Cricklewood & Finchley Plumber Pros has spent eighteen years working a patch that refuses to behave as one place: a burst rising main at 2am in a Victorian terrace off Cricklewood Broadway, a boiler that dies on a bank holiday in a Finchley semi, a leak surfacing through the solid wall of a large Edwardian house in Golders Green. Ben and Josh started the firm in 2008 from 3 Heather Gardens in NW11, and they built it around an area most plumbers would split into two rounds — Cricklewood in the west, Finchley in the north, the Golders Green and Hampstead Garden Suburb edge as the base between them. We are open 24 hours, and every job is scoped in writing before an engineer lifts a tool. What follows is the plain account of who runs this and why a patch split across two water companies and three boroughs rewards a plumber who already knows it.
How Ben and Josh Started, and Why They Took On a Split Patch
Ben and Josh set up at the Heather Gardens base in NW11 in 2008, on the Golders Green side of Hampstead Garden Suburb, and made an early decision that has shaped everything since: take on the whole north-west corner properly rather than cherry-pick the easy streets. They worked outward from Golders Green — west along the A5 to Cricklewood's terraces, north up the A1000 corridor to Finchley's villas and semis — and stayed with it. Eighteen years on, the buildings have changed around them and the Brent Cross regeneration has redrawn the eastern edge, but the jobs underneath have not: scale on the heating, and tired supply pipe in the oldest houses giving out.
A Business Named for a Boundary
The two place names in the title are an honest map, not a slogan. Cricklewood is the industrial-and-terraces heart of the patch, strung along the A5 Cricklewood Broadway — the old Roman Watling Street — with the Handley Page aircraft works and its aerodrome (the first scheduled London-to-Paris air service flew from here in the 1920s) in its past, and the vast Brent Cross Town regeneration reshaping its former railway lands now. Finchley is the settled residential half up to the north, grown from three medieval hamlets around Church End, North Finchley and East Finchley, with Avenue House and the medieval St Mary-at-Finchley as its anchors. Between the two sits the NW11 base, on the Golders Green and Garden Suburb edge — the district that boomed after its Underground station opened in 1907.
Two Water Companies, One Recurring Enemy: Scale
The single most unusual fact about this area is that a water-supply boundary runs straight through it. Cricklewood (NW2) and Hendon (NW4) are Thames Water — hard, at roughly 260 and 265 mg/l calcium carbonate. Finchley (N2/N3/N12) and Golders Green with Hampstead Garden Suburb (NW11), where the base is, are Affinity Water — hard, at about 275 mg/l. Two companies, one shared reality: both classify the supply as hard, so calcium-carbonate scale steadily furs combi boilers, hot-water cylinders, immersion heaters and heat exchangers on either side of the line. That is why boiler & hot water repair and leak detection sit among the five core services rather than as occasional extras — the scale never lets up, whichever company bills the house.
Three Boroughs' Worth of Old Houses
The stock is period and interwar almost everywhere, but it is not one stock. Cricklewood is late-Victorian, Edwardian and 1930s terraces on solid walls, running on ageing copper and, in the oldest terraces, galvanised or lead supply pipe threaded awkwardly behind lath-and-plaster — with two conservation areas, the Mapesbury Estate and the Cricklewood Railway Terraces, layered on top. Finchley is Victorian villas around Church End and long runs of bay-fronted interwar 'Metro-land' semis, their original bathrooms and kitchens now being renewed a generation at a time. Golders Green is substantial Edwardian and 1920s houses with big hot-water demands, sitting against Hampstead Garden Suburb's just-over-5,000 undivided houses. Re-pipes, rising-main work and bathroom renewals recur across all three, but never in quite the same way.
Coordinating the Right Engineer for the Right House
We coordinate the plumbers and engineers we work with rather than running one fixed team, and the point of it is fit. A shared rising main in a subdivided Cricklewood terrace, a scaled-up cylinder in a Finchley semi, and a bathroom reconfiguration through the solid walls of a conservation-controlled Garden Suburb house are not interchangeable jobs, so we send the person set up for the scope actually in front of us. Water-side work follows the Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations 1999 with WRAS-approved fittings, bathroom and hot-water installations follow Building Regulations Part G, and boiler and gas work follows the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998. Ask on the call and we will confirm who is scheduled before anyone arrives.
Barnet, Brent, Camden — and a Conservation Trust
Most of the patch sits inside the London Borough of Barnet, so building control for Finchley, Golders Green, the Garden Suburb and Hendon runs through Barnet Council. Cricklewood is the exception: it straddles Barnet, Brent and Camden, with the A5 Broadway forming the Barnet/Brent boundary and a sliver in Camden, so we confirm which side of the road an address falls on before filing anything jurisdiction-specific. On top of the councils sit the conservation layers — the Mapesbury Estate and Cricklewood Railway Terraces, and above all Hampstead Garden Suburb, where the Trust must approve any change to a property's external appearance. We check what applies to a given address before a notifiable or street-facing job is planned, rather than discovering it later.
If you are weighing us against the first name a search throws up, start with the home page for the full picture of the service area, browse the complete list of services, see how the reviews page works, or get in touch directly to talk through what is happening at your address. Either way, the same two owners and the same coordinated engineers answer the phone on 07460 035034.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who are Ben and Josh, and how long have they run this?
