When we started our solar journey back in 2023 our aim was always to go fully electric and gas free in the future. Our only gas use was for home heating and hot water. Having kept an eye on heating solutions I knew a heat pump would likely be something we would look at to replace our gas combo boiler.
Why a Heat Pump?
After the government increased the boiler upgrade scheme from £5,000 to £7,500 it felt like a good time to investigate further, especially as our gas boiler is now 10 years old. I wanted the changing from a gas boiler to a heat pump to be planned rather than reacting to the failure of our gas boiler. Once the gas boiler has failed its too late to consider changing to a heat pump as the process would likely take several months from the initial quote to actual installation.
We completed an initial heat pump quote via Octopus Energy in late 2023. Whilst the quote was a very good price it recommended to hold off if you were planning to do any extension work. As we had thought of extending to the rear of our house we decided to pursue building quotes. Once we had the quotes we decided the high cost of an extension didn't really match up to our needs. The extra space would be nice but it isn't really necessary for us considering only the wife and I live in our 3 bed semi. This meant we could start to look at pursuing the idea of a heat pump once again.
I researched other options such as the Tepeo electric boiler. Whilst it would have likely been suitable for our home the way it works (its a heat battery that relies on low cost rate electricity to 'charge' the heat battery which can be released later in the day and its 1 to 1 efficiency (ie 1 kWh of electricity in equals 1 kWh of heat out) isn't as good as a heat pumps 1 to 3 efficiency (ie 1 kWh of electricity in equals 3 kWh of heat out). The tepee would currently be a much more expensive option as it is currently not eligible for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme. Its reliance on low rate electricity to keep costs similar to a heat pump using standard variable rate electricity. As someone with solar and home batteries installed we already have access to lower rate electricity for a minimum of 6 hours a day, and our solar and home batteries could potentially provide more cheap rate electricity to make a heat pump run even cheaper by using less day time rate electricity.
2024 Octopus Energy quote
Its no secret that I quite like Octopus Energy as a company. If Octopus were installing solar panels when we were looking in early 2023 I would have gone with them.
Like every new technology it feels quite a mine field selecting a company to design and install a suitable system for you. I trust Octopus as a company due to their ethics, customer service, and the openness of their senior management (you often see Greg Jackson on twitter replying directly to customers and sorting their issues).
Getting a quote from Octopus was very easy using their online quoting tool. I was pleasantly surprised by the quoted cost as it was lower than we paid to replace our gas boiler in 2014. I still think the cost to install a heat pump may rise as we will likely want to add extra's such as a Myenergi Eddie solar diverter for hot water heating via solar.
Doubting whether a heat pump is the right choice for us
Like all new technologies there is always a doubt whether it's really works and isn't a waste of money or would lead to even higher energy bills. In a way it's not that different to installing solar or changing to an EV. The worry with a heat pump is you hear these horror stories about them not being able to produce enough heat leaving you will a cold home, or increasing electricity consumption beyond that of gas use for a combined boiler.
I mentioned installing a heat pump to a few people who hadn't got them and soon got the usual replies of 'you need to speak to my mate, he hates his'. When you delve into it further you often find out they live in a very different house type and location to you. In this case they lived in stone build house with no insulation in Scotland. This is quite different to our semi with cavity wall and loft insulation in a relatively warmer Bedfordshire.
I don't doubt some do have issues as no technology is going to be perfect for everyone, but I do feel its best to get the opinions from people with similar constructed houses to yours otherwise you may not get a true comparison to your needs.
Our doubts:
* Do we have room outside for a heat pump?
* Is our house suitable for a heat pump?
* Would it heat our home?
* Would we need to replacement our existing pipework?
* Would it increase our energy bills?
* How would it work with our solar & home batteries?
* Would we need to move away fro Intelligent Octopus Go tariff?
Octopus provide some great information to get you started researching heat pumps - Octopus Heat Pump FAQ link.
Whilst reading this information I spotted a 'visit a heat pump' initiative being run by Nesta. There is nothing better than actually seeing new technology working in person and hearing from people who are living with it.
Our Visit to a Heat Pump
Looking on the 'visit a heat pump' website I was soon able to find a heat pump to visit in nearby Royston. This was in a 3 bed semi of a similar age to our home. That was important to us as I wanted to visit a heat pump working in a similar property to ours rather than one that's very different to ours and difficult to compare to.
I don't think we could have done any better. with our visit booking The house was a near replicate in size, layout and design to ours. Our heat pump host was Fiona Hughes who has set up the 'Green Heat Coop' and is a graduate of MIT and the University of Cambridge. I don't think we could have been in better hands to ask someone questions about heat pumps to.
I would highly recommend to anyone thinking of installing a heat pump to go visit one using this initiative. The hour long visit put out mind at rest and answered many of our questions, concerns and doubts.
Moving forward
After requesting the initial Octopus quote we received a couple of phone calls from David at Octopus who was happy to discuss any concerns we had. These phone conversations and our visit to see a heat pump meant we were happy to accept the Octopus quote so we could move onto the next home survey stage. What is also good is the advance payment is fully refundable should we not go ahead with installing a heat pump or one reason or another.
EPC and insulation
To be eligible for the government Boiler Upgrade Scheme we needed an in date EPC and not have any insulation recommendations for loft or cavity walls.
There is a government website where you can find a previous EPC. Sadly the EPC for our home had expired as it was over 10 years since it was created by the previous owner when we bought the house in 2013. It was still useful as I could check the previous EPC to see if there were any recommendations I need to sort out before we initiated a new EPC.
I was quickly able to find out there was a recommendation to increase the depth of insulation in our loft. the previous owner had had loft insulation installed along with cavity wall insulation, but they had boarded the middle section of the loft which had 100mm of insulation beneath the boarded area.Either side of the non boarded area had been increase to 270mm, so I just had to sort out the boarded area.
We now need to get the loft insulation sorted and wait for a home survey to take place before we can move forward. It will be interesting to see how much of an improve we will have made to our home's energy performance rating when the EPC is updated.
Sadly due to the high demand of heat pumps via Octopus this could be a wait of several weeks/months. I will update on our progress in a future uPDATE.