Plumber in
Walthamstow

Walthamstow Village, around St Mary's Church and Orford Road, is the oldest part of Walthamstow and has been a conservation area since 1967, with survivors like the 15th-century Ancient House among later Georgian and Victorian cottages. Most of the surrounding streets, though, were built up from the 1880s onwards by the Warner family's building company, whose red and yellow brick terraces with bay windows and tiled roofs are still some of the most recognisable housing in this part of east London.

These Warner terraces are solidly built but well over a century old in places, so original lead or galvanised supply pipes and older waste stacks still turn up, particularly where a house hasn't been renovated in a while. Many have loft tanks and gravity-fed hot water that homeowners are converting to a combi or unvented cylinder, which frees up airing cupboard space in these fairly compact houses.

Closer to Walthamstow Central, there are more flats and converted terraces, which brings shared drainage and smaller-scale heating systems into the mix alongside the houses. Hard water is as much of an issue here as anywhere else in this part of Essex and east London, causing limescale in boilers and showers over time.