About
Hi. I’m Ken Murphy of K & W Property Maintenance & Repairs Services and welcome to our website. The W, by the way, relates to my dog Wally (Wally the Collie), who is the brains behind the business, and usually supervises all my hard work from the comfort of our work van! K & W Services is a well established business offering quite a diverse range of technical and not so technical services to our customers. These services generally relate to work offered in electrical engineering – and associated plumbing – and handy-man jobs. K & W Property Maintenance & Repairs Services is a fully insured sole trader business.
My Previous Work History
I’ve been interested in anything technical as far back as I can remember, heavily influenced in this sense by my ‘handy-man’ father, watching and helping him doing odd jobs in and around the house. This led to my 22 year professional career in the Royal Navy from 1974, mainly working in the areas of electrical/electronic and hydraulic control systems for weapons platforms onboard ships. I reached the dizzy heights of Chief Petty Officer Engineering Artificer by the time I was 27, and, having previously completed my apprenticeship training years as an electrical mechanic, later gained HNC and Diploma qualifications in Electrical/Electronic Engineering by 1984. I left the RN in 1996 to become a teacher, and, after gaining my BA(Hons) degree in this field, I spent 10 years teaching a variety of subjects – mostly at State Funded Middle Schools in Northumberland. Unable to attain the job satisfaction I’d hoped to receive in teaching, (too much politics and stress) I began to calve a career change back to engineering, completing several BTEC and C & G courses over the next few years in order to gain appropriate engineering qualifications.
Work History as a Sole Trader
60% of my regular workload, over the years, has been focused on general electrical and plumbing work – inspection, testing and installation, fixing electrical and plumbing issues e.g. whole or partial rewiring of properties, fitting bathroom suites, showers, sinks, cookers and radiator systems. The remaining 40% of my workload has covered miscellaneous work – handyman and plumbing jobs. Now, after almost nine years of trading, word has fully spread around about my reliability, honesty, genuine friendliness, professionalism and very competitive labour rates.
Business Aims and Objectives
Aside from making a fair and decent living doing what I receive great job satisfaction from, I genuinely enjoy the challenges, rewards and independence of being my own boss. I still enjoy ‘bending over backwards’ to help people (ask Mrs Livingstone of Barrington Bunkhouse) and consider myself an honourable man in all aspects of my life and work. Those who know me well will tell you I’m a ‘grafter’, tenacious in the extreme and never give up on a job or let people down. I work in all weathers if safe to do so and can’t recall when I was last off work sick. It also seems that every property I have called at to do a job has been previously worked on by ‘cowboy’ contractors. I am highly confident in my present skills set and experience and am continually looking to improve my knowledge in all aspects of my work.
General Areas of Work Presently Offered by K & W Services
- Electrical and Plumbing: General maintenance and repair…
- Portable Appliance Testing (PAT Testing)
- General Plumbing installations linked with electrical systems
- Limited drainage/ waste unblocking
- Guttering and downpipe rainwater harvesting systems
- disabled wet-room facilities
- General Handy-man
1. Mrs Livingston barrington_bunkhouse@hotmail.co.uk
2. Mr Paul Griffin – Registered Local Architect
3. Mr S. Fender – Local Business-man stephen@rookhope.net
Contact Details
Telephone: Stanhope 01388 528499
Mobile: 07804 890888
E-mail: ken@kandwservices.me.uk