Last updated: 28 October 2026

My Central Heating is a trading name of Appliance World Online Limited, a family-run business established in 1971 and based in Manchester. This policy explains what personal data we collect when you visit mycentralheating.co.uk, ask us for a quote, take out a cover plan, book a repair, service or installation, or contact us. It also explains how and why we use that data, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and what rights you have.

Who we are

Appliance World Online Limited, trading as My Central Heating (“we”, “us”, “our”), is the data controller responsible for your personal data under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. My Central Heating and Appliance World Online are run by the same team and use the same systems.

• Company registration number: 4911776
• Registered address: 543-547 Bolton Road, Pendlebury, Manchester, M27 8QT
• Data protection contact: support@applianceworldonline.com
• General enquiries: 0161 794 3030 (option 2) or repairs@applianceworldonline.com

The personal data we collect

Depending on how you deal with us, we may collect:

• Identity data: your first name, last name and title.
• Contact data: your address, the address of the property we are covering or working on if it is different, your email address and your phone number.
• Property and service data: details of your boiler, central heating system and appliances, your cover plan, and records of the visits, repairs, servicing, installations and gas safety checks we carry out.
• Financial data: the bank or payment card details you use to pay us, and transaction amounts. Card details are stored in tokenised form by our payment processor.
• Communications data: what you tell us through the forms on our website, by email, by phone or in messages on social media, including records of phone calls.
• Technical data: your IP address, browser type and version, device, operating system, time zone and the pages you visit.
• Usage data: how you use our website, such as the pages you view and how you reached us, for example from an advert.
• Marketing preferences: whether you want to hear from us about offers and how you prefer to be contacted.

How we collect your data

• Directly from you: when you fill in a form on our website, apply for a cover plan, book work with us, call or email us, message us on social media, or speak to one of our engineers. If you opt in to marketing, you always do so through a clear action of your own, such as ticking a box that is not already ticked.
• Automatically: when you browse our website, we collect technical and usage data through cookies and similar technologies. See “Cookies” below.
• From third parties: we may receive data from payment processors and fraud prevention services. We do not buy email lists or contact details from marketing databases.

How and why we use your data

Under the UK GDPR we must have a lawful basis for using your personal data. We rely on:

• Performance of a contract: what we need to do to provide your cover plan or carry out work you have asked for, or to take steps you have asked for before entering a contract, such as giving you a quote.
• Legitimate interests: what we need to do to run our business, provided this does not override your rights. This includes preventing fraud, recovering debts, defending legal claims, keeping business records, improving our services and running our website.
• Legal obligation: what we must do by law, such as tax reporting to HMRC and keeping gas safety records.
• Consent: where you have clearly agreed, such as opting in to marketing emails. You can withdraw consent at any time.

We use your data for these purposes:

• Providing your cover plan and carrying out repairs, servicing and installations. Identity, contact, property and service, and financial data. Lawful basis: performance of a contract.
• Taking payments, recovering debts and responding to payment disputes. Identity, contact, financial and service data. Lawful basis: performance of a contract; legitimate interests (debt recovery and fraud prevention).
• Answering your enquiries, giving quotes and providing customer support. Identity, contact and communications data. Lawful basis: legitimate interests; performance of a contract.
• Keeping gas safety, servicing and installation records. Identity, contact, and property and service data. Lawful basis: legal obligation; legitimate interests.
• Sending marketing by email or text message. Identity, contact data and marketing preferences. Lawful basis: consent.
• Detecting and preventing fraud. Identity, contact, financial and technical data. Lawful basis: legitimate interests.
• Meeting tax, accounting and regulatory requirements. Identity, contact, financial and service data. Lawful basis: legal obligation.
• Defending or pursuing legal claims, including product liability and insurance claims. Identity, contact, financial, service and communications data. Lawful basis: legitimate interests; legal obligation.
• Running, analysing and improving our website, and measuring our adverts. Technical and usage data. Lawful basis: legitimate interests.

Marketing

We only send you marketing where you have opted in, for example by ticking a box that is not already ticked or signing up through a form. We do not buy email lists or get contact details from marketing databases.

If you are already a customer, we may rely on the “soft opt-in” under Regulation 22 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR) to tell you about similar services, as long as you were given a clear chance to opt out when we first collected your details and in every message since.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in any of our emails, or by emailing support@applianceworldonline.com. Opting out of marketing does not stop messages about your cover plan, bookings or payments.

