commercial
Commercial plumbing and maintenance
Commercial plumbing runs at £45 to £80 an hour on a maintenance contract, and higher for reactive out of hours work. The difference from domestic work is not the pipework, it is the certification, the insurance and the response time the contract commits to.
What this covers
Typical price. £45 to £80 per hour on contract
What the job covers
- Planned maintenance contracts for managed property
- Commercial gas and catering appliance work
- Washroom and welfare installations
- Legionella risk assessment and water testing
- Reactive repairs for letting agents and facilities managers
What is involved
Commercial and domestic gas qualifications are separate. An engineer working on a catering kitchen, a commercial boiler house or a plant room needs the commercial categories on their Gas Safe registration, and the register lists them. Sites with a landlord's responsibility for a water system also need a legionella risk assessment, temperature monitoring at sentinel outlets, and records that stand up to inspection.
What a managing agent or facilities manager actually buys is a response time and a paper trail. A planned maintenance contract sets out the visit frequency, what is checked, what the reactive response time is inside and outside hours, and what the escalation route is when something is beyond the contract. Firms that work this way carry higher public liability cover, usually five or ten million, and can produce method statements and risk assessments for a site induction.
For small commercial premises, a shop, a salon, a small office, the work is domestic in scale and commercial in requirement: the same washroom refit, but with a duty holder who needs the certificates. It is worth asking a firm outright whether it works to that standard rather than assuming.
Planned maintenance contracts for managed property, one of the jobs a commercial plumbing specialist is hired for.
Choosing someone for the job
Ask for the commercial categories on the Gas Safe registration, the public liability limit, and a sample of the paperwork the contract produces. Ask what the reactive response time is inside and outside working hours and what happens when it is missed. Ask whether legionella risk assessment and monitoring are included or separate.
Common questions
Is commercial gas work different from domestic?
Yes. Commercial appliances need separate Gas Safe categories, and an engineer qualified on domestic boilers is not qualified on a commercial boiler house or catering kitchen. The register lists the categories.
What does a planned maintenance contract include?
Typically scheduled inspections, statutory checks and certificates, an agreed reactive response time, and labour at a fixed hourly rate. Parts and out of hours calls are usually charged separately.