Heat pumps divide opinion. Homeowners either like them or loathe them – but even those who have embraced these heating devices say they are fraught with problems.
Over the past month, hundreds of readers have contacted Money Mail to give their views on heat pumps which Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, is keen for homeowners to install to save the planet.
So keen, in fact, he is dangling massive financial carrots before the eyes of those (in England and Wales) who get one installed – grants up to £7,500 under the so-called Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS).
Alongside this, he is scrapping noise restrictions and lifting the limit on their size. Rather scarily, a Net Zero ‘nudge unit’ has been given government funding to combat ‘misinformation’ about the failings of heat pumps.
Mr Miliband’s view is clear-cut: heat pumps are good and gas boilers are bad so we should embrace the former for the greater good of the country and the planet. Balderdash. Borderline Orwellian.
Judging from what readers are telling Money Mail, it’s going to take more than nudges (more like almighty pushes) and self-righteous comments from government ministers to convert the public to the heat pump cause. Most homeowners remain sceptics and simply won’t entertain the thought of a heat pump in their home.
They’re happy with their existing gas boiler – some would even be prepared to buy a spare one and keep it under wraps until just before new gas boiler installations are banned. Although a 2035 ban looks like it will now be scrapped, a later ban will come in at some stage as sure as night follows day.
Other readers have looked at them, only to discover their properties are either unsuitable – or would require an expensive overhaul (new pipes, new radiators, new windows) to make them heat pump friendly.
Andy and Michelle Powell with their installed heat pump in their four-bedroom home just outside the market town of Berkeley in Gloucestershire
And then there are those who have adopted the new tech, only to discover that it is not as super-duper as Mr Miliband claims.
Here, Money Mail speaks to a broad spectrum of readers:
Adopters but would prefer gas
Last year, Andy and Michelle Powell had a new heat pump installed in their four-bedroom home just outside the market town of Berkeley in Gloucestershire.
It replaced the hybrid ground and air source pump heating system they inherited when they moved into the barn conversion property eight years ago.
Ground source heat pumps operate through the laying of underground pipes (typically in the back garden, as with the Powells) which then draw upon natural-occurring heat to ultimately warm radiators and water in the home. They typically cost between £15,000 and £30,000.
In contrast, air source pumps sit on the outside wall of a home, sucking in air which then interacts with a refrigerant – a chemical substance – to produce heat which can be used to warm radiators. They cost an average of £13,200.
‘The ground source pump, located in the garden, was installed in 2008,’ says Andy, a retired insurance broker. ‘But it was not providing enough heat for the owners, so the air pump was bolted on as an after-thought two years later.’
This hybrid heating system proved to be a bit of a nightmare for the Powells – it kept breaking down and in cold spells failed to generate sufficient hot water. In April last year after another breakdown, an engineer told the Powells what they suspected – the hybrid system was inefficient and no longer fit for purpose.
With no mains gas option available to them, it was a choice between oil and a new air source pump. They opted for the latter.
In September, the two existing pumps were decommissioned, and a new air source pump was installed on the outside wall of their boiler room at the back of the house. No new radiators had to be put in and the final bill came to £16,000.
Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, is keen for homeowners to install heat pumps to save the planet
Given the Powells were not replacing a fossil fuel-powered heating system (such as a gas or oil-fired boiler), they were not eligible to benefit from a BUS grant.
Although it’s early days, the Powells are happy with their heat pump. ‘Our electric bills are down between 20pc and 30pc on this time last year, in part a result of the new air pump being more efficient,’ says Andy.
‘But up until last weekend, it hasn’t really been tested by a prolonged cold snap.’ Air source pumps start losing their efficiency when outside temperatures fall below 3C (37F).
While air source pumps are notoriously noisy, Andy says the new pump only gives off a ‘little bit of background noise’.
However, he says the pump’s controls are ‘not user friendly’ although a Hive thermostat ensures he can easily control the home’s temperature.
