steve
About Me
My name is Steven Duval, and this is the story of my career as a Gas Safe registered plumbing and central heating engineer — a trade I worked in for 50 years before retiring.
How it started
I left school at 15, which was the leaving age back then. My dad was a plumber, and he was clear that I needed a trade behind me — that was how you got on in life if university wasn’t an option, and back then, it rarely was.
I took an apprenticeship with a local company in East London, on the central heating side of the business — central heating itself was still a luxury in most homes at the time. Three years in, I was being sent out to complete jobs on my own, and I found I had a real knack for fault-finding — tracing a problem quickly, without needing to lean on diagrams the way most other engineers did.
Building Duval Heating
Once my apprenticeship finished, I stayed on as a self-employed engineer, then after about five years, I set up on my own — and that’s when I became Duval Heating.
I built the company up over time to more than 50 engineers working under me. It sounds impressive, but in practice it became difficult to manage — particularly around the standard of work being left behind in customers’ homes. I’ve always believed that if you’re working in someone’s property, you treat it like your own: dust sheets down, every job, no exceptions, and leave the place as clean as you found it. When that standard slipped, I made the decision to cut back to a smaller team of ten of my best engineers.
Eventually, I decided to go back to working entirely on my own — and it was one of the best decisions I made. Over the years that followed, I built up a loyal base of customers through boiler servicing, control upgrades, and fault-finding — often the same customers who’d gone elsewhere for a cheaper quote, only to call me back a few weeks later to sort out the problem properly.
Why this site exists
I’ve seen the industry change enormously — from floor-standing boilers to wall-mounted combis, from basic controls to today’s smart thermostats. One thing that hasn’t changed is how easy it is for people to spend money on the wrong equipment, simply because nobody explained what actually suits their home.
Now that I’m retired, I want to help people choose the right product and avoid wasting money on expensive controls. If you have any questions, please drop me a message — it will be my pleasure to help.