Smith & Byford Reviews 

The man turned up checked all the important things that he had to check and all over with in about 15 mins the man had been to.my property before so that is better than he knows where he has to check .

Very tiered with this company must change immediately. I have issue job with my boiler small cap missing they left me with no hot water or heating for more they mount there excuse is 2 man job and they have no one valbal today i received call from s&b saying one engineer called sick so till next week maybe someone will come ihave 3 kids 2 under 5 we are suffering from this situation . You are not Professional at all you should get - 5 star

Shocking been with gas for a month

DO NOT USE... rude cocky workman, especially the call handlers.Poor work service, I'd be surprised if they are fully qualified

Disgusting customer service. All day and more without hot water and heating. Have a vulnerable child in the house and the rude out of hours person is as useless as a chocolate teapot. No idea what she's doing, what the company she works for does, absolute waste of space. Part needed but no one knows how long this part will be, bank holiday weekend pending, it's school holidays and I'm left with no water, no heating, no answers, no timescale and vulnerable children. Disgusting

Absolutely excellent company. They are efficient and proficient. Cannot fault them. Michelle Munns who has assisted with all correspondence has been completely professional and outstanding. She is a credit to the company as is Dave Nightingale.

I am Disabled and have had no Heating or Hot Water for 10 DAYS.

Very incompetent. Staff like to patch things over instead of putting new parts in. They fob you off from speaking to the manager and will make you go days without gas and hot water if you have a fault.

I am a Southwark council tenant and for the past 5 years I have had problems with my boiler, it vibrates and makes a go’s awful noise that’s loud and terrifying for me and my emotional support dog, who is now emotionally unstable because of the noise from the boiler. In the past 6 days I’ve had 4 engineers come out to fix it and they haven’t done it?! I have been videoing the issue and I have just spoken with a young lady who listened to me but still referred me back to the local authorities to raise another job? On Tuesday a young man came to my house with a new gas valve and he informed me that the other part that’s needed he didn’t have with him. I have had 2 more engineers out and it’s obvious that they are not reading the previous report that the engineer has written, because if they had they would have come out with the part that’s needed. I have nowhere else to go, but to my council and raise another repair?! I am however making this a stage 1 complaint and I will be escalating this to the next stage. But I will be contacting my local ombudsman this morning by phone to make them aware of this matter. I already have a claim against my local council and I will be calling my legal team to see if they can add this to my claim? Because it’s gone on for far too long as I am disabled and have had carbon monoxide leaks and had my heating system shut down during winter months and was given electrical fan heaters that are a £1 a minute to run!! I am unemployed because of my disability and have had expensive bills because of this situation. Well today I am fighting back, I have had enough of this issue and I am going to take it to the highest possible solution.

Thank you Aaron was an absolute star efficient and pleasant when he came today to fix my boiler I am very grateful for the prompt action and the kindness and respect from the office staff

I am a Wandsworth Council tenant. A couple of weeks ago,just in time for a spell of relatively colder weather, my radiators in the bedroom and lounge stopped heating up. Smith & Byford sent out their guy who arrived on time, very nice polite guy, made his assessment and booked a return visit for 2 guys to come out 4 days later. 4 days later (Today) the 2 man team arrived . Very polite and nice guys. Did the necessary work and had my radiators working and the covers back on in excellent time - no faffing about- great communication of what was wrong and what they were doing. A credit to their company
Thankfully I have only needed assistance with central heating problems three times in 3 years but on all occasions the Smith & Byford service was excellent 100%

An hour after this post went live, they have onve again requested information, I guess it looks good for them somehow.

Wrote a complaint to them on the 23rd of November and they still haven't got back to me. Now my boiler is leaking again, no doubt they will come and temporarily fix it after leaving us without hot water and heating for weeks. And I still won't have a response to my complaint.

They asked me for information when I wrote my initial review and then claimed they had the wrong email after emailing me and then continued to ignore my complaint. No wonder my housing provider use them, they're as rubbish as each other.

Live in Waverley and we are horrified by the lack of service and failure to fit parts ordered.

Causing stress and increased and unnecessary costs to our council. This needs to stop and the council needs to take this company to task

So after being promised that an engineer would be sent during a call at around 6 a further call some three hours later found that no one was going to turn up as the job had been allocated for tomorrow.

At around 22:00 I called again as it sounded like a motorbike in the house to be told and engineer would call.

Surprise surprise no call.

