I was delighted to attend a charity tea at the House of Lords last week when prizes were awarded to 3 young primary school pupils who were winners of  a poster competition organised by CO-Gas Safety to promote awareness of the dangers of carbon monoxide in the home.

We were welcomed by Baroness Maddock and the CO-Gas Safety President Stephanie Trotter OBE who congratulated the prizewinners on their success.

It is already well known that we have called for much greater awareness of the dangers of Carbon monoxide in the home as the result of a badly serviced boiler or a flue that was not properly fitted.

It seems that each year at our engineers seminars we emphasise the dangers of not doing the job properly when installing a new boiler or servicing an older one. The charity CO-Gas Safety has been set up some 17 years ago to highlight these dangers in all forms of combustion in the home created for heating whatever the fuel.

They produce each year detailed statistics based on their own information tracking each death caused by carbon monoxide poisoning. They promote both awareness in the community and spend time lobbying paliament to do more to prevent.

Please do noy forget that if you are suffering headaches, nausea or just tiredness that seems to last day after day it might just be that it is possibly being caused by your boiler,

Please have your boiler serviced regularly and if you have any doubts at all over it please call us and we will loook after it all for you,

Best regards

Richard Clarke

They are not proper London plumbers but 20% of the people polled in London had experienced these dodgy workers botching jobs that the report estimates cost £737 million a year to fix. This is reported to affect 6.2 million people a year in the UK

The survey found that London has the worst recored where 20% of those polled had been victims of substandard work compared to 13% across Britain.

Ben Tyte of Sainsbury’s Home Insurance urged homeowners to use only reputable traders.

He said: “We’re concerned so many homeowners have to rectify poor workmanship carried out by people they’ve employed in good faith to work in their homes. It’s completely unacceptable the remedial costs are exceeding £700 million.”

Don’t allow yourself be a victim, call 1st Action for quality assured services for all your plumbing in London

After years in the business we know that as soon as September arrives everyone will switch the central heating on and discover they need a plumber.

Don’t wait – call us now

Take advantage of this offer over the period by calling us on 02088 456 500 and asking for the 10% discount offer on the work you want carrying out.

Use the opportunity today to call in one of our London Plumbers to sort it out now during the holiday.

We will also extend the offer to you for blocked drains or any drainage work that you might need

At the time when we are being bombarded by special add on deals by British Gas and E on, 1st Action have come out with a series of really exceptional deals for new replacement High Efficiency Condensing Combi Boilers that beat the market.

With stories of huge savings in energy costs for the new boilers and growing concerns over carbon monoxide poisoning it is recognised just how important it is to have a modern high efficiency boiler running your hot water and heating system.

Cheap boiler offers are simple to understand. Boiler Prices that include installation and commissioning are given inclusive of VAT

What is included is clearly laid out and what is not included is also clearly shown.

The company realise that these are specific offers and will not be what everyone needs but 1st Action are determined to lead the way in providing the very best value for money boiler installations.

Chairman, Richard Clarke said ‘ We are determined to have a transparent policy on the true cost and value of our boiler installations.

We feel that many of the offers being made by some of our competitors misrepresent the true value of the offer. We believe that our customers want to know exactly what it will be costing them and thats just what we will tell them.

Our new internet offer is less than we have ever offered before so our customers benefit. These are top quality top manufacturers boilers at rock bottom prices. Please go to our Boiler Offers page and see the details

A gas engineer who has any doubts about a boiler’s operation must be able to condemn it to ensure that the consumer is protected and in turn the engineer cannot be held responsible for allowing the boiler to remain operational.

The Government should bring in legislation that would protect the consumer and the industry.

The survey running on our website suggests that despite all the warnings and legislation on who can work on a gas boiler over 25% say that they would use unqualified engineers to repair their boiler.

Our engineers see many dangerous boiler installations – people must take this matter more seriously.

A well installed gas boiler is as safe as houses – a badly installed boiler can kill you in your own home

We service, install and maintain many thousands of boilers in London both as gas engineers for landlords and home owners.

Poor Quality Gas boiler Installations

We believe that the greatest dangers arise through the poor quality of gas installations and a lack of servicing of gas central heating boilers.

A properly installed and serviced boiler is completely safe

A gas boiler properly serviced by a gas safe registered engineer in London should pose no problems but the danger in a boiler that is not working properly and has a faulty flue can easily prove to be the cause of a fatal accident that can wipe out a whole family.

