This notice explains how Essential Heating Services Limited uses personal information when you use our engineer workspace and calculator. Contact admin@essentialheatingservices.co.uk or write to our registered office shown on this page.
Our role
We are responsible for account, billing, support and service-security information. Your business is responsible for the customer, property and job information it enters into its workspace. We host and process that record information on your business’s instructions, as described in our subscription terms. If an engineer or company has entered your details, you may contact that business about the record or contact us for help identifying the appropriate route.
What we collect
Account information includes your name, email address, password hash, company membership and role. Company setup can include business address, contact details, company and professional registration numbers, and engineer names and licence details. Records can contain customer, tenant, landlord or agent names, installation addresses, contact details, appliance information, readings, findings, work notes, dates, record numbers and drawn signatures.
Quotes and invoices can also contain item descriptions, quantities, prices, VAT details, payment terms, due dates and cash-payment status. You can optionally save business bank details in Company setup for bank-payment invoices. Issued documents retain their original details. Cash-paid invoices omit bank details. When your authorised team downloads or emails a document, its included information is shared with the chosen recipient or saved on the downloading device.
We also hold saved plan preferences, subscription and payment-status identifiers, team invitations, one-time email confirmation and account recovery tokens and an audit of workspace actions. The application uses connection information for security and abuse prevention. Our hosting and payment providers may process technical information in supplying their services.
Why we use it
We use information to create and secure accounts, provide company workspaces, save and recover records, manage team access, generate requested documents, administer subscriptions and respond to support or privacy requests.
For individuals contracting with us, necessary account and subscription processing supports that contract. For business representatives and team members, we rely on our legitimate interests in providing and securing the business service. Security, fraud prevention and resolving service disputes also support those legitimate interests. We rely on legal obligations where applicable to financial records or responding to lawful requests. Your business determines the lawful basis for its own customer and job records.
Required account information is needed to create and secure an account. You choose what optional contact information to add; relevant record fields must be completed before a document can be issued. Registration does not subscribe you to marketing emails unless you actively tick the optional product updates and offers checkbox. We record the choice, date, source and consent wording. You can change your preference or unsubscribe in Your account at any time. Essential service and security emails continue independently of this choice. We do not send offers merely because an account is free or paid.
Connected company email
Your company owner may connect a mailbox and choose whether company engineers can send from it. We store the mailbox address, sender name, connection date and an encrypted app password or authorisation token. Connection secrets are not returned to the browser or included in editable workspace backups. We use the connection to send only the document emails that an authorised user confirms; the application does not read your inbox or send marketing messages through this feature.
When you confirm sending, we pass your chosen recipient, subject, message and issued PDF attachments to the selected mailbox provider (Apple/iCloud, Google, Microsoft or Hostinger, where available). That provider processes them under your mailbox agreement and its privacy and transfer arrangements. Your business chooses the recipient and is responsible for sharing the correct document. Replies go to the connected mailbox. We retain the sender, recipient, subject, record references, request time and provider acceptance or failure status in the company email history. Provider acceptance does not establish delivery or reading. We do not store a separate email-body or attachment copy in that history.
Disconnecting removes the connection secret from active storage and prevents further sends through it. It does not recall messages, erase history or remove information held by the recipient or provider. Protected operator backups can retain encrypted connection information under the recovery and retention arrangements below. You can also revoke access or the app password with your provider. Google and Microsoft sign-in availability depends on Essential’s provider application configuration.
Essential’s use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We request permission to send emails you confirm; we do not request access to read your Gmail inbox.
How we protect your information
We use HTTPS to encrypt information in transit between your browser and Essential. Our Google sign-in, identity and Gmail API connections also use HTTPS. Google authorisation tokens and connected-mailbox app passwords are encrypted before they are stored in our database, using AES-256-GCM authenticated encryption. The encryption key material is held separately in the server configuration, rather than in the database or an editable workspace backup. Each encrypted mailbox credential is bound to its company connection.
