Residential plumbing

Maintenance and repairs

Leaks, dripping taps, running toilets, low pressure, burst pipes, blocked wastes, hot water problems. The everyday things that go wrong in a house and need someone who will actually turn up.

Most of these are a single visit. A dripping tap is usually a washer or a cartridge, a running toilet is usually an inlet or outlet valve, and low pressure at one tap is usually the aerator rather than anything serious. We will tell you which it is rather than making it sound worse than it is.

Leaks you cannot see

A water bill that has jumped for no reason, a warm patch on a concrete floor, or a meter that keeps ticking over with every tap shut. Those point at a leak under the slab or in a wall. Finding it matters more than fixing it, because the fix is straightforward once you know where it is and expensive if you go looking in the wrong place.

Turn every tap off, check the meter, and if it is still moving, ring us.

Renovations and new work

Bathroom and kitchen renovations, laundry moves, new pipework, and full plumbing on new builds. A lot of this comes through builders and architects, and that is the sort of job we are best set up for. If you have plans, send them through and we can price off drawings.

The useful conversation happens at drawing stage, not on site. Moving a toilet on a plan costs nothing. Moving one after the slab is poured costs a great deal.

Older houses

Plenty of Hawke's Bay homes still have galvanised pipe, old copper, or Dux Qest. Each has its own failure pattern and its own answer. Galvanised silts up from the inside, so you get poor flow and rusty water long before it leaks. Dux Qest fails at the fittings and it fails without warning. We will tell you which one you have got and whether it needs doing now or can wait.

Working with your builder

If there is a builder on the job already, tell us at the first phone call. We will work to their programme rather than yours, which sounds obvious but saves a lot of standing around. We are used to being one trade among several and we would rather sort sequencing early than turn up to a slab that is not ready.

How we work

You get told what the problem is in plain language, what the options are, and what each one costs before anything happens. If a cheaper fix is the right call, we will say so. If something turns up behind the wall that changes the price, you get a phone call before we carry on, not a surprise on the invoice.

Registered for both trades

Certifying Plumber and Certifying Drainlayer, and a Master Plumbers member for over ten years. If a job crosses from plumbing into drainage, which it often does in an older house, it does not need a second contractor and it does not need two lots of sign-off.

What we do not do

Gas. Anything carrying gas needs a registered gasfitter and we do not hold that licence. We are happy to say so early rather than turn up and waste your time.