Do you work in city centre flats and apartment blocks?
Yes. A lot of the centre's homes are flats, many in converted buildings such as former warehouses, factories and offices, alongside newer purpose-built blocks. Working in them is a little different from working in a house, because the building usually has a managing agent and a freeholder with their own rules.
Before booking, it helps to check a few things:
- Your lease
- Some changes need the freeholder's consent, especially anything touching shared parts.
- Building rules
- Permitted working hours, lift use and how contractors sign in.
- Where your meter and fuse box are
- In converted buildings they are sometimes in a cupboard or riser outside the flat.
- Who owns the pipe or cable
- Communal services are usually the managing agent's responsibility.
What should I do if a leak in my flat is coming through to the flat below?
Turn the water off at your stopcock straight away, then let your neighbour and the managing agent know. If you can't find the stopcock, the managing agent may know where it is.
Then send us photos of where the water appears and anything nearby, such as the toilet, bath panel, shower tray or washing machine. We find the source and repair it for one fixed price. Sometimes the water is coming from a flat above or from communal pipework, in which case it is usually the managing agent's job to arrange, and we'll tell you. Photos of the damage before and after are worth keeping for any insurance claim.
Can you look after a shop, office or restaurant in the centre?
Yes. We do small commercial maintenance for independent shops, offices, cafés, restaurants and the creative businesses, studios and venues in and around the Cultural Quarter.
Typical jobs are replacing old fluorescent fittings with LED, tracing faults that trip the power, adding sockets for a new layout, and repairing emergency lights so their monthly and annual tests pass. We're open every day from 8am to 8pm, so work that needs the power off can be booked outside your busiest hours. Several jobs can go on one request and one fixed price.
Why do the electrics in my flat keep tripping?
Often it's one appliance or one circuit with a fault, and the RCD is doing its job. Many city centre flats run entirely on electricity, with panel heaters or storage heaters and an electric water heater, so the electrics carry more load than in a house with gas.
Note what was on when it tripped and send us a photo of the fuse box. If the cause can't be seen from photos, we give a fixed price for tracing the fault, then a fixed price for the repair. If your heaters are old and expensive to run, we can also fit modern electric radiators with better controls.
How do you deal with parking and access in the city centre?
We plan around it. When we price the job, we ask how we get in, where we can stop to unload, whether there is a lift, and any times the building restricts. Then we bring everything we need in one trip, so we aren't going back and forth to the van.
If your building has a loading bay, visitor space or a permit system, tell us when you send the photos.