Heating Engineer Cornwall

What a heating engineer does that a plumber does not

The distinction is not snobbery, it is law. A plumber works on water. A heating engineer works on the appliance that heats it, and every fuel has its own register behind it: Gas Safe for natural gas and LPG, OFTEC for oil, MCS for the heat pumps and solar that increasingly replace both. Working on a gas appliance without being on the Gas Safe Register is an offence, not a shortcut, and an MCS certificate is what makes a heat pump eligible for its grant.

Ask any company you are considering — us included — which registers they hold and for which technology, then check them. Gas Safe is searchable at gassaferegister.co.uk and MCS at mcscertified.com. Certification is granted per technology, so a firm certified for solar PV is not automatically certified for heat pumps.

Four fuels, one team — because Cornwall needs it

Around 47% of homes in Cornwall have no mains gas connection. That single number shapes every heating decision in the county, and it is why a heating engineer here cannot only be a gas engineer. Across our patch we are servicing an oil boiler and a tank in a TR4 village in the morning and a gas combi in a Truro semi in the afternoon.

It also changes what the right answer looks like when something fails. For a home on oil or LPG with no gas connection, the Boiler Upgrade Scheme pays £9,000 towards an air source heat pump — against £7,500 elsewhere — with that off-gas uplift running to 31 March 2027. The grant goes to the installer and comes off the invoice, and there is no equivalent for a replacement oil boiler. On an off-gas property the two options can land within a few thousand pounds of each other, which is a conversation worth having before the old boiler is condemned, not after. We fit both, so the comparison we give you is not a funnel. See boiler installation Cornwall and heat pumps in Cornwall.

What heating engineers charge, and what to ask instead

The honest answer to "what's the hourly rate" is that for anything other than an emergency you should not be buying hours. An hourly rate tells you nothing about how long a job takes or what is included in it, and it rewards the slowest quote. Ask for a fixed price after a survey, and ask what the price contains.

Ours, for reference: a like-for-like gas combi swap is £1,800–£3,000 installed, most landing at £2,200–£2,500; a system boiler with a hot water cylinder £2,000–£3,500; a full system replacement including radiators £3,500–£6,000+. Each includes removing the old appliance, a chemical flush, commissioning, the Building Regulations compliance certificate and warranty registration. Servicing is quoted per property, because the fuel, the appliance and the number of appliances genuinely change the visit — see boiler servicing Cornwall.

One number worth knowing before you compare running costs: Ofgem's typical domestic consumption values from 1 July 2026 are 1,600, 2,500 and 3,800 kWh of gas a year for low, medium and high use. Any saving quoted to you is an assumption about which of those you are.

Where we cover, and how far that is

We work from Unit 4, Pool Business Park, Pool, Redruth (TR15 3QW). These are the straight-line distances to the towns we hold dedicated pages for — the practical point being that none of them is a long call-out, and the same engineers do all of them:

Beyond those five we cover the county as a matter of course — Falmouth, Penzance, Helston, Hayle, Camborne, Redruth, Wadebridge and the villages between them. If you are not sure whether you are in range, the answer is almost always yes; call and ask.

Servicing, and the duty if you let

An annual service is what keeps a manufacturer's warranty alive — nearly every guarantee requires one, recorded, and a gap in the record is the first thing a declined claim points at. If you let the property it stops being a warranty question and becomes a legal one: under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 every gas appliance and flue a landlord provides must be checked every 12 months by a Gas Safe registered engineer, the record given to existing tenants within 28 days and to new tenants before they move in, and copies kept for two years.

We carry out the check and the service in the same visit and tell you which is which on the invoice. In Truro, where most of our certificates are for flats and conversions, see boiler service Truro.