Started in a van in 2013.

That sounds like something everyone says, so here is what it costs us: we talk people out of heat pumps most months, we tell people their fifteen-year-old boiler is fine, and we do not quote for scale reducers even though they are pure margin and nobody would ever know.

Trafford runs about 30 mg/l of calcium carbonate at pH 7.3 — properly soft water, straight off Thirlmere and Haweswater. That matters more than people think. It means limescale is not your problem here: plate heat exchangers do not fur up the way they do in Kent, and you do not need the water softener somebody tried to sell you. What soft water does do is sit slightly more aggressively against old pipework, so on the pre-war stock we look at the incoming main for lead and we keep an eye out for pinholing in old copper.