Boiler installation in WolvertonMilton Keynes MK12

Wolverton sits in the north west of Milton Keynes and covers the MK12 postcode district, which also takes in Old Wolverton, Greenleys, Hodge Lea, Stacey Bushes and Wolverton Mill. Work started on the Wolverton Works site in 1838 as part of the infrastructure for the new London to Birmingham Railway, and the town grew from the 1830s onwards under the railway companies, with terraced housing, schools, a church and shops built to serve the people who worked there.

In 2001 the town centre and the core area of Victorian terraces were designated a conservation area. The character assessment carried out for the 2008 and 2009 review of that area picks out late nineteenth and early twentieth century terraced housing arranged in rectangular blocks with continuous frontages, almost exclusive use of brick and slate, and the narrow interconnecting backways behind the residential streets.

Milton Keynes City Council also lists an Article 4 Direction covering the Wolverton conservation area. It restricts permitted development on houses for extensions and alterations to elevations fronting a road, including side elevations on corner properties. Separately, national guidance on flues says that in a designated area a flue should not be fitted on a principal or side elevation that fronts a highway, and that it is sensible to check with the local planning authority first. Those national allowances are for houses. Flats and maisonettes are treated differently, so if you live in one, ask the council before anything is fitted.

We are a referral service, not planners and not the installer. Nothing here is planning advice. If your property is in the conservation area, speak to the council planning team and ask the installer to tell you exactly where the flue would go before any work is booked.

Greenleys, next door, was built on former agricultural and allotment land taken on by the Milton Keynes Development Corporation, and people began moving in during the early 1970s. Later homes like these usually have cavity walls, a boiler already sited in a kitchen or utility room, and pipework that was laid with modern appliances in mind, so a swap is often more straightforward than in an older terrace.

That said, a 1970s or 1980s house is now old enough to be on its second or third boiler. Controls are often the weak point: a replacement boiler has to be fitted with time and temperature controls, and a combi needs an extra energy saving measure such as a smart or weather compensating control, so budget for the controls as part of the job.

What moves your figure is the property, not the postcode: the boiler you pick, the flue route, whether the gas supply needs upgrading, and whether you are changing system type. There is a fuller breakdown on our new boiler cost page. The number that counts is the written one the installer gives you after seeing the house.