Five plumbing services cover the work we coordinate across West Ealing, Hanwell, Northfields and Greenford, run out of 142 The Broadway and answered 24 hours a day. Every one of those areas sits inside the same council — the London Borough of Ealing — and every one is fed by the same hard Thames Water mains, yet the house behind each front door is genuinely different: a subdivided 'Queen of the Suburbs' villa near Walpole Park, an Edwardian terrace off Northfield Avenue, a Victorian house down toward the Brent in Hanwell, a 1930s bay-fronted semi beyond the A40 in Greenford. Below is exactly what each service covers, and why these five in particular. Every job starts with a fixed written quote — see the contact page for how the call itself works, or read how James and Charlie built this out of the Broadway since 2008.
- Emergency Plumbing — burst pipes, total loss of water, sewage backups, dispatched around the clock, any night of the year.
- Blocked Drains & Drain Unblocking — CCTV survey first, then clearing chosen to suit legacy period pipework or standardised interwar runs.
- Boiler & Hot Water Repair — combi diagnosis, power flushing, cylinder and immersion repair for the borough's relentless hard-water scale.
- Leak Detection & Repair — electronic leak location before anything is opened up, built for period villas and shared-riser conversions alike.
- Bathroom Installation — like-for-like swaps through to full reconfigurations, quoted to the property in front of us.
Why These Five, and Not a Franchise Menu
These categories were not lifted off a national template — they are the five things that actually go wrong across Ealing's housing. Boiler and hot-water repair and leak detection both trace straight back to the Thames Water hard supply, all of it classed hard and some very hard, which furs cylinders and hides pinhole leaks behind scaled joints in every one of the four areas. Blocked-drain clearing leads with a CCTV survey because so much of central Ealing's, Hanwell's and Northfields' stock still runs original pipework old enough to damage under a blind approach. Bathroom installation spans the whole ground here, from a villa's solid period walls to a Greenford semi's standardised interwar layout. And emergency plumbing has to reckon with two extra local facts the drier, newer suburbs never meet.
The Two Local Facts Behind Every Quote
Two things shape how a job is planned here more than the plumbing itself does. The first is age: the 'Queen of the Suburbs' villa-and-terrace stock, much of it subdivided into flats since the war, means shared rising mains, legacy copper and, in the oldest houses, galvanised or lead runs threaded behind solid walls — so diagnosis takes precedence over guesswork, and a written scope reflects that. The second is water and ground: hard mains drive the scale work borough-wide, while low streets in Hanwell and north Greenford, down by the River Brent and the Grand Union Canal, sit inside the Environment Agency's named "River Brent in the London Boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow" flood-warning area — so on that ground, a drainage or leak call sometimes has to separate a plumbing fault from a flood one before dispatch even starts.
Not sure which of the five fits what is happening at your address? Call 07447 181913 and describe it — most calls sort into a category inside the first couple of minutes. Read the area detail for Hanwell, Northfields or Greenford, see what customers have said, or head back to the home page for the full picture of how the service area fits together.
Frequently Asked Questions
What sits under these five services?
Emergency plumbing, blocked drains, boiler and hot-water repair, leak detection and bathroom installation — five categories chosen because they match what genuinely goes wrong across West Ealing, Hanwell, Northfields and Greenford, not a generic national menu. Each links through to its own page with a full breakdown of what is covered and roughly what it costs. If a job does not obviously fit one of the five, ring the Broadway line on 07447 181913 and describe it; most jobs sort into a category within a minute or two on the phone.
Does everything being in one borough make quoting simpler?
In one sense yes — West Ealing, Hanwell, Northfields and Greenford all fall inside the London Borough of Ealing, so there is a single building-control office at Perceval House on the Uxbridge Road for anything notifiable, rather than a jurisdictional split to track. What that single-borough simplicity does not remove is the local detail underneath it: streets around Walpole Park and the town centre sit in conservation areas, Brentham Garden Suburb at Northfields is a designated conservation area, and low ground in Hanwell and north Greenford sits inside a named Environment Agency flood-warning area. A written quote always accounts for whichever of those applies to the specific address before work is scheduled.
Are the quotes genuinely fixed, or does the number move once work starts?
Fixed, in writing, before anything is opened up — that is the standard on every one of the five services, not just the larger jobs. It matters most on leak detection, where the true scope only becomes clear once the leak has actually been located behind a wall or under a floor, so the figure given up front reflects that uncertainty rather than promising a price that then quietly grows. Nothing is cut into — a wall, a floorboard, a stretch of path — until the written figure is accepted, and it should never be a verbal-only estimate, so ask for it in writing every time.
