Two founders who wanted every job done to our own standard
Elevate South West is Rob Shute and Declan Taylor, with over forty years between us in heating and cooling.
We stay small on purpose, so the people who design your system are the people who look after it.
Why we started
Why we started Elevate
We are both fussy about how this work gets done. That is genuinely the reason Elevate exists.
We both spent a long time inside larger companies and learned a great deal there.
What we wanted was to make a promise to a customer and know we would be the ones keeping it. Standing in someone's kitchen, you want to say 'I will sort that' and know that you will.
So we built something small enough that we can. The person who designs your system installs it and comes back to service it. Nothing is handed to a subcontractor.
If something needs looking at in two years' time, you ring the same two people, and we will remember your house.
We started in 2024 and fitted around fifty heat pumps in our first year.
Our design engineer
Meet Rob Shute, who designs the heating
I went to an agency in 1999 looking for work, and they sent me to a small underfloor heating company out by Exeter Airport.
I had been told they made underfloor heating for aeroplanes. For my first few months nobody could work out why I kept asking which aircraft it went in.
At the time there were perhaps five underfloor heating companies in the whole country. I started in the warehouse, then moved into the office as a CAD designer.
I grew up with the industry as it went from a curiosity to every other new build, and that company grew big enough that a global pipe manufacturer bought it.
A year or so later, four of us left and started again from scratch, in the same building. That company became one of the largest underfloor heating names in Britain.
I was there sixteen years: designing, then project managing, then out on the road with builders and homeowners fitting the systems.
'Get the design right and the system quietly gets on with it for twenty years. That is the whole job, and it is the part I enjoy most.'
Rob ShuteA bit random, but I have always liked it. Most people assume underfloor heating started with the Romans. It did not. It goes back further than that, to ancient Greece.
I moved into heat pumps in 2014, visiting the manufacturers in Germany just as it was starting here, and have designed several hundred systems since.
These days I do the heat loss calculations, size the system and stand behind the number.
Our lead engineer
Meet Declan Taylor, our lead air conditioning and refrigeration engineer
I started as an apprentice at a commercial refrigeration company here in Devon, and stayed six or seven years. I trained as an electrician alongside it, which turns out to matter more than people expect on this kind of work.
Refrigeration teaches you to find faults as well as fit equipment. They are different skills, which is why we happily take on repairs to systems somebody else installed.
After sixteen years, most faults are ones I have seen before.
'I work to a very high standard, and being able to do that is one of the reasons we started this. Here I decide how every job gets done, and I would far rather do it properly.'
Declan TaylorI am F-Gas certified and Elevate is registered with Refcom. I have installed several hundred systems, from single bedrooms to a retail building in Exeter running fourteen indoor units from one outdoor unit.
The pipework is straight, everything is clipped and labelled, and I would happily have the plant areas photographed.
How we work
How we work
We do the design work before we give you a number
Every room measured and sized on its own, so the system that turns up is the one your house actually needs. It takes longer at the start and it is worth every minute of it.
You get complete peace of mind afterwards
Your annual service is booked before we leave and we come back to do it, keeping your warranty valid and the system at its best.
You have the same two people to call for as long as you own it, and we service and repair systems other people installed too.
We buy direct from the manufacturer
Elevate is a Daikin D1 partner, and we design around Vaillant, alpha innotec, Daikin, Clivet and Stiebel Eltron. Chosen for your house, not for our margin.
You can see real prices before you ring us
There are genuine figures on every service page, because you should be able to work out roughly where you stand before you pick up the phone.
Every heat pump installation is MCS certified
Through our independent certification partner, who check the design and the installation evidence before signing it off. You receive a valid MCS certificate and the full grant.
And if it is not right for you, we will say so
Sometimes the honest answer is a new boiler, or insulation first, or a portable unit. Telling you that is part of the job.
Where we work
We come to you, wherever you are in the South West
Elevate is based in Exeter and works across Devon, Somerset, Dorset and Cornwall. For breakdowns and repairs we travel further than we do for installations, so it is always worth asking.
There is no showroom and no trade counter. We come to your home or your building, which keeps our overheads down and is part of why our prices are what they are.
We are also proud to sponsor Topsham Rugby Club.
Get in touch
Ready when you are
Tell us what you need and you will get a realistic number back, along with a straight answer about what suits your home or your building best.
No obligation, and no salesman on your sofa.