Fifteen minutes up the A1081, and a good deal of the work here is the same three things: WiFi that will not reach the study, a home office that has to behave like an office, and a machine that has to work tomorrow morning.
£45 an hour, quoted before the work starts, and no call-out charge in Harpenden or Batford. Most jobs are same day or next day.
A commuter town of solid old houses and people working from home three days a week produces a very particular set of problems.
Harpenden has a lot of Victorian and Edwardian housing, and solid brick walls stop 5 GHz WiFi almost dead. The router is usually where the phone line entered in 1998, which is rarely where anyone works. This is the single most common call from AL5, and it is a network design problem rather than a broadband one — the speed test by the router will look perfect.
If you are on Teams to London three days a week, a dropped call is a work problem, not an annoyance. Wired backhaul to the desk, a proper access point rather than a plug-in extender, and a router that is not the one the ISP posted you. Usually an afternoon.
Two home workers in the same house at 10am on a Tuesday is a genuinely different load to one. It is fixable, but it needs the network planned rather than added to.
The laptop with the accounts on it is also the one the children use. Separating that properly — accounts, backups, and something that is not just OneDrive hoping for the best — takes an hour and prevents a very bad afternoon.
A five-year-old laptop with a mechanical drive feels dead and usually is not. An SSD and more memory typically buys three more years for well under the cost of replacing it. Diagnosed first, always.
Solicitors, accountants, therapists and consultancies around the town centre run on a handful of machines and Microsoft 365, with real obligations about client data. That is business support and 365 done properly, not a helpdesk ticket queue.
Harpenden is about fifteen minutes from the workshop in Wigmore, straight down the A1081. That matters more than it sounds: it is close enough that turning up is not a whole morning, which is why there is no call-out charge here.
Most software faults get fixed the same day over a secure remote session, so nobody waits in. Anything needing hands on the machine — a screen, a drive, an access point going up a wall — happens at yours.
Batford, Wheathampstead, Kinsbourne Green and Redbourn are all covered on the same terms. If you are not sure whether you are in range, ring and ask; the answer is usually yes.
Everything is diagnosed before anything is ordered, and you are told plainly when a repair is not worth doing. That happens more often with laptops than people expect, and being told so is cheaper than being sold a part.
Same rate, same person, same standard as AL5’s neighbours in Luton. Nothing is a Harpenden-only or a Luton-only service.
Boot failures, slow machines, screens and failing drives.
Read moreCoverage that reaches the whole building, designed not guessed.
Read moreFor offices too small for an IT department.
Read moreGetting files back, then making sure it cannot happen twice.
Read moreEmail on your own domain that arrives instead of landing in junk.
Read moreSites and shops, from £245.
Read moreLogos in every format you will actually be asked for.
Read moreNo. There is no call-out charge in Harpenden or Batford — you pay £45 an hour for the work and nothing for the travel. It is fifteen minutes from the workshop, which is exactly why.
Solid Victorian brick is very effective at stopping 5 GHz WiFi, and most routers sit wherever the line came into the house rather than where people work. A speed test next to the router measures your broadband, not your coverage. The fix is placement and a properly chosen access point, not a faster package.
Yes, and it is a lot of what gets done in AL5. Wired connection to the desk where possible, an access point that actually reaches, a router worth having, and the work data separated from the family machine. Usually an afternoon.
Yes, both, on the same terms as Harpenden itself — same rate, no call-out charge. Kinsbourne Green and Redbourn too.
Based in Luton, and out from there. The main page covers the whole catchment, or just ask if your town is not listed — the answer is usually yes.
Tell me what is playing up, or send me your web address. You get back one page: what is slow, what is insecure, and what Google cannot see. If the answer is that you do not need me, I will say so.