Plumber in Bradwell

What a flat roof changes

• Boiler flue routing. On a pitched roof there is loft space and a straightforward vertical route. On a flat-roofed property the options are more constrained, which affects where a boiler can go and sometimes rules out positions that would be obvious elsewhere. It is worth establishing at survey rather than on fitting day.
• Rainwater drainage. Flat roofs drain differently and often through internal or parapet arrangements rather than a simple eaves gutter. Blockages show up as damp inside rather than as an overflowing gutter outside, which means they are noticed later and do more damage.
• Soil vent termination. Where the stack terminates and how it is routed differs, and on some properties it has been altered over fifty years by people who did not think it through.
• Loft space, or the lack of it. No conventional loft means less room to run pipework, and in many cases no cold water storage tank in the traditional position, which affects what hot water system the property has and what it can be converted to.

Where a 1970s estate sits now

• Third generation boilers. The originals went decades ago, the first replacements are past their life, and many properties are due again.
• Fifty years of magnetite. Systems that have never been cleaned. Cold at the bottom of a radiator points to sludge, and bleeding will not fix it. We test the system water rather than assuming. See power flushing.
• Microbore in places, typically 8mm or 10mm, which silts far more readily than larger pipe and limits what a bigger radiator on that leg can deliver.

The old village