Anyone with a heat pump urged to 'keep it on constant day and night' as costs revealed

Yahoo

11-02-2025

Anyone with a heat pump in their home is being urged to 'keep it on constant day and night' by an expert. Heat pumps are widely regarded as a crucial component in reducing carbon emissions from properties.
The number of heat pumps being installed jumped 43 percent last year as small-scale renewables reached record highs, figures show.
There were almost 60,000 certified installations of heat pumps in 2024, according to data from the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS), bringing the total number of certified heat pump installations in UK homes and small businesses to more than 275,000.
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But despite this, installation rates are still much lower than the target of 600,000 heat pump installations a year by 2028 set by the conservatives as part of the drive to cut greenhouse gas emissions from home heating and curb reliance on gas.
The boiler upgrade scheme in England and Wales offers homeowners and small business owners grants of up to £7,500 for installing heat pumps, which has played a key part in accelerating the take-up of the technology.
Homeowners who already have them installed are now being advised to 'maintain a constant temperature at all times', allowing the property to store warmth in its walls, thereby reducing heat loss and enabling the heat pump to operate at optimal efficiency.
Richard Smithson, a retired GP residing with his wife in a six-bedroom Edwardian semi-detached villa in North Tyneside, opted to replace his gas boiler with a heat pump two and a half years ago. His motivation was to "reduce our carbon footprint and also to try and act as a pioneer, an example to other people that it can be done".
Their home was already equipped with double-glazing, but the installation process, which cost £11,000 after a then-£5,000 government grant, entailed underfloor insulation, new radiators, and zoning the heating system.
"This house was never that warm with the gas boiler, I'd say it was warmer now with the heat pump," Richard says. He finds his heat pump to be economically efficient, operating chiefly at night when variable tariffs lower the cost of energy used to charge his electric car.
He reports that his electricity bills have actually decreased compared to what they were spending on gas previously. "Some people say how long is it before you get your money back," he says.
"That's irrelevant, if you're a retiring professional who's fairly well-off, which you will be if you live in this kind of house, and you get a big lump sum, do you spend it on a round-the-world cruise or do you spend it on a heat pump. To me there's only one answer – get a heat pump."
Meanwhile, Nick Barr who lives in a sizable Edwardian home in South London, initially doubted the suitability of heat pumps for older, larger homes. However, his engineer-installer adeptly crafted a heating plan involving correct radiator sizing, piping, and boosting the home's energy efficiency.
The homeowner describes his heat pump as efficient, "elegant" and very quiet. He advises others in investing in such technology sensible for new installations or system replacements, stating: "It's not cheap, but if you're putting something in new or if you've got to replace a system, it does make sense."
He also emphasised the importance of conducting a heat loss calculation for your property to facilitate informed decisions and expressed no regrets about his choice.
Andy Balaam, a software engineer, chose to install a heat pump in his four-bedroom Victorian detached house in Surrey in 2021, aiming to reduce its environmental impact. He found the installation process "surprisingly OK", although it required a reliable company to fine-tune the system in the initial weeks for optimal performance.
"I was worried whether it was going to make the house warm, I was worried it was going to cost a lot of money and worried if it was going to be reliable," he admitted. Despite the heat pump being "not attractive and it's noisy", it's tucked away at the side of the house, and Dr Balaam confirmed: "It absolutely warms our house effectively, it's much nicer than it was before."
Leah Robson, managing director of Your Energy Your Way, primarily serves clients with properties difficult to heat using heat pumps - noted that the comfort level they provide is something people "really don't expect about" them.
"People are genuinely concerned, often they're struggling to heat their home as it is," she said. "And when you turn up and say, 'yes, you can have a heat pump and yes, you will be able to run it all day and it won't cost you any more to run than your gas boiler', people are understandably a little bit sceptical."
The installations her firm undertakes are "not cheap projects", she noted, but added that "sometimes it's just not the right thing but, typically, even in a solid wall house, if it's got double glazing and reasonable loft insulation we can fit a heat pump".
This is supported by a demonstration project led by the Energy Systems Catapult (ESC), which found that heat pumps could be successfully installed in all types of homes.
Of the 742 homes fitted with heat pumps for the project, 8 percent were pre-1919 properties, mostly detached or semi-detached, despite older homes presenting "more challenging" installation due to project constraints. Daniel Logue from ESC stated that monitoring revealed the age and type of house had no impact on the efficiency of the heat pumps.
"If a trained installer says that your house could have a heat pump, and installs it correctly, it should perform well regardless of the type or age," he added.