Potterton data plate: where the serial number and GC number are

Where is the serial number on a Potterton boiler?

On the drop-down panel on the front, or on a tag that slides out from underneath. That is the answer Baxi gives for the group's boilers, and it holds across the Potterton range because the serial is printed twice. It is on the appliance data badge behind the case, and again on an information label put where it can be read without a panel coming off. On a Titanium Heat that label is under the boiler, and the user guide asks you not to remove or cover the serial number label affixed to the slide-out flap at the boiler lower left. On an Assure it is under the front of the outercase and swings or pulls forward gently. If the label has gone, Baxi Customer Support on 0344 871 1545 is the number printed in Potterton's own user guides.

What is a GC number?

A GC number is the Gas Council number, a seven digit appliance reference written in the form 00-000-00 and printed on the data badge next to the model and the serial. It names the exact appliance variant rather than the range on the front of the case, which is why Potterton lists one per output at the front of every installation manual. Two families run through the whole range: a combi carries a 47 number, and a system, heat only or store model carries a 41 number. That is the quickest sanity check on a badge you have half read, and it is why one Titanium name splits into 47-393-50 on the 24 combi and 41-592-61 on the 12 heat only.

Where is the data plate on each Potterton range?

It moves by range, so read the table before you start taking panels off. Every row below comes from Potterton's own installation and service manual for that model, or from the user guide where that is where the wording sits. The pattern holds across the range even as the wording changes: the data badge lives behind the case front, and a second information label carries the same numbers somewhere you can reach with the case on.

Two habits save time on site. Read the user label first, because it carries the same numbers without a panel coming off, and on the Assure, the Promax Ultra and the Promax SL Heat that label gives you the GC number as well as the serial. And leave the screws alone: if the boiler is boxed in, high up or awkward to reach, the model's manual and Baxi Customer Support will both confirm the numbers from the serial without anyone balancing on a worktop.

What are the GC numbers for the Potterton ranges?

Every output has its own, printed at the front of the installation manual or on the model range panel of the user guide. The rows below were read out of Potterton's manuals for each range, on natural gas. Check the output on the badge against the middle column before you write anything down, because the number moves with the output and again with the boiler type. Potterton prints these with spaces in the older manuals and hyphens in the newer ones, and the number is the same either way.

Look at the Promax System HE Plus rows before you assume a range runs in sequence. The 12, 15, 18 and 32 sit in 41-591-90 to 41-591-93, and the 24 jumps to 41-601-21, so interpolating from the model either side gets you a number that belongs to a different appliance. The Assure System is missing from the table above on purpose. The only Assure System manual we could read prints its numbers with a 47 prefix, which is the combi family, while every other Potterton system and heat only boiler uses 41, and we would rather leave a gap than publish a figure we cannot stand behind. Read that one off the badge.

How do I register a Potterton boiler and check the guarantee?

Register it with Baxi within 30 days of installation, and either the installer or the householder can do it. Potterton's own user guides send you to www.baxi.co.uk/registration, and the Baxi warranty terms set that 30 day window, with the clock running from completion of the sale rather than the installation date on a new build. The My Baxi warranty portal at warranty.baxi.co.uk carries Potterton alongside Baxi, Main, Megaflo and Heatrae Sadia, and it is where you check what is left on an existing guarantee. Older Potterton user guides give the registration line 0800 013 7989 as the alternative to the online route.

Miss any of that and the cover drops to twelve months. Baxi's warranty terms say that where the Benchmark, registration and annual service conditions are not met, the warranty is limited to 12 months from the date of installation as recorded on the Benchmark commissioning checklist. Met in full, it runs to whatever the model carries, and Baxi advertises a 7 year parts and labour warranty on the Potterton Titanium Heat subject to its terms. Two limits are worth knowing before you promise anything on a customer's behalf. A repair carried out under the warranty does not extend it beyond the original period, and the cover is on the boiler and its integrated controls, not on time switches, thermostats, motorised valves or the rest of the system.

How old is my Potterton boiler?

Read the serial number and ask Baxi, because no public decode exists. Baxi says the serial number has all the information needed for them to tell you when the boiler was manufactured, and neither Potterton nor Baxi publishes a digit by digit chart, so there is no honest way to work a build date off the badge on site. Plenty of forum posts claim the third and fourth digits are the year, or that the year and month sit just after a factory code. They contradict each other, none of them comes from the manufacturer, and none of them belongs on a record.

• What Baxi will give you from the serial: the make, the model and the date of manufacture, once you ring it through.
• The second route to an approximate age: the industry product database Baxi links from its own age FAQ, at ncm-pcdb.org.uk, which returns the years a model was in production rather than the age of the boiler in front of you.
• A rough bracket off the badge itself: an ErP suffix on a Promax, Titanium or Ultra puts the appliance after the 2015 ErP changeover, while the Gold Combi HE and Promax Combi HE Plus instructions carry a 2007 copyright, so those badges are older again.
• A transcription trap: the security code printed with the serial is not part of it, and the My Baxi portal asks you to leave it out.
• What not to try: reading a date out of the digits. No decode is published, so anything you get that way is a guess with a number attached to it.

Where do Potterton manuals and support live now?

On baxi.co.uk. Potterton is a Baxi Heating brand under BDR Thermea, potterton.co.uk now redirects to baxi.co.uk, and Baxi's own brands page lists Potterton among its commercial names while the surviving domestic model, the Potterton Titanium Heat, sits in the heat only section of the Baxi catalogue. The older Potterton literature is still served from the potterton.co.uk media library, which is where the Promax, Titanium, Assure and Ultra manuals cited below came from, so a dead link on a search results page does not mean the manual has gone. Support, warranty registration and spares all run through Baxi.

What to copy onto the record

• Make and model exactly as printed on the badge, not as the customer describes it.
• GC number in full, including the dashes, so the appliance variant is unambiguous. A 47 prefix on a system boiler or a 41 on a combi means you have misread a digit.
• Serial number from the badge or the information label, which is also what a warranty registration or a guarantee check needs.
• Gas category and connection pressure, so the appliance can be checked against the supply on site.
• Anything that does not match the Benchmark book or the previous record, noted as found.

Reading the badge is the fiddly bit of every CP12, and a Potterton makes you work for it. Manifold's PlateScan reads the make, model and GC number straight off the data plate with your phone camera, drops them into the record, and keeps the appliance history for the property so the next visit starts from the right unit.