Plumbers & gasfitters in Merivale & Fendalton
Large older homes with original plumbing behind the walls, and owners who'd rather it were done properly than done cheaply. That suits us.
Big houses, original pipework
Merivale and Fendalton have some of the city's best older housing — substantial homes, many of them a century old, a good number with their original supply runs still in service somewhere in the building. The two suburbs share a page here because they share a set of problems.
- Supply that was sized for one bathroom. A house built with a single bathroom and now running three will show it — pressure that collapses the moment a second shower starts. It's usually solvable by upsizing the relevant section rather than re-plumbing the building, but it needs someone to work out which section.
- Galvanised pipe still in service. Standard until roughly the 1970s, rusted narrow from the inside, invisible from outside. The symptom is pressure that's been slowly declining for years.
- Low pressure cylinders in large houses. Fine for the way the house was originally used; disappointing for a modern bathroom. Options run from a pressure-balanced valve through a mains pressure replacement to gas continuous flow — see hot water cylinders.
- Long hot water runs. In a big house the tap furthest from the cylinder can take an unreasonable time to run hot. There are real fixes for that, and they're worth doing during a renovation rather than after.
Renovation work
Much of what we do through here is renovation plumbing — bathrooms and kitchens brought up to modern standard in houses worth doing properly. Two things matter more in an older, larger home than anywhere else:
Get the plumber in at planning, not at fit-off. Where a waste can run, whether the fall works, and whether existing supply will carry another fixture are decisions that cost nothing to make early and a great deal to change once the linings are on and the tiling is done.
Expect to find things. Opening walls in a house of this age regularly turns up three generations of pipework joined together. We'll tell you what we've found and what it means for the budget straight away, not at the end.
Gas
Gas fires suit these houses — high studs and large living rooms are expensive to heat any other way — and gas hobs are standard in the kind of kitchen that gets put into them. All certifying gasfitter work, certified on completion. See gas hobs and fires.
Free quote for a job in Merivale & Fendalton
Tell us what needs doing and we'll come back to you quickly with a price. For anything urgent, ringing is always faster.
If you smell gas, or have a burst pipe actively flooding your property, don't wait on a form — call 027 811 5916 now.
Common questions — Merivale & Fendalton
Why does our water pressure drop when two showers run?
In a large older home it's usually supply pipework sized for the house as originally built — one bathroom, one outside tap — now serving two or three bathrooms. It's normally solvable by upsizing the section that's actually restricting flow rather than re-plumbing the whole house, but it takes some diagnosis to find which section that is.
The tap furthest from the cylinder takes forever to run hot. Can that be fixed?
Yes. In a big house it's simply the volume of cold water sitting in a long pipe run. Depending on the layout the answer might be relocating or adding a hot water source, a recirculation arrangement, or switching to gas continuous flow closer to the point of use. It's much cheaper to solve during a renovation than afterwards.
Do you work on heritage or character homes?
Yes — a lot of our work is in older housing. Old houses need a plumber who investigates what's actually behind the wall before quoting rather than after, because galvanised pipe, mixed materials and undersized supply are all common and all change the job.
Where we work
We're a family owned business based on Wilsons Road South in St Martins, and we work right across greater Christchurch — including these suburbs and more.