What the law now says
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 lists practices that are banned in all circumstances. Its Schedule 20 came into force on 6 April 2025. Among them:
- Fake consumer reviews, and reviews that conceal that they were incentivised.
- Publishing consumer reviews without taking reasonable steps to prevent misleading ones.
- Displaying a trust mark without authorisation, and falsely claiming approval or endorsement.
That does not mean every review you read is genuine. It means the businesses and platforms that publish them are now clearly responsible for them.
What reviews can tell you
Read as a group, reviews can say something about how a firm deals with people: whether it turns up when it says it will, explains things clearly, keeps the house tidy, and answers when something goes wrong. The most useful reviews are specific and mention problems as well as praise, especially how a problem was handled.
What reviews cannot tell you
- Whether the firm is certified for heat pumps. Only the MCS register shows that.
- Whether it belongs to a consumer code. Only the code's site shows that.
- Whether your system will be designed properly. That depends on your survey and your design, not on someone else's.
- How a heat pump runs over years. Most reviews are written soon after the job.
Reading them well
- Do the register and code checks first; reviews are a tie-breaker, not a qualification.
- Look across more than one platform, including ones the firm does not control.
- Prefer reviews that describe heat pump work, not other trades.
- Notice how the firm replies to criticism: defensive, or helpful?
- Be wary of a sudden burst of short, similar reviews.
This site publishes no reviews or ratings of any firm, and none of itself. The check sheet covers the things reviews cannot.
Reviews of heat pump work specifically
Many installers do several trades, and their reviews mix them. A firm with excellent reviews for boiler servicing or solar panels may have done few heat pump jobs. Look for reviews that mention heat pumps, and ideally the design: radiators changed, the system working through a winter, clear explanations of the controls.
Why star averages mislead
An average rating hides the detail that matters. A firm with a slightly lower average but thoughtful replies to its few complaints may serve you better than one with a perfect score and no visible problems at all. Read the lower ratings and how the firm responded; that is where you learn how it behaves when something goes wrong.
Asking the installer
You can ask an installer how many heat pumps it has fitted and whether a past customer would be willing to speak to you. A firm may decline for privacy reasons, which is fair, but many are happy to arrange it. Treat what you hear as one more piece of evidence alongside the register and the design.
This site, for its part, shows no reviews or ratings of installers or of itself, and holds no memberships to display. Its aim is to show you where the reliable evidence is, so that reviews become one input among several rather than the deciding one.
Reviews and the register together
A practical way to combine them: shortlist from the register, then read reviews only for the firms that passed. That way reviews never decide whether a firm is qualified, only which of the qualified firms seems easiest to deal with. A firm with no reviews at all is not a warning sign by itself, especially a newer business; it simply means the other checks, and the quality of its survey, carry more weight. If a firm's reviews all describe a different trade, its heat pump experience is an open question to put to it directly.
Finally, remember that a review describes one person's experience of one job, often in a very different home. Your result depends on your own survey, your own design and the installer's care on the day, which is why the written design and the register checks carry more weight than any number of stars.