Plumber, electrician and gas engineer in Lewisham

Local service

Plumbing, heating and electrical work in Lewisham

Lewisham has some of the finest Victorian housing in south London. Brockley's conservation area is lined with large villas, most of them now flats, and Forest Hill and Sydenham have big Victorian houses on the slopes below Sydenham Hill. In Hither Green, the Corbett Estate is thousands of late Victorian and Edwardian terraced houses built to a consistent plan between the 1890s and the 1920s.

The south of the borough is different again. Bellingham and Downham are inter-war cottage estates of brick houses with front and back gardens, and Grove Park and parts of Catford are 1930s semis. Deptford and New Cross mix Georgian and Victorian streets with post-war estates and a large number of new flats near the river and around Lewisham station.

That mix shapes the calls. Big Victorian rooms need properly sized radiators, Corbett houses have their bathrooms in a back addition with long pipe runs, and the inter-war estates often still have early wiring and older heating.

Lewisham has also seen a lot of new building: towers around Lewisham station and the town centre, new blocks along Deptford Creek, and smaller infill schemes across Catford. These flats are usually all-electric or on a communal heating system, which brings water heaters, fans and electrical faults to our list alongside the classic Victorian heating jobs.

We cover the whole of Lewisham, including Deptford, New Cross, Brockley, Ladywell, Lewisham, Hither Green, Lee, Catford, Forest Hill, Sydenham, Bellingham, Downham and Grove Park. Postcodes: SE4, SE6, SE8, SE12, SE13, SE14, SE23, SE26.

Popular in Lewisham

Most booked services in Lewisham

• Radiator installation and repair
• Bathroom refurbishment
• Rewiring
• Boiler servicing and replacement
• Power flushing
• Thermostat replacement

Local knowledge

Good to know before you book

Corbett Estate houses typically have the kitchen and bathroom in a narrow back addition, a long way from the main house. Hot water takes a while to arrive at the bath, and the old pipe runs are easy to damage when the kitchen is refitted. When we refurbish one of these bathrooms we look at the pipe route as well as the room, because shortening it saves water and waiting time every day.

A large Victorian room with a ceiling over three metres high can need twice the radiator output of a modern room with the same floor area. Many Brockley and Forest Hill houses were given small radiators when central heating went in decades ago, so rooms never get warm. We calculate the heat each room needs before choosing radiators, rather than replacing like for like.

Brockley, Ladywell, Deptford and Sydenham Hill all have conservation areas. Work inside your home is rarely affected, but a new flue or an outdoor air conditioning unit on a front elevation may need permission from Lewisham Council, so we raise it early.

Many of the large Forest Hill and Sydenham houses were split into flats decades ago with one boiler per flat squeezed into a kitchen or hallway, and the original cast-iron soil stacks still serve every floor. Cracked stacks and old joints leak into the walls slowly, so if you see staining on a ceiling or a wall near the back of the house, it is worth getting it checked before it spreads.

Deptford and New Cross have a large student and rented population around Goldsmiths. Landlords there need annual gas safety checks and five-yearly electrical reports, and we can do both in one visit so tenants are disturbed only once.

Bellingham and Downham houses were built with solid brick walls and small rooms, and many have now been extended at the back or into the loft. When we replace a boiler on these estates we often find the original single-pipe or undersized heating circuit still in use. Upgrading the main pipe runs at the same time as the boiler usually costs less than living with cold rooms for another ten years.