Google access and refresh tokens are handled by the server and are not returned to your browser. Essential does not ask for or store your normal Google account password. Account passwords for Essential are stored as hashes. Sign-in sessions, company membership and role checks restrict access to company workspaces. Only the company owner can connect, replace or disconnect its mailbox and choose whether engineers may send from it. Our Google connection uses a short-lived, one-time authorisation request, session and company checks, and PKCE to protect the sign-in handoff.
For Google connections, we request only openid, email and gmail.send. We use the verified Google email address to identify and display the connected sender. We use Gmail sending permission only to send the recipient, subject, message and issued PDF attachments that an authorised company user has reviewed and explicitly confirmed. Google user data is not used for advertising, sold to data brokers, or used to develop, improve or train general-purpose artificial intelligence or machine-learning models. Essential does not request Gmail inbox-reading, contacts or mailbox-deletion permission.
Connection secrets are available to the server processes that need them to provide the requested email feature. Authorised administration is limited to service support, security, recovery and legal obligations as described in this notice. Disconnecting deletes the encrypted connection secret from active application storage; any retained protected operator backup remains subject to the recovery and retention arrangements below. You may also revoke Essential's access in your Google Account. Contact admin@essentialheatingservices.co.uk to request deletion or ask about protection of your Google user data.
Who receives information
Authorised users in your company can access records according to their role. Essential administrators may access information where necessary for support, security or administration. Hostinger supplies the website and database hosting. Stripe supplies hosted checkout, subscription billing and the customer billing portal.
For billing, we send Stripe the company name, owner’s email address and company identifier. Stripe handles payment details on its own hosted pages; our application does not receive or store full card numbers or card security codes. Certificate contents and drawn signatures are not sent to Stripe by this integration. Stripe processes payment information under its own privacy notice. Support correspondence may also be handled through our email service.
Your requested PDFs, reports and editable backups are downloaded to your device. You decide whom to share them with. We may disclose relevant information where required by law or necessary to address fraud or a legal claim.
Hosting and international processing
Hostinger and Stripe operate internationally and may process information outside the United Kingdom. Their published data-processing and transfer arrangements describe the safeguards they apply, including applicable adequacy arrangements or contractual safeguards and the UK transfer addendum. Contact us for information about the arrangements relevant to your data.
How long information is kept
Retention depends on whether information is needed to provide your account and saved records, maintain security and recovery, administer payments, satisfy applicable legal obligations or resolve a dispute. Cancelling a subscription does not automatically close a free account or erase its records. No automatic workspace deletion schedule currently operates.
Issued record snapshots are protected from ordinary editing and deletion in the workspace; corrections are made as new records. This does not remove your data-protection rights. Contact us to request account closure, return or deletion of information. We will consider the relevant purposes, your business’s instructions and any applicable legal need to retain information. Provider-held information and copies already downloaded or shared have their own retention arrangements.
Your rights and complaints
Depending on the circumstances, you can ask to access, correct, delete, restrict or receive a portable copy of your personal information. You can separately object to processing based on legitimate interests. Contact admin@essentialheatingservices.co.uk; we may need to verify your identity and clarify which business controls the information. Deletion is subject to applicable legal exceptions.
You can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint. You may contact us first so we can try to resolve your concern, but this is not a condition of your right to complain.
Access decisions and updates
Subscription access and engineer capacity are calculated from verified payment and subscription records. Failed, refunded or disputed payments can restrict paid features; contact us if a status needs review. Our application does not use advertising profiles or credit scoring. Stripe’s own fraud and payment checks are described in its privacy information.
We will update this notice when the service or its data handling changes. The date above identifies this version.
Free-trial records and reminder emails
To administer the seven-day trial and prevent repeated claims, we store its start and end times, the company owner, normalised company identity details and one-way hashes used to compare business and account identifiers. Changing the signup email does not reset the company trial. We retain the eligibility record while it is needed to enforce the one-trial-per-business rule. Contact admin@essentialheatingservices.co.uk for an incorrect match or a data-rights request.
If you choose trial and purchase reminders, we record that separate choice and its wording version. We send up to three reminders: at the start, near expiry and after expiry. Each includes an unsubscribe link. We record delivery attempts to avoid duplicate reminders and suppress further trial messages after purchase or opt-out. These reminders do not contain customer records or certificate contents.