Our co-founder Louchavan Lemard features in Charlie Meets, a Lloyds Bank series about the people behind small businesses. Watch the full conversation on the Lloyds Banking Group player.

In it he explains why PH247 is built around stopping problems rather than fixing them, how late payment held the business back, and what he is doing for young adults who cannot get a start in the trade.

It started with a leaking roof

When Louchavan was 10, his family’s roof was leaking and a rogue trader was called in to sort it. Rather than repair anything, the trader left a large bin under the leak and a sheet over the roof. The next time it rained, the bin overflowed, the water went through the property, and the damage cost the family their home.

That is where PH247 comes from. Louchavan trained as a plumbing and heating engineer first, and once he was on the tools he kept being called out to fix things that should never have got that far.

Fixing things before they break

Waiting for something to break is the wrong way round. Louchavan compares the change the trade needs to recycling. The public learned why recycling matters, and the same job now needs doing for building maintenance.

Reactive repairs cost more than the planned version of the same work. They also arrive without warning and disrupt tenants.

That is what our Proactive Maintenance service is built to avoid. It covers thermal imaging, pH testing and water hardness testing, a full job report, and a lifetime maintenance schedule, so the next piece of work is booked rather than discovered.

For landlords, property investors and managing agents, that means compliance and performance you can evidence. We have a separate page for managing agents and block managers.

Getting paid on completion

Louchavan told Lloyds that delays in payment were one of the biggest problems in the business. Customers are wary of paying a trade they have not used before, and being able to point to an established bank behind the company helped them relax.

PH247 now works on payment on completion. Our client agreements also use Transpact, an independent escrow service, so funds sit with a neutral third party until the job is signed off. The terms are agreed before an engineer arrives, and we spend our time planning work rather than chasing invoices.

Work experience for young adults

Plenty of young people finish a full-time college course and still cannot get an apprenticeship or a job, because neither is open to someone with no site experience. 981,000 people aged 16 to 24 in the UK were not in education, employment or training between April and June 2026, which is 13% of the age group, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Louchavan calls what he has built a bridge across that gap. His own start came because “someone gave me an opportunity based on attitude, not academics”.

Our work experience programme puts young adults on real jobs alongside experienced engineers and helps them build a portfolio of evidence, feedback and practical skills to show an employer. Ben Nevis Clothing provides the workwear, and Arctic Hayes and DiversiTech provide starter tool kits, so the GoFundMe covers running costs: travel to site, lunches, mentoring, placement coordination and portfolio building.

If you run a firm or work on your own and could host a placement, contact us.

What comes next

Asked about the future, Louchavan said PH247 is going to be a national business. Today we work across London, inside the M25, and that is where our engineers are. The aim behind the growth is protecting tenants, landlords and property investors, and changing how the construction industry thinks about maintenance.

Louchavan was named National Plumber of the Year at The Plumber Awards in June 2026 and was elected to the CIPHE Board of Trustees that August. PH247 was named Client Protection Plumbing & Heating Company of the Year 2026 at the SME News Greater London Enterprise Awards. Our awards page has the full list.