CR8 · 4 miles from our base
Plumbers and heating engineers in Purley
We are plumbers and heating engineers working across Purley and the CR8 postcode, four miles south of our base on Highbury Avenue in Thornton Heath. Purley sits on the northern slopes of the North Downs, and that shapes most of the work here: mains pressure that falls away as you climb, large houses with long pipe runs and more than one bathroom, and a valley floor carrying a chalk stream in wet winters. We are Gas Safe registered under 919881, out Monday to Saturday 7am to 8pm, with emergency cover overnight and on Sundays.
The housing here
What Purley houses are actually like to work on
Purley filled in after the railway arrived, and most of what stands today went up between about 1900 and 1939. William Webb began building on Banstead Road and Foxley Lane at the end of the 1890s, laid out Upper Woodcote Village from 1901, and had the Webb Estate substantially finished by 1925. Riddlesdown, Purley Oaks and Reedham are largely interwar: wide roads of three and four bedroom semis and detached houses on generous plots, with postwar infill layered in later.
The practical consequence of a generous plot is a long pipe run. In a 1930s Riddlesdown semi the kitchen sink and the bathroom sit more or less above one another and the runs are short. In a detached house off Woodcote Valley Road or Rose Walk, the hot outlet furthest from the cylinder can be twenty metres of pipe away, and much of what people describe as slow hot water is simply the volume of cold sitting in that leg waiting to be pushed out. Insulating the run, moving the cylinder or fitting a secondary return with a timed pump are the real answers. Turning the boiler up is not.
Larger Purley houses very often still run a vented system: a cylinder in the airing cupboard, a cold water tank in the loft and a feed and expansion tank beside it. Those systems are not automatically bad, but they make upstairs hot water pressure depend on how far the tank sits above the tap, which is why a top floor shower under a converted loft can be feeble while the bath below it is fine.
This is also why we are careful about combis in this district. A combi heats water as it flows, so it serves one outlet properly at a time. In a two bedroom flat on Brighton Road that is exactly right. In a five bedroom house on the Webb Estate with a family bathroom, an en suite and a downstairs shower room, it is usually the wrong instrument no matter how many kilowatts it carries, and the honest answer is a system boiler with an unvented cylinder sized to the number of bathrooms. An unvented cylinder brings its own condition: it runs directly off the incoming main, so it needs the mains flow to support it. On the higher Purley roads that has to be measured before anything is ordered, not assumed.
Stopcocks and meters sit in predictable places once you know the house type. In an interwar semi the stopcock is usually under the kitchen sink, sometimes in an understairs cupboard, with the meter in a footpath chamber near the boundary. In the older and larger houses on the Webb Estate and around Upper Woodcote Village it can be in a cellar, under a hall floorboard or in a boot room, and the run from the boundary to the house is often a long private supply pipe crossing the garden. That private section is the homeowner’s responsibility, and in pre-war stock it is frequently the original lead or galvanised iron. When a leak shows on a bill with no wet patch anywhere in the house, that buried run is the first place we look.
Flue siting is where Purley differs from most of Croydon. Upper Woodcote Village was designated a conservation area in November 1973 and the Webb Estate followed in June 1983. Inside a conservation area a boiler flue cannot go on the principal elevation, or a side elevation that fronts a highway, under permitted development rights, which rules out the quick option of terminating through the front wall. In practice that means running the flue to the rear or up through the roof, clear of openable windows and the boundary by the distances the manufacturer sets, and sometimes moving the boiler to a rear utility or garage.
Two more things turn up repeatedly. Extensions and refits from the 1970s and 1980s were commonly piped in 8mm and 10mm microbore, which silts up with magnetite far more readily than 15mm and is the usual reason one radiator in a rear extension never gets hot. And much of the original soil pipework is cast iron, which corrodes from the inside, catches paper, and cracks behind a downpipe where nobody sees it.
Flats and converted houses around Purley Cross and the top of Brighton Road raise a different question. A conversion usually shares one soil stack, and sometimes one cold water supply, between several units, so a blockage or a pressure problem in one flat is rarely only that flat’s problem. Before we start on a leak in one we want to know where the stopcock for the whole building sits and who holds the key. On a Sunday night that is the difference between stopping the water in two minutes and stopping it in an hour.