What standards is the actual work built to?
Water-side work follows the Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations 1999, fitted with WRAS-approved parts so nothing risks contaminating the wider mains supply. Bathroom and hot-water installations are carried out to Building Regulations Part G for sanitation and hot-water safety, with electrical elements considered under Part P where they are bundled into the same job. Gas appliance and boiler work follows the standards set out in the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998. Ask when you call and we will talk through exactly which of these apply to your specific job before anyone is scheduled.
Why is boiler and hot-water repair one of the busiest of the five?
Because Thames Water supplies the whole borough and classifies all of its water as hard on its own published scale — 200 to 300 mg/l calcium carbonate as hard, rising to very hard above 300 mg/l. That mineral load builds up inside combi boilers, hot-water cylinders and immersion heaters year after year regardless of which suburb a property sits in, which is why boiler and hot-water repair is treated as a core, everyday service rather than an occasional booking. A power flush, typically £300–£700, clears years of scale sludge out of a system before any repair-or-replace decision is made; it is the single most predictable call type across the whole patch.
How do you tell an emergency from something that can wait for a booked slot?
Emergency plumbing means active, worsening damage right now — a burst supply pipe, no water at all, sewage backing up into the property — and that goes straight to dispatch rather than a booked appointment. A dripping tap, a boiler that is merely slow to fire, or a planned bathroom re-fit can almost always wait for a scheduled visit, once nothing is actively getting worse. Phone triage usually sorts the two apart within the first minute or two of the call, so if you are unsure, describe exactly what is happening and let us make the call rather than guessing and waiting it out.
Is clearing a blocked drain trickier in the older parts of Ealing?
Often, yes. A CCTV drain survey typically runs first — usually 30 to 60 minutes — because the Victorian and Edwardian streets of central Ealing, Hanwell and Northfields still commonly run original pipework on legacy lead or galvanised runs, which a blind rodding attempt can genuinely damage. Greenford's 1930s interwar semis tend to run more standardised early-copper and later uPVC that tolerates a more direct approach. Typical blocked-drain call-outs run roughly £80–£250, with the survey costing extra where the pipe run and its age are not already known — and on low Brent-valley ground, drainage backing up can have a flood as well as a blockage cause.
How do I know whether a boiler needs repairing or replacing?
An isolated fault — a failed diverter valve, a scaled-up heat exchanger, a broken pump — is usually a straightforward repair, typically £120–£500 depending on the part. A boiler that keeps losing pressure, is well past a sensible working life, or has heat-exchanger damage that hard-water scale has made uneconomic to fix, points more toward replacement instead. A power flush is often tried first, since it can resolve a scale-related fault without a full unit swap, and an engineer diagnoses which path applies on-site before quoting either one. In this hard-water borough, scale is the usual reason a system reaches that decision earlier than the maker intended.
Does leak detection avoid tearing up a period villa near the town centre?
That is the entire point of it — electronic leak detection locates the leak first, so only the confirmed section of wall or floor is opened, rather than lifting boards speculatively across a subdivided 'Queen of the Suburbs' villa or a Northfields Edwardian terrace. It matters even more where a shared rising main serves several converted flats, since a leak in one can show up in another, and pinpointing it first saves opening the wrong ceiling entirely. Typical leak-detection call-outs run roughly £150–£450 depending on how the pipework is routed and how much of it is buried in solid period walls.
Why does bathroom installation vary so much in price across these areas?
Scope and property type drive it more than anything else. A like-for-like swap in a straightforward Greenford 1930s semi costs noticeably less than a full reconfiguration moving pipework through the solid walls of a central Ealing villa, and a Northfields job may also sit within conservation constraints on any external alteration. Realistic ranges run roughly £3,000–£8,000 and upward depending on fittings, spec and how much of the existing supply has to be touched. The exact scope is walked through on-site before a fixed quote is issued, so there is no vague number left to argue over later.
Does working near a conservation area or the Brent flood ground change how a job is planned?
It can, and it is worth flagging before booking rather than discovering it on the day. Streets around Walpole Park and Ealing Green sit in conservation areas, Brentham Garden Suburb at Northfields has been a conservation area since 1969, and the council has consulted on a further Northfields designation — all of which can require consent for external or street-facing work. Separately, low ground in Hanwell and north Greenford falls inside the Environment Agency's River Brent flood-warning area, where drainage, sump and backflow considerations sit alongside the plumbing. None of it stops a repair going ahead; it just gets checked against what applies before work starts, not after.