Who we share your data with

We may share your personal data with:

• Engineers, including our own Gas Safe registered engineers, to carry out work you have asked for.
• Payment processors, to take your payments securely.
• Boiler and appliance manufacturers, for warranty registration, product recalls, parts, repairs and servicing.
• Insurers and warranty providers, where relevant to the products or services you have with us.
• Tally, the provider of the forms on our website, which stores what you send us through them.
• Google, which provides Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager, to understand how our website is used.
• Meta (Facebook and Instagram), through the Meta Pixel on our website, to measure our adverts and show them to people who have visited our site.
• Email and marketing platforms, to send you marketing where you have opted in.
• IT service providers, for website hosting, maintenance, security and analytics.
• Professional advisers, including accountants, lawyers and insurers, where necessary.
• Gas Safe Register and local authority building control, when we notify them of a new boiler installation, as the Building Regulations require.
• HMRC, regulators and law enforcement, where the law requires it.

Our service providers may only use your data on our instructions and in line with data protection law, and may not use it for their own purposes. We never sell your personal data.

How long we keep your data

We keep personal data only for as long as we need it for the purposes it was collected for, or as the law requires:

• Transaction records (including cover plans, payments and bookings): 10 years from the date of purchase. This is required under the Consumer Protection Act 1987 (product liability) and the Limitation Act 1980, and lets us respond to chargebacks, disputes and insurance claims.
• Installation, servicing, repair and gas safety records: 10 years from the date of the work, for product liability, Gas Safe compliance and insurance claims.
• Financial and tax records: 6 years from the end of the relevant tax year, as HMRC requires.
• Enquiries that did not lead to work: up to 24 months from the date of the enquiry.
• Marketing data: for as long as you stay subscribed. If you stop engaging with our emails, we may stop sending them, but we keep a record that you have been removed so we do not contact you again.
• Website analytics and technical data: up to 26 months.

We may keep data for longer if there is an ongoing dispute, claim, complaint or legal obligation. After the relevant period, we securely delete or anonymise it.

Why we keep records: if a boiler we have fitted or repaired develops a fault, or a payment is disputed, we need proper records to respond. Without them, neither we nor our customers would have anything to rely on if there were a claim.

International transfers

Some of our service providers, such as Google and Meta, process data outside the UK, including in the United States. Where this happens, we make sure appropriate safeguards are in place, such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, Standard Contractual Clauses with the UK Addendum, the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, or transfers to countries with a UK adequacy decision.

Your rights

Under the UK GDPR you have the right to:

• Access: ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Correction: ask us to correct data that is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Erasure: ask us to delete your data where there is no good reason for us to keep it. We may need to keep some data for legal or regulatory reasons (see “How long we keep your data”).
• Restriction: ask us to limit how we use your data in certain circumstances.
• Portability: ask for a copy of your data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
• Objection: object to us using your data on the basis of legitimate interests. You can always object to direct marketing.
• Withdraw consent: where we rely on your consent, withdraw it at any time. This does not affect anything we did before you withdrew it.

To use any of these rights, email support@applianceworldonline.com. We will reply within one month. We may need to confirm your identity first. There is no fee, unless a request is clearly unfounded or excessive.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data or your request, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We would appreciate the chance to put things right first, so please contact us before you go to the ICO.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies. Cookies are small text files stored on your device that help us understand how our website is used and improve it. We use:

• Strictly necessary cookies, where needed for the website and its forms to work.
• Analytics cookies: Google Analytics, loaded through Google Tag Manager, shows us how visitors use our website so we can improve it.
• Marketing cookies: the Meta Pixel helps us measure our Facebook and Instagram adverts and show them to people who have visited our website.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, although some parts of the website may not work properly without them. You can also stop Google Analytics with Google’s opt-out browser add-on, and control the adverts you see on Facebook and Instagram in the ad preferences in your Meta Accounts Centre. For more about cookies, visit allaboutcookies.org.

Security

We take the security of your personal data seriously and use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect it against unauthorised access, loss, destruction or alteration. These include SSL/TLS encryption across our website, PCI DSS-compliant payment processing, and restricted access for staff.

Children

Our services are not aimed at children under 18, and we do not knowingly collect their personal data. If you believe a child has given us personal data, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

Links to other websites

Our website links to other websites, such as Appliance World Online and our Facebook page. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of other websites, so please read the privacy policy of any website you visit.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology or the law. We will change the “Last updated” date at the top and, where appropriate, tell you about significant changes.

Contact us

If you have a question about this policy, want to use your rights, or are worried about how we handle your data, please contact us:

• Data protection enquiries: support@applianceworldonline.com
• General enquiries: 0161 794 3030 (option 2) or repairs@applianceworldonline.com
• Post: My Central Heating, Appliance World Online Limited, 543-547 Bolton Road, Pendlebury, Manchester, M27 8QT

For the purposes of data protection law, Appliance World Online Limited is the data controller of your personal information.