08-05-2025
Are heat pumps financially worth it?
Having grown up in a draughty house, Phil Hunter is still not used to the sensation of all his rooms being the same temperature. Until he installed a heat pump and new radiators in his Victorian semi in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in October, he had always taken it for granted that the way to stay warm was to crank up the boiler, turn up the living room radiators and close the doors.
Now, however, he leaves them open. 'It just feels odd, when you've been brought up in the Eighties and Nineties,' he says. Whereas many gas boilers are designed to deliver quick bursts of heat on demand, his new heating system works for much of the day to keep the house at a steady 20C.
