What should a heating quote include?

Guide · Updated 23 September 2026

Your Gas Safe number, on the sheet

Anyone doing gas work in the UK must be on the Gas Safe Register, and the customer is told everywhere to check. Put the number on the quote and you have answered the question before it was asked — a printed registration number is a fact they can verify in a minute, and the quote that carries it quietly outranks the one that just says “fully qualified”. If the job is radiators and controls with no gas work, the number still reassures; if it is a boiler, it is close to obligatory.

Name the kit: make, model, output

“Type 22 double panel, 600 by 1200, with a thermostatic valve” is a line the customer can count on the wall; “replace four radiators” is not. The same rule scales up: a boiler is a make, a model and an output in kilowatts, not “a new combi”; a smart thermostat is the named product they asked about, not “upgraded controls”. Naming the kit fixes the spec — the moment a showroom or a neighbour suggests something else, the change is a priced variation, not an argument about what “new boiler” meant.

The system work is the job — spell it out

What separates a heating engineer’s quote from a price for hanging radiators is the work nobody can see: the power flush with the number of radiators on the line, the magnetic filter on the return, the inhibitor dosed after the flush, the system balanced before handover. Spell each out as its own line. It is what justifies the figure against a cheaper quote that skipped them — and on a sludged system it is the difference between a repair that lasts and a callback in February.

Notification, commissioning and the warranty

A boiler swap carries paperwork the customer never sees until they sell the house: the Building Regulations notification through Gas Safe, the Benchmark commissioning record, and the manufacturer’s warranty registration with its term in years. One line each on the quote — “notified, commissioned and registered, X-year manufacturer’s warranty” — turns invisible compliance into visible value, and fixes whose job the registration is while everyone still cares.

Price the old system’s surprises before you drain it

Old systems fight back: gate valves that will not close, radiator valves that shear, sludge that a flush moves into a blockage, an open-vented tank that turns out to be the real problem. You cannot price what you have not seen — but you can state the assumption and the rate: “price assumes serviceable isolation and radiator valves; replacements fitted at £X each, agreed before the work is done”. That sentence turns the mid-job phone call into a decision the customer already understood. If the whole system is an unknown, quote the kit and send the remedial work as an estimate, saying which is which — and for the wet-side detail a plumbing quote carries, what should a plumbing quote include is the companion to this guide.

The money lines: deposit, VAT and validity

The defensible deposit on heating work is the kit you must order before you start — the boiler, the radiators — not a slice of the labour; how much deposit should you ask for makes the case, and the balance is due at commissioning, said in one line. Show VAT properly — subtotal, VAT line, total if registered; “not VAT registered — no VAT charged” if not (showing VAT on a quote covers both). And date the offer: boiler prices move with the season, so thirty days — shorter in autumn — then re-quote rather than honour a lapsed price (how long should a quote be valid?).

A structure to copy

Top to bottom, a heating quote carrying all of the above reads like this:

• Your business name, address, phone, email — and your Gas Safe registration number.
• The word Quote, a quote number, the date, and the valid-until date.
• The customer’s name and the address of the work.
• A one-line description of the job.
• The line items: the kit by make, model and output, then the system work — flush with the radiator count, filter, controls — each with quantity, unit price and line total.
• The stated assumption, and the rate for seized valves and their kind.
• Notification, commissioning and warranty registration, one line.
• Subtotal, VAT, total.
• Exclusions — making good, decorating, and anything the flush reveals.
• Payment terms: deposit against the kit, balance at commissioning.

Speak to Quote builds that document from a dictated description: say the job the way you would to your merchant, and the line items come back with the kit named, the flush counted and the VAT right — because you set your details once. The heating engineers page shows a worked example: four radiators swapped for type 22 doubles, an eight-radiator power flush, a magnetic filter and a wireless smart stat.