FAQs

Who is Vello and why I haven’t I heard of you before?

We are London’s brand new premier plumbing, boiler and central heating repair service – a group of household heroes ready to jump on our environmentally-friendly Brompton bikes at a moment’s notice to help you out of a sticky situation. We combine expertise, affordability and fantastic customer service and help London homes throughout Central London including all of Zone 1 and the inner part of Zone 2.

We’re one of the most affordable services around, charging up to 33% less than other plumbers operating in London.

Our engineers travel on foldable Brompton bikes to keep our rates down and our response times up – plus, it’s much better for the environment – we’re as green as our logo!

These are the service promises that we make to all our customers.

We’re fast, friendly, reliable, offer great value for money and have loads of industry knowhow. These are the cornerstones of the Vello London service.

Vello is headquartered in central London at 16 Upper Woburn Place, WC1H 0BS.

Our standard office hours are Monday to Friday 8.00am – 5.00pm and you can call us in an emergency outside of these hours, including Saturday and Sunday if required.

Our standard “out of office” hours are 5.01pm to 7.59am from Monday to Friday and all day Saturday and Sunday. We charge a flat rate £90 + VAT per hour to provide our “out of hours” service, for any problems that you feel just can’t wait. This means that we are available in emergencies 24 hours a day, every day of the year – including Bank Holidays.

We deal with domestic boiler, central heating and plumbing problems, or getting the central heating serviced. We’re available to private homeowners, to tenants and landlords, as well as to anyone who manages domestic properties, such as estate agents and  managing agents.

We are used to working with both business and private customers and have tailored our service to be affordable, flexible and accessible for everyone.

You can use the contact form on our website to get in touch or if you prefer you can give us a call on 020 3741 8018.

You can also email us at info@vellolondon.com and follow our Twitter and Facebook pages too for the latest news and offers. You can also sign up for our newsletter.

We are Gas Safe Registered Engineers

Accreditation

We have a standard fixed rate of £60 +VAT per hour for plumbing repairs and £70 + VAT for boiler servicing and gas safe certification. We’re much cheaper than most of our competitors, simply because we pass on our cost of travel savings to our customers!

Yes but we still won’t fleece you. We have a standard fixed rate of £90 +VAT for an emergency call out service, which is still less than most competitors charge as standard! And we will arrive when we say we will.

No, we charge by the hour so the cost is calculated depending on how long the job takes to complete. We’re proud to say that we’re able to complete the majority of jobs that we’re called out to within the hour.

Not exactly – you can call us out for any job no matter how large or small. However, our rates are charged by the hour so the minimum you can pay is one single standard hourly charge of £60 + VAT for plumbing jobs and £70 + VAT for boiler repairs. In our experience most jobs take an hour to fix.

No, Vello engineers are equipped with their very own Brompton bikes – these are foldable and so we avoid all traffic congestion and even jump on the tube when we need to cut down on journey time. The bikes also mean that you don’t have to worry about parking with us as we just fold up the bike, place it in a protective bad, and bring it in with us while we work.

You pay when we finish the job. We accept cash or credit cards. Trade customers receive 30 days credit.

  1. Plumbing problems
  2. Central Heating issues
  3. Boiler repairs
  4. Gas Safe certificates
  5. Installation service for boilers, central heating etc.
  6. Emergencies – 24 hour response
  7. Fitting fire and smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors
  8. Installing dishwashers and washing machines
  9. Handyman DIY service

Yes, Vello engineers are used to handling issues with broken boilers and they will get to the root of the problem quickly.  It might be a frozen condensate pipe, pressure loss caused by a water leak, kettling (when lime scale builds up in the boiler’s heat exchange), a broken thermocouple that’s continuously extinguishing the pilot light, cold radiators, or a boiler that keeps turning itself off due to a lack of water flow from a closed valve. We deal with all this – and more! We will leave you with a written report when we’ve finished.

Yes, our engineers are Gas Safe Registered so if you’re a landlord or a managing agent and you need to get a Gas Safety Certificate for the property quickly, simply give us a call and we’ll send an engineer right out. We charge £70 + VAT for two appliances and £25 for additional ones.

In keeping with our philosophy of providing the cheapest possible service to our customers, we will only charge you the trade price plus 10% for the parts that we use to carry out any fixes or repairs – this is usually cheaper than the recommended retail price. All parts also come with a one year warranty.

Within reason! When you call us to book a job, simply explain what you need and we’ll be able to tell you there and then if our handymen can help.

Our engineers travel around London on Brompton bike, so we don’t get caught up in traffic jams and we don’t have to hunt around for parking either when we get to you.

We can also jump on the tube when required to shorten journey times across town – much quicker than a man in a van! We will let you know a time window of when we plan to arrive and we always try our best to be on time (flat tyres and tube strikes aside).

We cover the whole of central London, including Zones 1 and most of Zone 2. Here are the postcodes we cover:

SW1, SW3, SW5, SW6, SW7, SW8, SW10, SW11, SE1, SE11, SE16, SE17, E1, E2, EC1, EC2, EC3, EC4, N1, NW1, NW8, WC1, WC2, W1, W2, W8, W9, W10, W11 and W14.

We use foldable Brompton bikes. As far as we know, we’re leading the way when it comes to bike-based plumbers and boiler engineers. No traffic problems, no parking permits required and no congestion charge to pass on to our customers – the bikes enable us to offer a cheap, fast and environmentally friendly service.

All our work and the parts we use come with at least a one year warranty.

We work hard to make sure that our customers don’t have anything to complain about but, at the same time, if something has gone wrong for you then we want to fix it.

You can get in touch by calling 020 3741 8018 or emailing us on info@vellolondon.com.

We are always interested in your feedback, so if you feel like there’s something that we could do better, please let us know.

Vello places a lot of emphasis on providing fantastic customer service so we choose engineers to represent us who are not only qualified technically but who are also great brand ambassadors too.

We know that letting someone into your home can be worrying when you don’t know them so our engineers will always be polite and courteous and aim to put you at ease while we get the job done. They are all DBS checked too (this replaced the CRB check).

Our engineers carry the Vello toolkit with them on their bikes and they use this to carry out most jobs on the spot – 4 out of 5 jobs can be fixed within the hour using the tools in our bag.

If we need to come back to replace broken parts, we will write out a formal quote and leave you with a written report explaining what we have done and what is required to finish the job.

Yes, no matter what the job is our engineers will leave you with a full written report so that you have a record of the visit and what work has been carried out.

Want to know more?

With Vello you get a five star customer support. We would love to hear from you if you have any other questions.

Get in touch