A city of flats and lets
Almost a third of homes in Canterbury are flats, and in Westgate ward it's over four in ten. The council's 2017 review of higher education counted about 29,400 students at the three universities, with around 3,800 of the city's private rented homes let to students. So a lot of our Canterbury work is for landlords and letting agents.
The law asks every landlord for a gas safety check on each gas appliance and flue at least once every 12 months, by a Gas Safe registered engineer, with a copy of the record for each tenant within 28 days. A house let to five or more people from more than one household also needs an HMO licence from the city council, and the application asks for the gas safety certificate. We do the check and the record, and quote for anything it turns up, before the deadline rather than after.
Boilers in flats
A flat is a different job from a house. The flue often has to go through an outside wall a few storeys up, or up through the roof, and it has to stay clear of windows, balconies and the flat next door. Some blocks have rules of their own from the freeholder. We check the flue route and the building's rules at the survey, so the quote is the price.
The hardest water we see
South East Water's 2025 report for the Canterbury supply zone gives a mean total hardness of 308 mg/l as calcium carbonate. That's harder than anywhere else on our patch, a little over Sittingbourne and Sheppey. Scale in a combi's hot-water heat exchanger is the usual result, which is why a new combi here should have a scale reducer on the cold feed.
Conservation areas and the World Heritage Site
The Cathedral, St Augustine's Abbey and St Martin's Church have been a World Heritage Site since 1988. The Canterbury conservation area round them comes in 13 parts, from the city centre out to St Stephen's, London Road, New Dover Road and Nunnery Fields. In a conservation area a flue on a wall or roof facing the road needs planning permission, and a listed building needs listed building consent for almost any change. Inside the city walls, we assume the flue goes to the back unless we hear otherwise.
Oil in the villages
The government estimates that 30% of homes in South Canterbury and 32% round Hoath, Hersden and Littlebourne aren't on mains gas. Plenty of those are oil-fired. We are OFTEC registered for oil, so the villages are covered as well as the city.
Grants
Canterbury City Council has £1.5 million of Warm Homes Local Grant money for insulation, glazing and solar panels for eligible households. It isn't for gas boilers, but a warmer house needs a smaller boiler, so it's worth checking before you replace one.