Data last verified: 12 October 2026. Figures re-checked against their primary sources under the Whito rolling re-verification programme.
Last Updated on October 12, 2026
Status: specified, not yet collected. This page sets out a study Whito has designed and will run. It contains no findings. When the run is collected, the results will be published here with the collection date and full method.
Drainage is an unlicensed distress trade with a heavy broker layer: national brands take the booking and a local van does the job. When an engine answers a drain emergency, nothing in the answer says whether the name is a company that exists, a brand that subcontracts, or a lead site. This study classes every name, and counts the brand-versus-local split the customer never sees.
The question we will ask
“Who can unblock a drain in [town]?”, with the town name substituted for each of the twelve.
Engines: ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode, asked the same question on the same day, each in a fresh session.
Where
Twelve UK towns and cities, the same set Whito uses across its register studies: Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester, Coventry, Newcastle, Cardiff, Southampton and Brighton.
The register, and how every name gets classed
No licence exists, so every recommended name goes against Companies House, and its operating model gets classed from its own public pages. Each name lands in exactly one class:
- Local firm, verified. An active company that attends with its own vans in that area.
- National brand or broker. A real business whose model is booking and subcontracting; lawful, margin-bearing, and worth counting.
- Unverifiable. No matchable company record under the trading name or a traceable legal name.
- Dissolved. The entity behind the recommendation is gone from the register.
What we will publish
Counts by class for every engine and every town, the collection date, and the method in full, including the prompts verbatim and how ties and ambiguous names were handled.
Why this check, in this trade
A blocked drain is decided in minutes, at the exact moment a customer is least able to check anything. The engines inherit the same brand-heavy search landscape that already dominates this trade, and the study measures what that means in practice: how often the “local” recommendation is local, real, and still trading.
ed, and gave a registration number twice. https://whito.co.uk/gas-engineers/research/ai-gas-engineer-recommendations-gas-safe/. Free to quote with a link.Corrections and right of reply
If your business is named in this research and you think we have a fact wrong, email hello@whito.co.uk. We check it against the register, correct it within five working days if we are wrong, and publish your statement alongside if you want us to. Full route: corrections, right of reply and removals.
Questions
Can I trust an AI answer that says a gas engineer is Gas Safe registered?
Treat it as a claim to check. On 3 October 2026, 36 answers from ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode in 12
If your business is named here and you think we have a fact wrong, email hello@whito.co.uk and we will check it and correct it. If you want to respond, send us a statement and we will publish it alongside. Full detail: Corrections, right of reply and removals.
