Plumber in Hodge Lea
Tell Us About the Job in Hodge Lea
Tell us about the job in two minutes and we’ll come back to you with a clear, fixed price.
Most water saving advice is trivial. Turning the tap off while you brush your teeth is fine and it is not going to show on a bill.
Two things genuinely make a difference, and one of them costs nothing to check.
Based in Two Mile Ash, around ten minutes away. Gas Safe registered, registration number 981362.
- Gas Safe registered 981362
- Around ten minutes from Two Mile Ash
- Find the leak before spending anything on saving water
- Booked work Monday to Saturday, 8am to 8pm
Last updated
The one that actually matters: find the leak
A toilet cistern quietly passing water into the pan wastes more than every tap in the house combined, and it is the single largest source of unexplained water use in domestic property. Our Tinkers Bridge page sets out the food colouring test and the meter test that find it, and both are free.
Worth doing before you spend anything on saving water, because no amount of shorter showers offsets a valve passing continuously.
The second one: showers
Showering is where most household hot water goes, so it is where a change registers on both the water and the energy bill.
- A shorter shower is worth more than a low flow head. Nobody wants to hear that, but it is true.
- Flow restrictors and aerating heads genuinely reduce use, though only on mains pressure systems. On a gravity fed system with a cylinder and a loft tank, a restrictor makes an already weak shower worse and you will take it off again.
- Fix a dripping shower valve rather than living with it. In this water, cartridges seize and start weeping internally, sometimes into the wall rather than out of the head.
What is not worth much
- A cistern displacement device in a modern dual flush toilet. Those already use considerably less than an old single flush, and adding a device can leave too little water to clear the pan, which means flushing twice.
- Aerators on every tap. Worth cleaning for flow, not a meaningful saving.
- Water butts for the garden. Good for plants, irrelevant to a metered water bill for the house.
Worth asking your water company about
Two things people miss:
Leak allowance schemes. Many water companies will reduce a bill inflated by a genuine underground leak, particularly where you deal with it promptly once found.
Whether a meter suits you. If your household is small relative to the property’s rateable value, a meter frequently costs less. Water companies generally fit them free on request and often allow a period to switch back if it turns out worse.
Hot water is where the money actually is
Worth separating the two bills, because they behave differently.
Water use is metered volume. Energy use is what it costs to heat that volume. A shower uses both, and the heating side is usually the larger number by a distance.
That changes what is worth doing:
- Set the hot water temperature sensibly. On a combi there is rarely a reason to run domestic hot water at maximum, since you then mix it with cold at the tap. It also scales the heat exchanger faster.
- Insulate the cylinder and the pipework near it, if you have a stored system. Heat lost from an uninsulated cylinder is heat you paid for twice, once to make and once to replace.
- Fix a dripping hot tap before a dripping cold one. Both waste water. Only one wastes energy as well.
The housing in Hodge Lea
1970s, on the western side of the city near Wolverton. Third generation boilers now, and systems old enough that the water condition is worth testing rather than assuming. Gravity hot water is common in the original arrangement, and where a cylinder and loft tank is still in place, converting to an unvented cylinder is usually the biggest single improvement available.
Hard water
Same Anglian Water supply as the rest of Milton Keynes, around 300 mg/l of calcium carbonate against a UK average of 207. Scale is directly why toilet flush valve seals fail earlier here than the averages suggest, which is why the food colouring test is worth doing annually rather than only when a bill looks wrong. See our hard water guide.
Getting to Hodge Lea
Around ten minutes from Two Mile Ash. Close, so out of hours callouts here are practical.
Frequently asked questions
What is the single biggest water waster in a house?
A toilet cistern passing water silently into the pan. Thirty minutes and some food colouring will tell you whether yours is doing it.
Are low flow shower heads worth it?
On mains pressure, yes. On a gravity fed system they make an already weak shower worse.
Should I put a device in my cistern?
Not in a modern dual flush. It can leave too little to clear the pan, so you flush twice and save nothing.
Can I get money back if I had a leak?
Often. Water companies frequently operate leak allowance schemes, particularly where the leak was dealt with promptly once found.
Do you cover Stacey Bushes and Greenleys?
Yes, along with Fullers Slade, Wolverton, Bradwell and Two Mile Ash.
What we do in Hodge Lea
Where we cover in Hodge Lea
- Hodge Lea
- Stacey Bushes
- Greenleys
- Fullers Slade
- Wolverton
- Bradwell
- Two Mile Ash
Get in touch
Call 07514 312117 or send a WhatsApp. Gas Safe registered 981362, CIPHE member, fully insured.