What people ask us before they book

Send the job through the form and we ring you back, usually inside fifteen minutes during the day. That call is to work out what is actually wrong, so we can tell you whether it is something we can talk you through or something that needs one of us in the van. When we can be with you depends on what we are already under. Water where it should not be, or no water at all, goes to the front of the queue. We would rather give you a real time after we have spoken than a window we then miss.

The price is agreed before we start and it does not change afterwards. Send a photo with the job and we can usually give you a band on the first call rather than after a visit. If it turns out to be something else once we are in, we stop and talk to you before doing anything further. Nobody should be handed an invoice for a number they have not agreed.

We work out of Calahonda and cover the 10 km around it: Riviera del Sol, Miraflores, Cabopino and Artola, La Cala de Mijas, La Cala Golf, Elviria, Las Chapas, Torrenueva, and Fuengirola at the eastern edge. If you are outside that ring we will say so on the call rather than take the job and turn up late. Mijas Pueblo is outside it, and so is Marbella town.

No. This coast runs almost entirely on electric, and gas is a different qualification. If you have a gas boiler we will tell you straight away and point you at someone who does gas. We would rather lose the job than pretend otherwise.

Most days, and same day is usually the answer when you ring in the morning. We will not promise it before we know what we are already committed to. If today is not possible we say so on the call, so you can call someone else rather than sit waiting for a time that is not coming.

We tell you, and we tell you why. A water heater with a corroded tank is not fixed by a new element, however much cheaper the element is. A drain that has scaled down to two thirds of its bore will keep blocking whatever anyone does to it. We would rather have that conversation on the phone than take the money and have it with you again in a month.

No, not for a job we then do. If we come out and it turns out to be something we do not cover, we will tell you before anything chargeable happens. What we will not do is price work nobody has looked at.

Different jobs, and they get mixed up constantly. If it backs up when you flush, it is blocked, which is a clearance. If it runs when nobody has flushed it, that is the fill valve, which is a repair. If it flushes weakly without backing up, it is usually scale in the rim jets. Send a photo looking down into the cistern with the lid off and we can tell you which one it is before we set off.

Because the pressure drops, not because the unit has failed. Every August a large share of the urbanisations above the coast road fill their pools at the same time, and anything that needs a minimum pressure to work properly starts cutting out. Hot water goes unreliable, then settles down in October. People replace perfectly good water heaters over this. Before you do, ask whether your neighbours have the same trouble in the same weeks.

Yes, and we work in them constantly. What matters is who authorises the work. If the blockage is in your own trap or your branch, it is yours and you pay us. If it is in the vertical stack that serves several flats, that stack belongs to the community, and the administrator usually has to approve work on it before anyone opens it up. We tell you which side of that line you are on before we start, because the last thing you need is an invoice the administrator will not accept.

Not for the job we agreed. The exception is when what we find is genuinely a different job, which happens most often with a drain that turns out to be a collapsed run, or a leak coming from a shared stack rather than your own fittings. In that case we stop, explain what we have found, and you decide. What we do not do is carry on and sort the invoice out later.

Send it through the form. We read every one, and you will usually hear back inside fifteen minutes during the day. A photo helps more than a paragraph of description.