Buckinghamshire stretches from the Chiltern Hills just beyond the M25 up to Milton Keynes in the north. We head out from Chiswick on the M40 or the M1 to assess rented homes, care homes, schools and offices across the county and Milton Keynes.
Period homes in the Chilterns
Amersham, Chesham, Beaconsfield, Marlow, Princes Risborough and the villages around them have a lot of older houses: Georgian and Victorian town houses, cottages and large detached homes, some of them let to families or professionals. Older houses tend to have been extended and modernised piece by piece. You'll find a loft tank still feeding one bathroom while the rest of the house runs off a combi, or a utility room sink on a long, rarely used branch.
Bigger homes also have more bathrooms than people. If a family only uses two of the four, the others need running regularly or the water in them stagnates. Our risk assessment covers every outlet and gives you a straightforward routine, and our remedial works team can remove redundant pipework and old tanks. A note on rural properties: some outlying homes and farms are on private water supplies rather than mains water. Those come with their own regulations and local authority checks, so tell us when you book and we'll be clear about what our assessment covers.
High Wycombe, Aylesbury and Milton Keynes
High Wycombe has long streets of Victorian and Edwardian terraces built for the town's furniture-making workforce, and plenty of them are now rented, including shared houses near the university. Typical finds are galvanised cold tanks, electric showers thick with limescale, and old pipework left in place after a kitchen or bathroom refit.
Aylesbury has grown fast, with large new-build estates around the edge of the town. New builds tend to have unvented cylinders or combi boilers and fewer of the old problems, but they're not risk-free. Unused en suites, low thermostat settings to save energy and long hot water dead legs in bigger houses still crop up.
Milton Keynes is its own unitary authority but sits within the ceremonial county, and we cover it too. It has a lot of modern office space, from city-centre blocks to business parks, and many of those buildings have the same quiet-floor issue as offices elsewhere since hybrid working took hold. The housing is mostly newer, with a big private rental sector of flats and family homes. If your building has been running at low occupancy, our post on dead legs and little-used outlets is a good starting point.
Care homes and schools
Buckinghamshire has a lot of care homes, many in converted country houses or extended Victorian villas with long pipe runs and a mix of old and new plumbing. Residents are more vulnerable to Legionella and to scalding, so the hot water has to be stored hot and brought down to a safe temperature by TMVs at the outlet. That means regular TMV servicing alongside temperature monitoring. Our post on TMVs and Legionella explains how the two fit together, and this one covers care homes and schools in more detail.
The county also kept its grammar school system, so there's a large and varied school estate alongside independent schools. As everywhere, the long summer holiday is the main risk, so flushing during the closure and before term starts needs to be in the written scheme. Our Legionella maintenance service can do the flushing and checks if your site team is stretched.
Who supplies the water
Buckinghamshire is split between suppliers. In the southern half you'll be on Thames Water or Affinity Water, while Milton Keynes and a good part of the north are on Anglian Water. The water is generally hard, much of it drawn from the chalk. Check your bill or your supplier's postcode checker to see who supplies you.
Getting to you
We reach south Buckinghamshire on the M40 and the A413, and Milton Keynes and the north of the county on the M1. Parking is rarely a problem outside the centres of Marlow, Beaconsfield and High Wycombe. For country properties, a postcode can be vague, so directions to the right gate help.
Towns we cover in Buckinghamshire
- High Wycombe
- Aylesbury
- Milton Keynes
- Amersham
- Chesham
- Beaconsfield
- Gerrards Cross
- Marlow
- Princes Risborough
- Wendover
- Great Missenden
- Buckingham
- Winslow
- Olney
- Newport Pagnell
- Bletchley
- Iver
- Burnham
Our Legionella FAQs answer the common questions. You can also see every area we cover.