Ben and Josh are the two owners who set the business up in 2008 and still run it between them, which makes 2026 their eighteenth year on this exact stretch of north-west London. They chose a patch that most firms would treat as two separate rounds — Cricklewood out to the west on the A5, Finchley up to the north, and the NW11 base between the two — precisely because knowing it end to end is what stops the guesswork. Today they coordinate the plumbers and engineers who take each job on, and if you ask on the phone they will tell you who is booked for yours.
Why does the business carry two place names instead of one?
Because the service area genuinely has two centres of gravity rather than one, and pretending otherwise would misdescribe it. Cricklewood is the industrial-and-terraces heart on the A5 Broadway in the west; Finchley is the settled Victorian-villa and interwar-semi district up the A1000 to the north; and the base at 3 Heather Gardens in NW11 sits on the Golders Green and Hampstead Garden Suburb edge in between the pair. The two names in the title are an honest map of where the vans actually go, not a marketing flourish.
What is the 'two water companies' point that keeps coming up?
It is the single most unusual fact about plumbing on this patch: the supply boundary between two water companies runs straight through the area. Cricklewood (NW2) and Hendon (NW4) are supplied by Thames Water, which reports the water as hard at roughly 260 to 265 mg/l calcium carbonate; Finchley (N2, N3, N12) and Golders Green with Hampstead Garden Suburb (NW11), where the base sits, are supplied by Affinity Water at about 275 mg/l. Both companies class their supply as hard, so scale is the constant on either side of the line — but which company to raise a supply-side query with changes street by street.
Does eighteen years on one patch actually change the work?
It changes the diagnosis more than the tools. Eighteen years across these streets means Ben and Josh can usually place which decade a house went up — a late-Victorian terrace off the Broadway, a 1930s Finchley semi, a substantial Edwardian villa in Golders Green — before anyone lifts a floorboard, and therefore what is likely running behind the wall. That is the difference between arriving to look and arriving already knowing where the old galvanised or lead supply run probably threads. It is knowledge you can only build by staying in one place.
Do you cover Hendon and the smaller places, or only the three named areas?
Standard coverage runs Cricklewood, Finchley and Golders Green as the three core areas, with Hendon, Childs Hill and Temple Fortune all comfortably within reach from the NW11 base. Hendon (NW4) sits on the Thames Water side of the supply boundary alongside Cricklewood, and shares the interwar semi-detached stock that dominates so much of the patch, so the work there is familiar ground. Ring 07460 035034 with the address and postcode and we will confirm coverage and a fair arrival window before anything is booked.
What does coordinating engineers mean, rather than sending one fixed crew?
It means each job is matched to whoever is genuinely set up for that specific scope, instead of sending whoever is next on a rota regardless of fit. An overnight burst on a Cricklewood terrace's rising main, a scaled combi in a Finchley semi, and a full bathroom in a conservation-controlled Garden Suburb house are three different pieces of work. Water-side work is carried out to the Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations 1999 with WRAS-approved fittings, hot-water and bathroom work to Building Regulations Part G, and boiler and gas work to the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998.
Why does Hampstead Garden Suburb get special mention?
Because it is a conservation area with a real constraint that ordinary streets do not carry. Hampstead Garden Suburb, founded in 1906 by Dame Henrietta Barnett and master-planned by Barry Parker and Sir Raymond Unwin with Sir Edwin Lutyens' Central Square, is a strictly controlled area of just over 5,000 low-density houses where the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust must approve any change to a property's external appearance. That governs visible pipework, flue positions, meter housings and where a boiler can be sited. On a job there, consent gets checked before street-facing work is planned, not discovered halfway through.
Is the housing really different from one part of the patch to the next?
Genuinely, which is why the three location pages read as separate stories rather than one. Cricklewood is late-Victorian, Edwardian and 1930s terraces along the A5, with two conservation areas of its own — the Mapesbury Estate and the Cricklewood Railway Terraces. Finchley is Victorian villas around Church End plus long runs of interwar 'Metro-land' semis; Golders Green is substantial Edwardian and 1920s houses that filled out after the 1907 Tube arrived, sitting against the Garden Suburb. Different eras mean different pipework and different faults behind the same front-door knock.
Which council handles building control across the area?
Most of the patch — Finchley, Golders Green, Hampstead Garden Suburb and Hendon — sits wholly within the London Borough of Barnet, so building control and any works notification run through Barnet Council. Cricklewood is the exception and the reason we are careful here: it straddles three boroughs, with the A5 Cricklewood Broadway forming the Barnet/Brent boundary and a south-eastern sliver falling in Camden. We confirm which side of the road an address sits on before anything jurisdiction-specific is filed.
Have Ben and Josh always worked this exact area?
The firm has been rooted at the NW11 base since 2008, working outward from Golders Green to Cricklewood in the west and Finchley in the north across those eighteen years. The buildings around the work have shifted — the Brent Cross Cricklewood regeneration has reshaped the former railway lands to the east, and period villas keep being carved into flats — but the underlying jobs have barely changed: hard water furring the heating on both sides of the supply line, and old supply runs in the oldest houses finally reaching the end of their working lives. That continuity is the whole point of staying put.
How do I get started if I have a job at my address?
Ring 07460 035034 and describe what is happening, with the postcode to hand — the line is answered around the clock, every day of the year. For anything active and worsening, an engineer starts moving quickly; for planned work, we will book a visit, diagnose on-site, and put a fixed figure in writing before anything is opened up. You can also read what each service covers on the [services page](/services), see [how the reviews page works](/reviews), or [get in touch directly](/contact).
