How to get more boiler installation jobs without Checkatrade

To get more boiler installation jobs without Checkatrade, you need homeowners to find and ring you directly: through your own Google Business Profile in the map pack, Google Local Services Ads at the top of the page, your past customers, and a few local businesses who send work your way. Each of those builds something you own, and none of them puts you on the same page as a list of rival firms. Then you answer fast, follow up every quote, and count which source each install came from, so you can see when you no longer need the directory.

I’m not here to tell you Checkatrade is bad. Plenty of firms get good work from it, and if it pays its way, keep it. The trouble starts when one platform becomes the only tap that runs, because then your diary depends on someone else’s rules, someone else’s renewal and someone else’s search page. This guide is about building the taps you control.

Why do firms want to rely less on directories?

When I surveyed more than 100 plumbing and heating firm owners, three worries kept coming back: making payroll, struggling to pay themselves properly, and needing bigger, better paying jobs instead of small callouts. You can read the themes on my research page. A steady flow of boiler installations answers all three, and the firms I speak to want that flow to come from somewhere they have more control over.

There are three reasons owners usually give me:

• You are listed beside your competitors. On a directory the homeowner is often looking at several firms on one page, and on some lead sites the same job goes to more than one trade. That turns the first conversation into a race on price.
• Your reputation lives on someone else’s site. The reviews and profile you build there stay there. Google reviews have to be left on Google, so you can’t carry them across if you ever leave.
• The cost sits outside your control. Membership terms change at renewal, and you can’t easily see which installs the directory brought compared with everything else.

Nobody needs to leave tomorrow. The aim is to build your own sources steadily until the directory becomes optional.

Where do boiler installation jobs come from without Checkatrade?

From five places, and most firms are using one or two of them at half strength.

1. Your Google Business Profile

This is the map pack entry that shows when a homeowner searches “boiler installation” with their town on the end. Once you have earned a place there, it costs nothing per enquiry.

Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and prominence, and that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. It also says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking, and that businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up. So the work is practical:

• A heating focused primary category, with boiler installation and boiler replacement listed by name as services.
• The towns you genuinely cover, not every town you could drive to.
• Photos of your own finished installs, added every week or two.
• A name, address and phone number that match your website exactly.
• A reply to every review, good or bad.

My complete guide to Google Business Profile for boiler installers goes through every setting.

2. Google Local Services Ads

Local Services Ads sit above everything else on the page, with the Google Verified badge and a button to ring you. Google checks the business, licence and insurance details it asks for before you appear, and you pay per lead rather than per click. Google is moving them into Google Ads, as Performance Max campaigns with pay per lead goals, and says accounts outside the US move during 2027.

The setting that matters most for a boiler installer is your job types. Limit them to installation and replacement work and the calls come from homeowners who want a new boiler, rather than a dripping tap. Every lead shows in your own dashboard, so you can check each one yourself. My guide to Local Services Ads for UK heating firms covers the setup in full.

3. Your past customers

The cheapest boiler installation you will ever win is from a customer who already trusts you. Every service visit to an ageing boiler is a chance to have an honest conversation about replacing it before it fails in January.

If your job management system records the appliance at each address, pull a list of customers with older boilers and get in touch before the cold weather. Keep it helpful rather than salesy: a short note saying their boiler is getting on, what the signs of trouble are, and that you’re happy to quote whenever they’re ready. When the boiler does give up, you want yours to be the first number they think of.

4. Local businesses who see boilers before you do

Kitchen fitters, builders, bathroom firms, letting agents and estate agents all meet homeowners at the moment a boiler becomes a problem. A builder ripping out a kitchen finds a tired boiler in the cupboard. A letting agent has a landlord whose tenant has no hot water.

Pick two or three you would happily recommend yourself, and make it easy for them: a direct number, a promise that you’ll call their customer back quickly, and the same courtesy in return when your customers need what they do. A small network like this brings in work that never touches a search page.

5. Boiler manufacturer installer listings

Several boiler manufacturers run their own installer finders for homeowners. Worcester Bosch says its Find an installer tool lets a homeowner choose up to five installers near them by postcode, all of them Worcester Accredited Installers, and it advises contacting more than one installer for a quote. Ideal says its MAX Accredited Installers get priority listing on its Find Your Local Installer tool.

If you fit one brand most of the time, check what its accreditation asks of you and whether the listing is worth having. It is another place a homeowner who is already planning a new boiler can find you by name.

How do you turn more of those enquiries into installs?

Getting the phone to ring is half the job. Without a directory doing the introductions, the way you handle the enquiry matters even more.

Answer within minutes. A homeowner with a shortlist rings down it until somebody picks up. Google says missed calls may negatively affect your responsiveness in Local Services Ads, so decide who answers when you are on the tools, and set a rule that every missed call is returned quickly.

Ask a few questions before you quote. The age of the boiler, the type of property and where the boiler sits. It helps you quote properly and shows the homeowner you listen.

Follow up every quote. Planners take time to decide, and silence hands the job to someone else. Send a clear quote within a day and ring once a few days later. I wrote more about this in found on Google, lost on the quote.

How do you build reviews you own?

Reviews are the bridge out of a directory. They lift you in the map pack, they count towards Local Services Ads, and they are what the next homeowner reads at the kitchen table.

Ask every customer, the same way, as the install is finished and the heating is back on. Send a short message with your direct Google review link while you are still at the property, so it takes them seconds. Google’s policy is clear on the limits: a business must not offer anything in return for a review, must not request specific content, and must not selectively ask only happy customers. So ask everyone, keep it simple, and let them say what they want. When you reply, thank them and name the job, which tells the next homeowner what you do.

How do you know when you can stop relying on Checkatrade?

When the numbers tell you. For three months, record where every boiler installation enquiry came from and which ones became booked installs. Ask every caller how they found you, and check your Local Services Ads dashboard and the call figures in your Business Profile.

Then compare. If your own sources are bringing in the installs you need, the directory has become a top up rather than a lifeline, and you can decide calmly whether to keep it. If you are not sure how many enquiries you need each month to hit your install target, the boiler enquiry calculator works it out for you.

To see the steps above in the order I would build them, read my practical plan for boiler installation lead generation. If your Google presence has been quiet so far, the 5 reasons you’re not getting boiler installation enquiries from Google will usually show you why, and my complete guide to boiler installation enquiries from Google puts the whole picture together.

What does this look like in practice?

The featured result from my own work came through a different route to the one I use now. Flow Plus Plumbing, a plumbing firm in North London, had their first booked job within 24 hours of launch, then 17 tracked enquiries and 4 booked jobs in the first two weeks. Those are Flow Plus Plumbing’s results, and they came from a new website plus Google Ads, which you can read about in the Flow Plus Plumbing case study. The point for this guide is simple: those enquiries came to the firm directly, through its own presence on Google, rather than through a directory.

For boiler installations today I build around Local Services Ads and the Business Profile instead. I call it the Boiler Engine System, and you can see how it works on boiler installation leads.

Want to know where your own boiler jobs could come from?

If you would like to rely less on directories but aren’t sure where to start in your area, I’ll record you the free 5 minute video plan. I look at your Business Profile, your Google presence and the firms taking boiler work near you, then show you exactly what I would change first, with no call and no meeting.