Worth knowing
The hill, the valley and the Caterham Bourne
Purley is built across two North Downs valleys, and the height difference inside the district is larger than people expect. The valley floor around Purley Cross sits at roughly 200 feet above sea level. The high ground in the Webb Estate and Upper Woodcote Village conservation areas reaches roughly 400 feet. The trig point on Riddlesdown Common is 525 feet, about 160 metres. That is close to sixty metres of vertical difference between the bottom of the town and the top of it, all within CR8.
Mains water pressure is a function of height, so this matters. A water company has to deliver a minimum of seven metres of static head, roughly 0.7 bar, at the boundary stop tap, with about nine litres a minute of flow. Most aim higher than that legal floor, but the properties at the top of a pumped zone are the ones sitting nearest to it, and the top of a zone in this district is a long way above the bottom. A house near the crest can be fine at two in the afternoon and poor at seven in the morning when the whole hill is showering at once.
So we measure. Before we quote a combi, an unvented cylinder or a mains-fed shower anywhere on the Purley slopes, we put a gauge on an outside tap and take static pressure, dynamic pressure with the tap running, and timed flow. A combi that would be perfectly happy on Brighton Road can be a daily irritation on Riddlesdown, and the difference takes thirty seconds to find with a gauge and is invisible in a phone quote. Where the mains will not support what the house needs, the answer is an accumulator or a break tank and pump, not a bigger boiler.
The valley floor has the opposite problem. The Caterham Bourne is an intermittent chalk stream: it rises as seasonal springs in the Caterham and Coulsdon valleys, the two arms meet at Purley, and from there it runs culverted north east under Brighton Road towards the balancing pond at the Purley Oaks depot. In dry years it barely appears. In wet ones the groundwater in the chalk rises and the bourne runs hard, and the Environment Agency maintains a standing groundwater flood alert area for the Caterham Bourne catchment covering Caterham, Whyteleafe, Kenley, Purley and South Croydon. The winter of 2013 into 2014 was the wettest two month period on local record and flooded property along the line of the bourne.
For a homeowner that produces one very common confusion. Water appearing in a Purley basement or a low lying ground floor in January or February is frequently groundwater, not a burst pipe, and the two are told apart easily enough. Groundwater is clean and cold, it rises from the floor and the base of the walls rather than running down from anywhere, and it does not stop when the main stopcock is closed. A plumbing leak does. We would rather spend ten minutes establishing which one you have than sell you a leak trace for a problem no plumber can fix.
The same rising groundwater gets into old drain runs through cracked joints, which is why drains along the valley can surcharge, run slow and gurgle through a wet February and then behave perfectly all summer. That pattern is worth telling us about, because it points at infiltration rather than a blockage, and jetting a drain that is not blocked is money spent on nothing. Blocked drains and leak tracing are quoted on the job rather than carrying a published price, because the work varies too much to pretend otherwise.
One last local particular. The roads inside the Webb Estate are private, owned since 1999 by Webb Estate Limited, a company held by the residents. If a job needs the road opened for a new supply pipe or a replacement drain connection, that takes the estate company’s agreement alongside the water company’s permission. It is not an obstacle, but it belongs in the plan at the start rather than as a surprise on the morning of the dig.
What we do here
Services we cover in Purley
Blocked drains & toilets
Blocked drains and toilets cleared across Croydon and the CR postcodes. We find the cause, say whether it is yours or Thames Water’s, and price it first.
Boiler installation
New boiler installation across Croydon and the CR postcodes. Combi boilers from £1,950, fixed written price after a survey, Building Control notified.
from £1,950Boiler repair
Boiler repair across Croydon and the CR postcodes. Gas Safe engineers, £110 for diagnosis and labour, and any part priced before it goes in. Call 07534 841885.
£110Boiler servicing
Annual boiler service across Croydon and the CR postcodes, £90. Gas Safe engineers, flue gas analysis, and the Benchmark book stamped so your warranty holds.
£90Central heating
Central heating across Croydon and the CR postcodes. New systems from £3,400, radiator work, balancing, thermostats and TRVs. Gas Safe registered engineers.
from £3,400Emergency plumbing
Burst pipe, active leak or an overflowing toilet in Croydon? We answer 24/7, charge £120 for the call-out and tell you what the repair costs first.
£120Before you ring
Purley questions
Do you charge more to come out to Purley?
No. Purley is four miles from our base on Highbury Avenue in Thornton Heath, a straightforward run down the A23 to Purley Cross. Our prices are the same everywhere we cover: £120 for an emergency call-out, £110 for a boiler repair, £90 for an annual service and £75 for a gas safety certificate. There is no travel surcharge for CR8 and no separate pricing for the higher roads.
