Five minutes before you book that decides whether the first visit works

Most advice about booking a tradesperson is about choosing one: check the licence, get it in writing, ask for references. All good, all worth doing, and none of it is what this is about.

This is about the five minutes before the call, and it exists because on these streets the variable is access. What you can tell somebody about where a van stops and what the street is like decides what gets loaded, and therefore whether the first visit finishes the job or schedules a second one.

The short answer

Before you ring, spend five minutes establishing where a van can realistically stop, what the street is like at that hour, and how equipment would get from there to the work. Then say it in the first minute of the call. It is the single most useful thing a household on these streets can do, and almost nobody does it.

1. Walk out and look at where a van could actually stop
2. Note whether the street is one-way and how narrow it is
3. Note how far the stopping point is from the work
4. Note anything in the way between the two
5. Say all of it in the first minute of the call

On this page

1. Why the phone call matters
2. The checklist
3. What to say
4. What to ask them
5. On the day
6. Keep it for next time

1. Why the phone call decides the visit

A van is loaded before it leaves. What goes on it is decided from what somebody was told, and if the description was "blocked drain, no other details", what gets loaded is what usually works.

On a street where the usual approach does not work, that produces a plumber standing in front of a job with the wrong equipment, and the outcome is either an awkward improvisation or a second visit. Neither is anybody's fault and both were preventable in the first minute of the call.

The information is free, you already have it, and it is genuinely the highest-value thing available to a household here.

2. The checklist, worth keeping somewhere

1. Where can a van actually stop? Not where you would like it to, where it genuinely can.
2. How far is that from the work? Roughly, in metres or in doors along.
3. Is the street one-way, and how narrow? Both matter for a work vehicle.
4. Is there off-street parking or a driveway? Even a short one changes things.
5. Does the time of day change the answer? Many streets here do.
6. What is between the stopping point and the work? Steps, a gate, a narrow path, a locked door.
7. Has a trade struggled here before? And what did they say about it.

Seven questions, five minutes, and it is worth writing the answers down once because the same information applies to every trade you ever book at that address.

3. What to actually say on the call

Lead with it. Not at the end, after the problem has been described and a time has been offered, but in the first minute while somebody is still deciding what the job is.

Something as simple as "it is a narrow one-way street, no driveway, the closest a van gets is about thirty metres away, and it is much worse after four" gives a plumber more useful planning information than a paragraph about the symptom.

The symptom still matters, obviously. The point is that on these streets the access sentence belongs alongside it rather than as an afterthought, and a plumber who works here will visibly relax when they hear it.

4. And what to ask them in return

1. What have you allowed for access in this quote?
2. What equipment are you planning to bring, and does it need to be near the work?
3. What happens to the price if the street turns out to be worse than described?
4. Is there a method that avoids needing a machine close by?
5. How long do you expect to be there, including setup and pack-down?
6. What is the licence number?

The first four are the ones specific to here. The last is the one that should be on every quote anywhere, and ours is on all of them.

5. What helps on the day itself

• Be there, or make sure somebody is. On a street with no parking, waiting is expensive in a way it is not elsewhere.
• Clear the route. Whatever is between the stopping point and the work, move it beforehand rather than while somebody is holding a hose reel.
• Unlock what needs unlocking before the van arrives.
• Move your own car if it helps. Sometimes the best parking on the street is the space you are in.
• Tell the neighbours if it will be disruptive. On a narrow street it affects them, and a heads-up costs nothing.

None of that is your job in any formal sense. All of it shortens the visit, and on a job priced with access in it, a shorter visit is a cheaper one.

6. Write it down once and keep it

The answers to that checklist do not change. The street is the street, the driveway either exists or does not, and the difficult hours stay difficult.

So write it once, keep it with whatever else you keep about the house, and use it every time you book anybody: plumbers, electricians, deliveries, removalists. It is the same information and it is useful to all of them.

While you are at it, add where your water isolation valve is and where the gas isolation is. Those are the other two things worth knowing before you need them, and they belong on the same piece of paper.

The short version

• A van is loaded from what somebody was told, so the phone call decides the visit.
• Where a van can stop, how far that is, and what the street is like at that hour.
• Lead with it in the first minute rather than mentioning it at the end.
• Ask every quote what it has allowed for access, and what happens if the street is worse.
• Clearing the route and being there both shorten a visit that is priced by access.
• Write the answers down once. The street does not change, and every trade needs them.