Since 2012 · Leyton E10
Six people, four vans, one workshop on Argall Avenue — and a fixed-price rule that hasn’t bent since the day we opened.
The story
TapWorks started in 2012 because of an invoice. Dan Whitfield, then eight years into working for other firms, watched a customer — a retired teacher in Leytonstone — get billed nearly triple the number she’d been told on the phone, the gap explained away as “complications”. He quit that month, bought a second-hand Transit, and painted a price list on the workshop wall so the number you heard was the number you paid.
Fourteen years on, the wall got repainted twice and the list got longer, but the rule never changed: the quote is the invoice. We grew the slow way — word of mouth down terraced streets, landlords recommending us to other landlords — and stayed deliberately small. Six people. Four vans. A patch we can cross in under half an hour. Big enough to answer at 3am, small enough that the person who quotes your job is usually the one who turns up to do it.
The workshop on Argall Avenue is still the centre of it all: vans restocked there every evening, apprentices trained there on scrapped boilers, and the original hand-painted board still hanging over the parts racks — prices crossed out and repainted, never hidden.
The people
Everyone is employed, uniformed, photo-badged and DBS-checked — and the text you get before arrival has your engineer’s name and photo on it, so you know exactly who you’re opening the door to.
Founder · Lead heating engineer
Started TapWorks in 2012 with one van and a rule: quote it before you touch it. Still on the tools four days a week — usually on the trickiest boiler of the day.
Senior heating engineer
Ten years on boilers of every make and temperament. If it locks out at 6am, Aaron has usually seen the fault code before — and carries the part.
Bathrooms & wet rooms
Fourteen years of refits, from ex-council flats to Victorian terraces. Runs every bathroom job start to finish — her silicone lines are the ones on the homepage.
Plumber · Drains & leaks
The man with the thermal camera. Finds leaks other firms cut three holes looking for, and runs the drain surveys — methodical to the point of legend.
Apprentice plumber
Second-year apprentice, first-rate attitude. Sam preps the vans, shadows every job type in rotation, and is the reason our lofts get swept after tank work.
Office & scheduling
The voice on the phone since 2015. Ruth runs the board, the two-hour slots and the landlord reminders — if your certificate never lapses, that’s her doing.
Credentials
Checkable, current, and available in writing before we start — just ask and Ruth will email the documents over.
The guarantee, in full: every repair and every install carries a 12-month workmanship guarantee, written on your invoice, starting the day we finish. If it fails, we come back and put it right, free — no quibbling, no “wear and tear” small print. Boiler manufacturer warranties of 7–10 years are registered in your name on top. Full payment and guarantee terms are on the prices page.
In 2025 fewer than 2% of jobs needed us back. When they did, we went back.
The standard
Most “we’ll have to come back” visits are really “we didn’t bring it” visits. Ours are stocked against a checklist every evening so the first visit is usually the only one.
Texted when he was 30 minutes away, wore shoe covers without being asked, took the old radiator with him. Small things — but nobody else does them.
Put us to the test on something small — a tap, a service, a certificate. That’s how most of our regulars started.