My shower on the top floor is weak but the taps downstairs are fine. Is that because of the hill?
Possibly, and it is worth establishing which of two different things is happening. If the house runs a stored hot water system with a tank in the loft, upstairs pressure depends on how far that tank sits above the shower head, and a converted or partly boarded loft has often reduced that gap. If the shower runs off the mains through a combi, then height above the water main does come into it, and Purley has close to sixty metres of it between the valley floor and the top of the Webb Estate. A gauge on an outside tap separates the two in a few minutes. The fix differs in each case: a pump or a different shower valve for the stored system, an accumulator or a rethink of the appliance for the mains-fed one.
Can I put a combi in a large house on the Webb Estate or around Woodcote Village?
You can, but in a house with three or more bathrooms it is usually the wrong choice, and we would rather say so before you buy one. A combi heats water on demand and serves one outlet properly at a time, so a bath filling while somebody showers means both are poor. The better answer in the larger Purley houses is normally a system boiler with an unvented cylinder sized to the number of bathrooms, which stores hot water at mains pressure and can serve several outlets at once. The condition attached is that an unvented cylinder runs off the incoming main, so on the higher ground we measure the mains before specifying rather than after. Combi installations start at £1,950 and a full central heating system at £3,400, but for a house this size we survey first and give you a written fixed price.
Every wet winter I get water in my basement in Purley. Is a pipe leaking?
Often it is not. Purley sits over chalk and the Caterham Bourne runs through the valley, culverted under Brighton Road, so in wet winters the groundwater table rises and water comes up through floors and the base of walls in low lying property. The Environment Agency runs a standing groundwater flood alert area for this catchment. You can tell the difference yourself: turn off the main stopcock and leave it off for a few hours. A plumbing leak stops. Groundwater does not, and it is clean, cold and rising rather than running down from above. If it turns out to be groundwater we will tell you that plainly, because it is a drainage and tanking question rather than a plumbing one, and no leak trace will find anything.
Do I need planning permission for a boiler flue in a Purley conservation area?
It depends where the flue goes. Upper Woodcote Village has been a conservation area since November 1973 and the Webb Estate since June 1983. Inside one, a flue may not be fitted on the principal elevation, or on a side elevation fronting a highway, under permitted development, so a front wall termination is normally out. A rear elevation or a run up through the roof is usually the workable route, subject to the manufacturer’s clearances. We work the route out at the survey and tell you if the job needs a check with Croydon Council first. It is not a reason to avoid replacing a boiler, but it is a reason not to accept a quote from anyone who has not looked at the elevation.
My house still has an old lead water supply pipe. Does that need replacing?
A good deal of pre-war Purley stock still has its original lead supply, and in the larger houses that pipe runs a long way from the boundary to the front door. The section inside your boundary is yours to maintain. Replacing it in modern MDPE improves flow as well as water quality, since old lead and galvanised iron narrow with age, and it is often the quiet reason one house on the hill has worse pressure than its neighbour. SES Water, which supplies this area, replaces the communication pipe from the main to your boundary free of charge once the private section is done. We can price the private run and coordinate the two.
How quickly can you get to Purley in an emergency?
We hold emergency cover 24 hours a day and the number is 07534 841885. At four miles, Purley is one of the closer districts to our base. The call-out is £120, which covers getting to you, finding the fault and telling you what putting it right will cost before further work starts. If you have an active leak while you wait, close the main stopcock, which in most interwar Purley semis is under the kitchen sink, then open the cold tap over that sink to drain the rising main down.
Do you do landlord gas safety certificates in Purley?
Yes. A CP12 for one appliance is £75 and the record is emailed the same day. Additional appliances are quoted when you book. We work Monday to Saturday from 7am to 8pm, which usually makes it possible to fit around tenants without anyone losing a day of work, and we will arrange access with the tenant directly if that is easier.
The water here is very hard. Does that shorten the life of a boiler?
It shortens the life of the hot water side if nothing is done about it. SES Water draws heavily on chalk boreholes in the North Downs, so the supply here is hard, and hard water leaves scale wherever it is heated. In a combi the plate heat exchanger scales first, which shows as hot water that runs hot then cool, or a boiler that bangs and kettles when a tap is opened. A scale reducer on the cold mains feed and a proper annual service slow it considerably. We fit a magnetic filter on the heating side of every new installation as standard, and we will tell you whether scale protection is worth the money for your particular appliance rather than adding it to every quote.
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