor and Hurlingham Gardens the same thinking scales up, with a shared tank bank and pump set feeding every unit off the communal line, which is a far tidier answer than a tank on every patio.

A complex is a different kind of client. The person who calls is a trustee or a managing agent, the pipe that has failed belongs to everyone, and the decision to fix it properly has to survive a meeting. We understand that, and we work accordingly. Quotes are itemised so they can be read by someone who was not on site. We say clearly which items sit on the communal line and are the body corporate's responsibility, and which sit inside a unit, because that distinction decides who pays.

The complexes in Hurlingham Manor and Hurlingham Gardens tend to share the same set of problems: communal supply lines under paving and driveways that have been worked hard for years, pressure that arrives strong at the units near the gate and weak at the units at the back, geysers of the same age giving up within months of each other, and storm-water on the spruit-side sites that needs to be kept out of the sewer. A one-off call-out deals with the failure of the week. A planned maintenance arrangement deals with the next one before it happens, and it is nearly always kinder to the levy fund.

1. Walk the complex first. We locate the communal line, the isolation valves, the meters and the geyser positions, so the next call-out starts with a map instead of a guess.
2. Quote for the meeting, not the moment. Itemised, with communal and unit responsibility separated, written so a trustee can table it and a managing agent can file it.
3. Book it around the residents. Work on the shared line is scheduled for a time that suits the complex, with notice given and the water off for the shortest window we can manage.
4. Keep the record. Every repair, valve and geyser goes into a simple maintenance record for the complex, which makes Plumbing CoCs quicker when a unit sells and budgets easier at year end.

The original Hurlingham houses were built to last, and most of them have. Their plumbing has been less lucky. A home from the 1960s or 1970s that has never been re-piped is running on galvanised steel or early copper that has spent decades doing its job out of sight, and the signs are familiar: pressure that has faded over the years, a brown tinge in the first water out of a tap after a holiday, a damp patch on a wall that dries and comes back. The geyser, meanwhile, is usually on its second or third replacement, each one fitted to the standard of its day, which often means no pressure control valve, no drip tray and an overflow that ends somewhere in the ceiling.

A number of Hurlingham stands have a borehole, and a number of owners have been thinking about one for the garden and the pool. Our part starts once the hole has been drilled and tested. We do not drill, survey or yield-test, and we say so plainly, because the people who do that well do only that. From the pump onwards, though, a borehole is a plumbing job, and that is where it most often goes wrong. We install and size the pump, build the pressure system so the house or the irrigation runs steadily, connect the borehole to the property with the borehole and municipal supplies kept properly separate, fit filtration where the water needs it, and test the water so you know what you are pumping before it reaches a tap.