Plumbing Business Faces 10562 Mile Journey



Kwik Fix, a plumbing company based in Cumbria, UK may have to send their plumbers on a 10,562 mile journey to Australia. And it's just to do a day's work.

"We only launched this March, so it's great that we're in demand," said Stuart Lawson, a Kwik Fix Director. "We had heard that there was a shortage of plumbers in Australia but we hadn't planned to expand that far just yet."

Kwik Fix currently offers a plumbing service in Cumbria, Hexham and Dumfries. But, they hit problems when Kwik Fix launched a prize draw on their website. The first prize was a power shower, which was to be fitted by a Kwik Fix plumber.

However, they realised they had a problem when they were flooded with thousands of competition entries.

"We thought the competition would be a good way to gain publicity for Kwik Fix, and we did make it clear that it was only open to local people," Lawson said. "But, after checking a few of the IP addresses, it was obvious that some of the entries were from as far away as Africa, Saudi Arabia and Australia."

Now Kwik Fix is faced with a dilemma. They could spend several weeks trawling through the entries to ensure the international ones are eliminated from the draw. Or they could leave the competition open to all, and tell their plumbers to prepare to face the jet lag.

"It's a tough decision," Lawson said. "Using sub-contractors to fit the shower would be out of question. We never use them, as we like to retain control over the quality of our work. And whilst we don't want to alienate the thousands of foreign visitors who visit our popular Kwik Fix blog at



Plumbing Business Faces 10562 Mile Journey