When it comes to fixing any gas issues in your home, this is always classed as emergency work because gas leaks are deadly. Never delay on contacting a heating engineer to carry out a gas repair on your boiler or pipework in your home. Other emergency scenarios not related to gas leaks might be the combi boiler flashing a circulation error and shutting off the boiler meaning no hot water for your morning shower or the conventional / traditional boiler pilot light keeps switching off leaving you with no heat in the middle of winter. Besides boiler breakdowns and gas leaks, emergency situations might involve water leaking from radiators, pipework or a feed and expansion tank in the loft causing damage to the ceiling.
If you are in a tight spot and having a heating emergency in your home (e.g. your boiler just will not fire up to give you hot water and you do not know what the fault is) and you do not have a trusted heating engineer on hand then you need to calmly find an engineer you can trust in your home by contacting engineers who are Gas Safe registered and have the necessary qualifications to deal with the emergency in your home.
Even though you are in a predicament and need a heating engineer quickly, do take some time to read through or look up any references the heating engineer can provide as in your time of emergency the last thing you need is a heating engineer arriving to make the situation worse not better! You can also see if they have any reviews up on neutral websites.
In an emergency after hours call out, some heating engineers may ask for a deposit or the initial call out fee to be paid upfront before they attend. This is normal as they are coming to you at night and need to protect themselves making sure it is not a time wasted journey, but do not be spoken into paying the whole amount upfront especially as until they arrive they will not know exactly what the repair is and whether parts are needed or not as it might be a replacement part to be fitted or a part can be repaired with something as simple as only replacing a worn out seal to stop a leak.
Despite the emergency almost always happening after hours, do not let this deter you from receiving an invoice clearly showing that you have paid for any works to be done. Check if the invoice also acts as a warrantee for the work and for any parts that have been fitted. Unfortunately during emergency call outs as the part needed to be fitted immediately there is no time for you to source a cheaper part but to only accept the brand that they have onboard with them in their van and it will most often have a mark up on it for their time having bought and supplied the product. If you are dead against them fitting the brand that they have supplied or the price of their product, rather ask them to make the area safe to allow you a few days to buy the product yourself and arrange for them to return during working hours to fit the product of your choice. If you choose this option, do check with them when they are in your home about the correct sizes and dimensions for you to source because some heating products can be marketed in imperial or metric sizes and some central heating systems have different size pipework (e.g. most central heating pipework is standard 15mm but it can also come in smaller ‘microbore’ sizes of 8, 10 or 12mm).
Lastly before they leave your home, make sure the invoice reflects their contact details, ideally reflecting the same contact number you had spoken to them on as in emergency situations we can be so panicked that might not have had a chance to write down or store the tradespersons number and if there are any questions that arise in the light of day or further work needed, you want to be sure to easily re contact them.
In a time of emergency, every second counts and there is no time to sit flicking through endless telephone numbers hoping that after 10 phone calls someone will answer who is available, so HaMuch.com makes it simple to immediately contact 100 tradespeople closest to your home so that you can instantly see which 5 to 10 heating engineers will reply to you with their soonest availability and their prices making it easy to choose the tradesperson of your choice, saving you time and money.