Honest Plumber Tooting is one number answered at all hours, run from a base on Noyna Road in Tooting Bec. We take the calls that arrive when something has gone wrong in a home: water through a ceiling, a toilet that will not clear, a boiler that has stopped. This page is a plain account of what we are, what we are not and why the name is what it is.
What We Are, in Two Sentences
We are a phone line and a matching service for plumbing and heating jobs in SW17 and the streets around it. When you call, we find the independent local company that can come soonest and suits the fault, and that company does the job.
What We Are Not
We are not a gang of vans with our name on the side, and nobody on the line will quote you a figure they cannot back. The honest bit of the name is a habit, not a slogan.
Why Tooting Needs a Straight Talker
Plumbing here is shaped by the age of the housing. Tooting High Street sits on the Roman road later called Stane Street, and the streets either side were filled in during the late Victorian period and again in the 1920s and 1930s. Pipework in those houses has been altered many times, usually by someone who has since moved on.
Totterdown Fields and the Cottage Estates
Totterdown Fields was the first London County Council cottage estate, 1,244 houses on 38 acres built between 1901 and 1911, and it has been a conservation area since 19 September 1978. Those cottages have small kitchens, boilers fitted long after the build and pipe runs nobody drew down. See Tooting Bec for the streets nearest the base.
Balham's Mansion Blocks and Conversions
Du Cane Court in Balham has 676 flats and shared risers, so a fault in one flat can be a fault in several. Plenty of nearby Victorian houses are split into flats too, which is why we ask early who owns the pipe. See Balham.
Furzedown's Newer Streets
Furzedown was laid out between 1900 and 1930, so the pipework is Edwardian and interwar rather than mid-Victorian. See Furzedown.
Hard Water, Old Drains and Storm Weather
Three things come up again and again. The Thames Water supply is hard, at 262 mg/l, so scale is behind many boiler and cylinder faults. The drains are old, and the culverted Falcon Brook runs under Ritherdon Road as part of the local sewers. And after the July 2021 storm, local news carried video of sewage drains overflowing near Tooting Town Hall, which is why blocked and backing-up drains are worth taking seriously after heavy rain. Our blocked drains page sets out what is yours and what belongs to Thames Water.
What Honest Means When You Ring
It means three things you can hold us to. You get a written quote from the partner company before any work starts. You are told who owns the problem, whether that is you, your landlord, the freeholder or Thames Water. And you are told when a repair is not worth the money, such as a shower that has failed three times or a cylinder past repair.
What We Will Not Say
We will not promise a price or an arrival time on the phone, because both depend on the partner company and what it finds. We will not call ourselves the cheapest, and we will not put reviews on this site that a customer did not write. See what customers say for how that works.
How the Partner Companies Fit
An independently owned local company does every job, quoting, invoicing and taking payment itself. We text you its name before it arrives and stay on the line afterwards if something goes wrong. The whole process is set out on how we work, and the legal detail is in our terms. To see what we arrange, browse the services, try emergency plumbing or go back to the home page.
When We Cannot Take a Job
Sometimes we cannot take a call. A cold snap fills every diary, the job needs a specialism nobody nearby carries, or the address is outside our patch. You will hear that on the call, not after a long wait.
The Promise We Make Instead
When we cannot take a job, we pass you to one of our partner companies who can come out, so nobody who rings is left without a way forward. In that case the partner company quotes, invoices and takes payment directly with you, and we handle no payment or invoices ourselves. You can read the full process on how we work, or get in touch on 07861 936716.