Your heat supplier must meet their legal metering obligations under the Heat Networks (Metering and Billing) Regulations. You can find a summary of these obligations on our webpage here.

Not all heat networks have to be metered under the regulations. But if your heat network is metered, then our Scheme requires your heat supplier to ensure that:

• Your heat meter and any heat cost allocators operate continuously and accurately, and are inspected every two years.

• You have temperature control devices installed in your home, to help you control your heat use.

• You have an accessible way to view your heat use (this could be by reading your meter, using a separate in-home display, or viewing your usage online).

• They give you information on:

• • How to read your meter and submit readings (if you have a credit meter); or

• • How to use, top up and access emergency credit on your meter (if you have a pre-payment, or ‘pay as you go’, meter).

• It’s safe and reasonably practicable for you to use a pre-payment meter, before switching you from a credit to pre-payment arrangement.

• They read your meter themselves at least once a year, if you have a credit meter.

Regardless of whether your heat network is metered, your heat supplier must inspect your home’s Heat Interface Unit (HIU) at least every two years.

Your heat supplier will need you to let them into your home to carry out equipment inspections. See our section on faults, emergencies and outages below for our rules about when they can access your home.

Your heat supplier must meet their legal billing obligations under the Heat Networks (Metering and Billing) Regulations. You can find a summary of these obligations on our webpage here.

If you have a credit meter, then our Scheme requires your heat supplier to:

• Provide you with bills and annual account statements that include:

• • A breakdown of your heat charges, including both fixed and variable charges.

• • Your total heat use and charges for the period.

• • Details of the payment methods available to you.

• Bill you based on your actual metered consumption wherever reasonably practicable and at least once a year.

• Set a final due date for payment that’s not less than 14 days from the bill date.

If you have a pre-payment meter, then our Scheme requires your heat supplier to:

• Provide you, as a minimum, with an annual account statement that shows:

• • Your heat use and your heat charges for the period.

• • A breakdown of your charges (including both fixed and variable charges).

If you’re on an unmetered heat network, then our Scheme requires your heat supplier to:

• Provide you with bills and annual account statements that include:

• • A breakdown of your heat charges.

• • Your total charges for the period.

• • An explanation of how your bill has been derived.

• • Details of the payment methods available to you.

• Set a final due date for payment that’s not less than 14 days from the bill date.

Your heat supplier must also:

• Provide you with the option to receive bills in at least paper or electronic format.

• Ensure that, if you pay by direct debit, they review your payments at least annually to check that they’re sufficient (but not excessive) to cover your heat use.

• Ensure that they don’t charge you for any heat used on a date when you weren’t responsible for the heat supply (in order for them to be able to comply with this, it’s important that you notify them when you first move in and if you move out).

• Ensure that they don’t back-bill you if more than 12 months has passed and they are at fault (for example, if they’ve failed to obtain or use accurate meter readings).

• Clearly explain to you the circumstances in which your heat charges may change in the future.

• Ensure that they don’t change your charges more frequently than once every 6 months.

• Give you at least 31 days’ notice of any changes to your heat charges.

• Enable you to contact them with bill queries and explain your bill to you on request.

As a voluntary Scheme, Heat Trust can't regulate the actual prices charged to you by your heat supplier. However, you can find an explanation here of how your prices are likely to be calculated.

If you’d like to get an indication of your annual heating and hot water cost for a similar-sized home if it had an individual gas boiler, please use our Heat Cost Calculator here. Please note though that its results are indicative, for information only, and can’t give an exact like-for-like comparison for any individual consumer's situation.

If you’re having difficulty paying your heat bills, then our Scheme requires your heat supplier to:

• Make proactive contact with you if they reasonably believe that you may have difficulty paying.

• Work closely with you to help resolve payment difficulties.

• Make every reasonable effort to help you restructure your payments to be manageable and affordable for you.

• Take account of your individual circumstances and ability to pay, when arranging a repayment plan or when restructuring repayment for you.

• Take reasonable steps to ensure that you understand your repayment arrangement.

• Monitor and re-engage with you if your repayment arrangement fails, including discussing whether a different repayment plan or repayment method is more suitable for you.

• Ensure that, before switching you to a pre-payment arrangement, it’s safe and reasonably practicable for you to use a pre-payment meter.

• Ensure that, if you have a pre-payment meter, they provide you with a minimum amount of emergency credit (and ‘friendly hours’ credit, if supported by the meter) and explain to you how to use this.

• Consider referring you to specialist debt advice and support.

• Ensure that they only suspend your supply (disconnect you) as a last resort, once the payment deadline in their final demand letter has passed, and that they resume your supply once you've agreed a course of action with them or met their conditions.

Unless otherwise set out in your heat supply arrangement, your heat supplier must provide you with a continuous supply of heat and hot water that meets the minimum technical parameters stated in that arrangement.

Your heat supplier must have a maintenance plan for your heat network as well as a contingency plan for outages, and must provide you with information about these on request.

Your heat supplier must provide you with a way to report faults and emergencies by phone, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week (including bank holidays).

With the exception of emergencies, your heat supplier must give you at least 48 hours’ notice if they need to access your home. They must make reasonable endeavours to agree a time with you to do this within normal working hours.

Section 6 of our Scheme Rules specifies certain guaranteed performance standards relating to supply interruptions (outages). If a planned or unplanned interruption occurs to your heat supply that’s caused by equipment that isn’t your responsibility, and if the interruption isn’t resolved in line with our performance standards, then your heat supplier must pay you compensation. In some circumstances, you may need to submit a claim to receive this.

If you’re in a vulnerable situation, then our Scheme requires your heat supplier to:

• Record that you’re in a vulnerable situation (this might be by adding you to their Priority Services Register).

• Offer you extra protections, such as use of passwords for home visits and/or enabling you to nominate someone else to receive your bills for you.

• Provide you with extra advice on understanding your heat bill or account statement.

• Ensure that your heat supply isn’t suspended or disconnected between the start of October and the end of March.

• Make reasonable arrangements to supply you with alternative sources of heating, if your heat network experiences an outage for more than 12 hours.

• Signpost you to other sources of support.

‘Vulnerable situations’ can include situations related to age, a physical or mental health condition, disability, low income, financial insecurity or bereavement. This list is non-exhaustive and your heat supplier must also consider other circumstances that might mean you become unable to safeguard your personal welfare, or the personal welfare of other members of your household.

If you're more likely than a typical customer to have difficulty communicating, then your heat supplier must:

• Add you to their Priority Services Register.

• Provide you with additional support, which might include:

• Offering you the use of passwords for home visits.

• Enabling you to nominate someone else to receive your bills for you.

• Providing you with billing information in a different format or language that's more accessible to you.

• Reading your meter for you, if you're not able to.

Our Scheme requires your heat supplier to have a process for handling customer complaints and to clearly set out this process to you. If you’re unhappy with how they’ve handled your complaint, you can refer it to the independent Energy Ombudsman.

You can find out more about this on our Complaints page here.

As a voluntary Scheme, Heat Trust can't regulate prices or set requirements about contract length. We also can't set technical standards for heat network design or performance, although (as above) our Scheme does require heat suppliers to pay consumers compensation for outages that don't meet our customer service standards.