But, and this is a massive BUT, Andy says that if he bought a home tomorrow that was heated by gas, he would not move to a heat pump-based system. ‘I would stick with gas,’ he adds.
Why? ‘It’s simple household economics,’ he explains. ‘Currently, the cost of electricity is four times that of gas, so for households reliant on gas boilers to heat their homes, it doesn’t make financial sense to make the jump.
‘If the price differential between the two were to close, it would make the economic case for a heat pump far stronger.’
Retired quantity surveyor Martin Woodhouse would also rather have his home heated by gas than by an air source heat pump.
Martin, 77, and wife Angie moved into their newbuild mid-terrace town house just outside Leamington Spa in Warwickshire in 2023. It came with a heat pump located on the patio at the back of the property – and also an electric car charging point which Martin doubts they will ever use.
The house, says Martin, is chock full of insulation with all windows double glazed and underfloor heating. ‘I worked in the building industry for more than 45 years,’ he says.
‘I had frequent conversations with electricians who always told me that heat pumps are electricity guzzlers. They have been proved right. In recent cold snaps, our electric consumption increased by £14 over the week, from £35 to £49. Irritatingly, the pump wouldn’t stop whining away in the background.
‘Although hot water hasn’t been a problem, when the temperature drops, the pump struggles to heat the house adequately.’
Gas boilers, says Martin, are far more efficient. ‘It’s ridiculous that the Government wants to phase them out.’ Elswehere, Stephen Woolner runs a freight business in West Norfolk. Three years ago, he had built a new home for his daughter: a timber frame, three-bedroom house complete with cavity insulation, triple glazing, and air source pump – a requirement from the local council.
Stephen says: ‘The heat pump has been nothing but trouble. We’ve had plumbers back to reset the pump time and time again.
‘But it just doesn’t generate enough heat to keep the house warm enough for her and her daughter. Her last electric bill came to £170 – more expensive than my house, which has four bedrooms and is heated by oil.’
Stephen says his 42-year-old daughter, who does not want to be named, is now having a wood burner put in so they can stay warm through the winter months. ‘Are heat pumps the way forward? Not on the evidence I’ve seen,’ he says.
Thought about it but too expensive
When retired company director Findlay McClymont recently had the gas boiler serviced in his five-bedroom Berkshire home, he asked the engineer about installing a replacement heat pump. The response was emphatic: ‘Don’t even think about it.’
Findlay, a 78-year-old retired company director, only asked the question because the seven-year warranty on the gas boiler was coming to an end.
‘He needed to replace some parts,’ says Findlay, ‘so I thought I would see what he had to say about a heat pump. He laughed it out of court.’
The engineer said a heat pump would struggle to keep such a big house warm in winter – Findlay and 73-year-old wife Lynn like their Ascot home heated to 19C (66F) when the cold bites.
The expert also said the installation of a heat pump would not be the only cost that the McClymonts would have to bear. Underfloor heating would be required as well as new bigger radiators and wider pipes to ensure a sufficient flow of hot water to them. Electric heaters would also have to be used in the dead of winter to keep the home comfortably warm.
Most readers that Money Mail has spoken to over the past two weeks are anti-heat pump
Findlay says converting his home to a fit-for-purpose air pump heating system would have cost around £50,000 – money he just wasn’t prepared to spend.
He adds: ‘If Mr Miliband introduces a future ban on the installation of new gas boilers, I would leave it until the last moment before getting a replacement.
‘Hopefully, that would then mean us never having to go down the heat pump route.’ Currently, gas boilers are only banned in new homes built from next year.
Findlay also believes the Government’s target to reduce the country’s carbon dioxide emissions to Net Zero by 2050, aided in part by the installation of 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028, is well intentioned, but misguided.
‘Until the likes of China, India and Indonesia substantially reduce their use of fossil fuels, whatever we do in the UK will have little impact. Mr Miliband is forcing us at great expense to adopt heat pumps in order to achieve absolutely nothing. It’s national self-flagellation.’