Update 25/03/2025 The lies continue promised to arrive today to complete the job. Problems sourcing the part and they had a crash.

I am a Woking Borough council tenant and theys cowboys they don't know what they're talking about especially Phil they need to be sacked from Woking Borough contract asap the previous contractors thames way were a lot better and do the job once and fix the problem. Smth & Byford they like to milk the system ie come back and fixt a 20 minute job to earn more money from Council contracts Phil the operative is the worst he gos out side and make phone calls wen he meant to be working fixing the problem rather than being on the phone and just look on how many bad reviews they've got that just shows you how bad they are 24 pages of bad reviews 1.4 star that just sums it up I have made a complaint to Woking Borough Council lets hop woking will sack them and find a replacement company

Smith & Byford have failed to fix a serious issue affecting multiple residents in my block in Peckham. I reported the issue on January 3rd when my heating and hot water started failing. I was provided with portable heaters but given no solution for the water. At least four other households are also affected.

I have been proactively chasing them, making countless calls to push for updates—yet the pattern remains the same:

-The engineers come, say they need to order parts.
-It takes weeks for parts to arrive, and in the meantime, I hear nothing unless I chase the office.
-Even when the parts finally arrive, I have to chase again to get them to come back and do the work.
-When the engineers return, whatever they do doesn’t fix the problem—so they order more parts, and the cycle repeats.

The office also tells you that engineers are coming and that you must be at the property, but no one shows up. So be prepared to waste your annual leave for absolutely no reason.

The engineers Dennis and Tom genuinely seem to want to help, but the company’s operations and lack of follow-through are completely failing people.

Smith and Byford is an absolute disaster of a company. They showed up unannounced at my door, claiming I had booked a boiler service when I had done no such thing. After calling them for clarification, I discovered that Southwark Council had provided them with my personal details without my consent, and now I am apparently stuck on some mysterious service list that I never agreed to.

Not only is this a serious data protection issue, but Smith and Byford also admitted they have no way to remove me from their list. So now, I am expected to endure annual harassment from their engineers knocking on my door for a service I do not want or need. When I asked for a resolution, they palmed me off to Southwark Council, who—shockingly—never answered the phone after 20+ minutes of waiting.

This company is utterly unprofessional, incompetent, and borderline unethical. They are complicit in violating customer privacy and refuse to take responsibility for their actions. If you value your time, privacy, and sanity, stay far away from Smith and Byford.

DO NOT TRUST THIS COMPANY. If I could give them zero stars, I would.

Addendum: To the Smith & Byford complaints department person who called me:

Your engineer left a card with no date, time, or engineer details on it—just a vague instruction:

“Please contact our team on 0808 168 7381 to arrange a new appointment.”

More concerning is the insidious threat printed on the card:

“Please remember that your Gas Safety Check and Service is a legal requirement and you must allow access to your home for this inspection to take place.”

This is misleading and unacceptable. We own our home—we are under no legal obligation to let Smith & Byford into our property, yet you are attempting to intimidate homeowners into compliance.

Before making baseless claims that a "fake engineer" visited my home, perhaps review your own records. Your denial doesn’t hold up when the "impersonator" conveniently left behind an official Smith & Byford card with your actual contact number on it.

This is either gross incompetence or deliberate deception—neither of which inspires confidence in a company handling critical gas infrastructure.

Took a day of work today,waiting in all day, for an engineer, the people in the office were polite but the guy never showed up, same problems last year and year before that. Guy has showed up, thankfully all ok now, at 7.30pm but glad to have sorted.

Worst company ever . I’ve been left with children days to weeks with no repair (no hot water or heating) .

Cowboys.
These clowns are unmanaged with a heavy dose of lethargy. I should have written a review on them 3 years ago but have given them the benefit of doubt but now it’s clear they’re pranksters. Book them in, told them specifically “ do not arrive between 16:45pm and 17:30 pm”. waited in, the whole day (as they don’t give a specific time) for them to arrive at 16:55pm, the only time I’ll be out! This hasn’t happened once or twice, no no, it’s happened 8 times over 3 years! The exact same thing!

I am severely disabled as a full time wheelchair user.
I called up RHP in late February when my heating/ hot water failed at approximately 4pm.
I am unable to keep warm without central heating and was quite frightened.
The female operator was strong on information but non existent on sympathy.
Apparently being seriously disabled means nothing to this company as the earliest appointment was the next day, sometime.
I could have frozen to death and this company would not have given a damn.