Website Poll says over 25% are prepared to risk unqualified engineers

We do not want to alarmist but are concerned that in a survey conducted on our website over 25% of people taking part said that they would be prepared to ask a non qualified plumber to work on their boiler.

Please do not put your life and that of your family at risk. Make sure anyone who works on your boiler is a Gas Safe registered engineer.

Free phone call now to 0800 1123 999 and speak to your local engineer

1st action Engineers meet at Ruislip Golf Centre

1st Action held a seminar for all its engineers at the Ruislip Golf Centre last week

Richard Clarke the company chairman told the meeting of gas engineers that 2010/11 would be about delivering a better customer service. He reminded the engineers that the company operated in very competitive market and they could look forward to a year when service would be the keyword.

He introduced Emma Carter and Jonathan Posner from the marketing firm Beyond Creative thinking who showed the meeting the new images for the advertising campaign for the new year. They pointed out that there had been a change in plumbers getting to their customers as the use of the internet increased and people used the trade directories less.

We want our customers to note our telephone numbers and log them into their phones when they don’t need us so that we will be there when they do.

The meeting was introduced to the new action telephone character that was to become a major part of the future advertising campaign

As a company employing over 100 staff in London we are concerned that so much fear is being instilled into students who fail to get a university place.

Richard Clarke the company chairman told the meeting of gas engineers that 2010/11 would be about delivering a better customer service

We are a plumbing and property maintenance business and each year we serve some 30,000 London homeowners with a service that is very rarely delivered by university graduates.

London Plumbers can be top earners

Our engineers are all carefully selected as the best in the business but mostly earn at least 150% of the national average and some of those  can earn well in excess of that.

Being a top earner in any profession or industry is never easy and although a good degree at a top university might be the entry to get an interview for a job into some very high earning professions getting an interview doesn’t guarantee success.

Many graduates are finding that getting into the job market is now even harder than getting into university

There are however so many other opportunities for enthusiastic young people who want to work hard, don’t have a degree but want to think for themselves.

The media give false information to students

I believe that both the media and the politicians have joined together to give a completely false impression to young people on the merit of a degree in the world of work and employment.

It’s no good saying that all degrees are of equal merit even if the student has had to pay similar course fees and similar accommodation fees whilst at university and finishes with the same big debt.

The trades may not pay footballers wages but what does? There will always be a demand for plumbers, gas fitters, drainage engineers and electricians, carpenters, plasterers and painters & decorators.

Such businesses actually contribute over £35 billion annually to the UK economy and have an estimated turnover of £215 billion per year so the country does need you even more than the footballers

If you learn the skills and have the right attitude to the work you will always be in demand and if you choose you can easily be your own boss and then you too could become a millionaire without ever going anywhere near a university.

You may have noticed that nearly all the modern bathroom designs manage without any pipes. Water just appears when you turn on a most wonderfully sculptured tap and disappears just as easily through a small hole in the sink or floor.

Of course this is the illusion that we want to create and in lots of wonderful bathrooms and wet rooms we can do just that but here is a warning.

Just like any illusion it is what is happening out of sight that makes the illusion work. In your bathroom illusion there is a network of pipes, pumps, valves and levers making it all happen out of sight. Even more importantly those pipes all are there to carry water which can be very destructive to your property if it leaks out.

1st Action Engineers attend 30,000 plumbing breakdowns every year

In London alone we at 1^st Action receive over 30,000 calls a year to provide a plumber to sort out bursts and leaking plumbing that is not working properly.

With design and beautiful tile or marble surfaces as the primary objective some bathroom designers get carried away and forget the complexity of the plumbing, behind the design. All those electric pumps driving the power showers, concealed pipe-work and hidden toilet cisterns can breakdown.

Plumbing problems can be repaired pumps replaced and drains unblocked but our engineers do need to be able to get to the fault and unfortunately we find that creators of many beautiful bathrooms have forgotten to include in their design the access panels to get at these leaks or pumps. The other things that we see being overlooked are isolation valves. These are small valves installed into the pipework carrying the water just before the shower, bath, sink or toilet so that it can easily turned off to carry out work on the unit.

It is now possible to build fantastic bathrooms or wet rooms and create almost any style that you would like and designer style bathroom showrooms can show you the most fantastic and wonderful feature baths, sinks and sanitary ware.

A Problem for your plumber

If you are having a new bathroom installed or even having new tiles please make sure that in the event of a problem your plumber can get at the problem without having to break up the bathroom. It is very difficult to replace original tiling. It never seems to be quite the same and in some cases it can never be the same if you used some special one off materials.