How to find a good plumber

Start with the registration, not the reviews

For anything involving gas, the Gas Safe register is the first check and it takes a minute. For an unvented cylinder, ask about G3. For a heat pump, ask about MCS. These are facts you can confirm in minutes, and on qualifications they tell you more than reviews do.

Reviews are useful for the things registration does not cover: whether somebody turns up, clears up and answers the phone. Read the three star ones too, which often give the most detail.

Local address, local number

A business with an address you could stand outside and a phone number in the local dialling code is a business that has to live with its reputation in that town. A national number, no address, and a website that names a different town on every page is usually a lead broker: it passes your details to a firm in your area, which may trade under a different name from the one that answered.

This is worth knowing in plumbing, because many search results for emergency plumbing are referral services rather than plumbers.

The phone call tells you most of it

A plumber who is thinking about your job asks questions before quoting. For a boiler: what is there now, how many bathrooms, what the mains flow is like. For a leak: where the damp is, whether the pressure is dropping, whether it is hot or cold. For a blockage: whether the inspection chamber is full.

A boiler quote that follows questions about your water supply is a price for your house, not only for the appliance.

Get the scope in writing before comparing prices

Write two or three sentences describing the job and send the same text to everybody you ask. It removes the most frequent source of confusion in quotes, which is that each plumber has quoted for a slightly different job, and it gives you something to hold the work against afterwards.

For larger work, ask for one address of a job like yours that they have done. Many are glad to offer one.

What to do in an emergency

Turn the stopcock off and open the taps. That takes a minute and it changes the problem from an emergency into an urgent booking, which costs roughly half as much and lets you choose who comes.

If it needs someone straight away, ask three things on the phone: the charge for the first hour, the rate afterwards, and whether they are Gas Safe registered if a boiler is involved. Write the answers down so you have them to hand when the invoice arrives.