Like Findlay, 77-year-old Clive Saulter contemplated a heat pump for the two-bedroom bungalow he lives in with wife Susan in Felixstowe, Suffolk. But he also ruled it out on cost grounds.
‘It was a couple of years ago,’ says Clive, a semi-retired engineer. ‘A representative came to look at the feasibility of installing one. He said the existing radiators were not big enough to provide sufficient heat.
‘So, he offered me a package comprising an air source pump and five replacement radiators.
‘Even after the grant under the BUS, which at the time was £5,000, it would have still meant me forking out £13,000. This push – nudge, whatever you want to call it – by Mr Miliband to get us all to adopt heat pumps is so misguided.’
Christopher Moore also looked at getting a heat pump installed in his four-bedroom bungalow in New Milton, Hampshire. But cost ruled it out.
The 83-year-old widower, who spent most of his working life in the construction industry, says: ‘My property is detached, so the hum of a heat pump would not have been a nuisance to my neighbours. But I was told that all sixteen radiators in my home would need replacing with larger ones that would then have to be sited in new locations.’
He adds: ‘The next bombshell was that most of the pipework would have had to be made bigger, entailing hideous box skirting. The cost made the whole idea unviable.
‘To rub salt into wounds, I was then told there was no guarantee that any heat pump installed would maintain my property at the comfort level I require – between 20C (68F) and 22C (71F).’
Christopher – like Findlay – says he will stick with his gas combi boiler and if need be, buy a replacement and put it in storage until such time that he needs it.
Anti-heat pump. Full stop.
Most readers that Money Mail has spoken to over the past two weeks are anti-heat pump. Nothing – no amount of nudges – will convince them to entertain one in their home.
Their views are best summed up by Robert Edmunds, a retired heating engineer from Wateringbury in Kent.
Robert spent a big chunk of his working life installing fit-for-purpose gas boilers – condensing combi boilers or conventional boilers with cylinders.
He says the emissions from these are a fraction of those from the boilers they replaced.
‘There are so many minuses when you look at heat pumps,’ adds 77-year-old Robert. ‘They’re noisy, ugly, ineffective in cold weather and unsuitable for a majority of properties.
‘As Labour has realised with its plans to ban petrol cars from 2030, you can’t expect people to buy into change when it is too expensive and impractical to do so.’
How the costs rack up
Mike Foster, chief executive of energy trade association the Energy and Utilities Alliance, recommends homeowners do their sums before going down the heat pump route.
While a £7,500 grant from BUS looks attractive, it can pale into insignificance if your home needs massive surgery to make it fit for purpose. For a start, heat pumps are not effective in homes where windows are single glazed or walls are not insulated.
According to the Energy Savings Trust (EST), the cost of fitting ‘A’-rated windows (the most energy efficient double-glazed windows) for a semi-detached house typically cost £15,000, while cavity wall insulation is £2,700.
If you have solid walls and want them insulated, the EST reckons that will set you back £7,500 if fitted internally – £11,000 externally.
In short, fitting a heat pump in a solid-wall semi-detached house with A rated windows and external wall insulation will set you back £39,200. If bigger radiators and wider piping need to be installed, it can easily become £50,000 or £60,000.
For the 50pc of homes that currently use gas for cooking, Mike says a conversion to heat pumps will mean the need for electric cooking appliances – yet more cost (typically, £250 for an electric oven, £225 for an electric hob, £250 for installation cost).
Mike says: ‘You may hear from supporters of heat pump technology that it is three times more efficient than a gas boiler.
‘What they fail to mention is that the standard unit price of electricity is four times higher than that for gas. This means a heat pump works out more expensive to run over a full year than a gas boiler.’
Nudge? Don’t fall for Mr Miliband’s misinformation on heat pumps. For the time being, the financial sums just don’t add up.
Do you regret installing a heat pump? Email jeff.prestridge@dailymail.co.uk
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