For journalists and editors
Expert comment on plumbing, hard water and hot water
Will Gaze is a WaterSafe-approved, G3-qualified plumber based at Wootton Rivers near Marlborough. If you need a working plumber to explain something plainly, or to check a claim before you print it, he will take the call and say when he does not know.
Headshot, free to use with a credit to Rosebourne Plumbing. Higher-resolution versions and photographs of work in progress on request.
Will Gaze
Will has been a plumber for 22+ years and has run Rosebourne Plumbing on his own since founding it. He works across Andover (SP10, SP11), Marlborough (SN8), Hungerford (RG17) and the villages between, mostly on bathrooms and hot water.
He is not Gas Safe, OFTEC or MCS registered and does not work on gas or oil boilers, so he is not the right person to quote on those — he will say so and point you at someone who is. What he can speak to, in detail and from this week rather than from a textbook, is set out below.
Qualifications
- WaterSafe (WRAS) approved. The scheme customers are told to check. Approved contractors work to the Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations 1999.
- G3 qualified. Unvented hot water systems. Legally required to install a mains-pressure hot water cylinder, and to notify the work.
- G1 air source heat pump trained. Hot water cylinders sized and fitted for heat pumps.
- City & Guilds Level 3 Plumbing. The trade qualification, behind 22+ years on the tools.
What Will can comment on
Five subjects he deals with every week. On anything outside them he will tell you it is not his field rather than fill the space.
Hard water and limescale
Andover, Marlborough and Hungerford sit on chalk and have some of the hardest water in the country. Will can talk about what scale actually does to a hot water cylinder, a shower and a kettle, what softeners and conditioners each do and do not do, and why the payback arithmetic is usually about the cylinder rather than the kettle.
Hot water cylinders and pressure
Unvented cylinders are the one thing in a house stored at mains pressure, which is why fitting one is controlled work under Building Regulations G3. Will is G3 qualified. He can explain what the regulation requires, what goes wrong when it is ignored, why a house sale can stall on an unnotified cylinder, and why weak showers are usually a flow-rate problem rather than a pump problem.
Burst pipes and winter
What actually freezes first, why the damage usually happens on the thaw rather than the freeze, where the stopcock is in the housing stock around here, and the honest version of what a homeowner can do in the twenty minutes before a plumber arrives.
What a bathroom really costs
Rosebourne publishes its bathroom prices, from a £150 minimum call-out up to a full room supplied and fitted. Will can talk about where the money in a bathroom actually goes, why the quote that looks cheapest usually is not, and what a customer should insist is written down before anyone starts.
Running a one-person trade business
Why Rosebourne does not advertise 24/7 cover, what it costs to run a van and a van's worth of stock, why the good tradespeople are booked weeks out, and what the shortage of people coming into the trade looks like from inside it.
Getting hold of Will
He is on the tools most of the day, so email usually gets a faster answer than the phone. If you are on deadline, say so in the subject line.
Phone
01264 502027Based
Wootton Rivers, Marlborough, Wiltshire SN8 4NJ
Logo and images
Both free to use in connection with a piece that quotes Will, with a credit to Rosebourne Plumbing. Please do not alter the logo’s colours or proportions.
Background on the business is on the about page, and the two things Rosebourne does most of are bathroom fitting and unvented hot water cylinders.