Tradesperson of the month: July

Here's what Lee Richards from Water Trade Berkshire has to say about his work, his hobbies and Rated People.

Tell us about your business

We offer plumbing, heating and drainage services to the domestic and commercial sectors. We can complete projects such as bathroom installations to include professional tiling, electrical and carpentry works all by fully qualified tradespeople.

Water Trade has now moved into the exciting world of renewable energy and have carried out a number of projects designed to lower customer's fuel bills and lower there carbon footprint at the same time. Helping the customer to save money and ensure the most cost effective and beneficial system is found to suit their needs. The renewable options we can offer are solar water heating, ground source heating and air to water heat source.
We only employ fully qualified engineers to City and Guilds or N.V.Q Level 3 standard.

Water Trade is a registered plumbing company and I'm a member of the Chartered Institute of Plumbing & Heating Engineers.

The Richards family has had plumbing connections for over 38 years; I trained with my father for a number of years completing a 6 year apprenticeship before establishing Water Trade Ltd in 2000. We have a combined experience of 62 years!

What do you think of Rated People?

We use Rated People for all of our new job leads and find it a very cost effective method. Our only other form of work leads come from word of mouth and repeat business. We find the Rated People format perfect to advertise our skills as it provides ratings to show if tradespeople are performing, providing a good, reliable and reasonably priced service.

We don't find it necessary to advertise in large directories and have reduced our presence to only a free single line entry in the two large directories (Yellow Pages & Thompsons)

For the tradesperson the format is excellent, for your job lead payment you actually get a customer's details to contact, unlike with directory advertising paying your money up front and waiting for the phone to ring!

For customers, it has to be the tradesman ratings that give extra peace of mind. That's the best thing about it.

Finally, tell us a bit about yourself

I have a number of varied interests as a family we enjoy lots of walking and also boating on the River Thames (water related!) I have a fascination with the Victorian era and their engineering achievements and love visiting historical sites from this period. One of my favourites being Kew bridge steam museum in London, a very interesting museum tracing the water supply and drainage systems of London throughout history to modern day. Complete with working Beam pumping engine - definitely worth a visit. My top heroes are I K Brunel and Joseph Bazalgette.

Get a quote from Water Trade

Visit Water Trade's Rated People webpage to request a quote from them directly.