Air Source Heat Pump

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Home » Air Source Heat Pumps

Should I Install An Air Source Heat Pump Instead Of A New Boiler?

It is almost certain that at some point you will need to change your gas or other fossil fuel boiler to a renewable heat generator such as an air source heat pump, whether that is due to regulation, running costs, availability of coal, gas & oil, or because of global pressure to go green. We are already starting to see that governments around the globe, including ours in the UK are penalising users of fossil fuels with higher costs & more legislation, which is a movement that is gathering momentum and showing no signs of stopping, we will cover more on this below. On the contrary there are incentives through the forms of grants and tax relief to help people change over to air source heating, there are also other forms of non fossil fuel heating such as electric radiators, and electric boilers but these have much lower efficiency than an air source heat pump and that is the reason why air source heat pumps will soon become as popular as what the traditional gas boiler has been for the last 20 years. Many people assume that heat pumps are a new concept, as they haven’t been traditionally used in residential UK homes until the last 5 to 10 years, however heat pumps have been around for over 150 years and they are much more commonly used in residential homes around Europe, in particularly Scandinavia where they are exposed to much colder weather conditions than the UK, plus the most notable mass adoption of heat pumps in Europe is in Germany, where electric heat pumps have outsold fossil fuel burning alternatives since 2021 and are now known as the new normal in home heating. Germany is a technologically advanced nation, centrally located in Europe and is usually a good indicator of what the future changes we will see in the UK.

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Heat Pump cost - How much To Install A System Correctly?

Not every heat pump installation is the same, in fact almost all of them are different in some way, there are a number of different sizes of heat pump which have different powers, the location of heat pump its self as well as the amount of components around the house can have an effect on its price. One of the most important things to do when installing a heat pump at home is to have your radiators upgraded for larger or more efficient radiators. Heat pumps are designed to keep a constant temperature by heating the water which runs through your radiators 20% to 40% cooler than what gas and oil boilers are traditionally run at, this is know as the flow temperature, however by heating over a longer period of time with bigger radiators that let more heat out into the rooms, then you can achieve the same or sometimes more heat than what you had before. It is strongly recommended not to cut corners on radiators, in fact it is so important that all MCS accredited installers need to follow strict rules to calculate and fit the right size radiators, or they risk their accreditation status being reversed. For average costs we will use two important factors, size and insulation, the bigger the house is, the more radiators and pipework will be needed, then the insulation levels can vary based on a number of things, such as cavity wall, loft insulation, type of windows & doors, as well as floor insulation.

Small House with Good Insulation – £10,000 to £13,000
Medium House with Average Insulation – £11,000 to £15,000
Large House with Good Insulation – £12,000 to £18,000
Large House with Poor Insulation £15,000 to £25,000 (may need a second heat pump)

The prices should include the air source heat pump, unvented hot water cylinder, radiators, controllers & fitting. This doesn’t include any grants.

You can go through the lengthly process of contacting installers yourself to collect quotes, or you can get a quote here as we have verified installers working your area!

Is There A Grant For Air Source Heat Pumps?

Yes there is a £7500 voucher available which can be used towards the installation of an air source heat pump on your home, or a house which you own. The government-run incentive is called the Boiler Upgrade Scheme or BUS for short, it is in place to help the transition to low-carbon heating, not only does it help out homeowners financially, it helps the government get closer to their 2028 target of installing 600,000 heat pumps per year across the UK.

When the Boiler Upgrade Scheme was announced is 2021 it wasn’t named as it is now, the original name was the Clean Heat Grant however after several consultations it was decided that ‘Clean Heat Grant’ could be slightly misleading and didn’t get the right message across. On the 1st April 2022 the Boiler Upgrade Scheme was launched as part of a £450 million funding package, which will see 90,000 vouchers to be handed out over 3 years. It is still unknown what will happen if or when the number of applications exceeds 30,000 per year.

Unlike some previous government grants the Boiler Upgrade Scheme isn’t means tested, so your salary or income isn’t considered.

How Do I Get The Heat Pump Grant?

The £7500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme Voucher is paid directly to the installer once the job is completed, but there a few things that you need to do first:

You will need an up-to-date Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) – The installer will need this to be able to get you the voucher, but hold on, don’t rush out there and find an EPC assessor to get it for you, as in most cases installers will do this on your behalf, to be sure the information collected is accurate and from an assessor they trust. Installers may charge for a new EPC and technical survey or may include it as part of the overall package.
Get a quote – You will need at least one quote to be eligible for the BUS voucher, but it is recommended to get a few to compare prices and specifications. Filling out the form at the top of this page will help you out with getting prices from trusted installers.
Find an accredited installer – To be eligible for the voucher you need an installer who is accredited by the Microgeneration Certification Scheme Service Company, or MCS certified for short. If you have your heat pump installed by a non MCS accredited company you will be liable for the total cost of the heat pump installation.

You can use Compare Renewables to Get A Quote, we have checked a number of companies around the country and verified all of them to have MCS Certification, a UK based head office & have valid insurance policies.

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Will A Heat Pump Be Able To Heat A House On Its Own?

Yes, a heat pump is fully capable of providing 100% of your heating and hot water requirements, however the radiators should be changed as specified by your installer, and the correct size heat pump to meet the needs of your home. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme which is government led has specified as a requirement that the fossil fuel boilers must be removed as part of the heat pump installation. Heating your home if you live in a cold climate is one of the basic necessities that humans require, so it is important that you get this right, a top-branded heat pump is essential for good performance in the winter, some of the most popular brands of heat pumps installed in the UK are Samsung, Mitsubishi & Vaillant. The Mitsubishi Ecodan for example works down to -7 degrees before it needs to use extra power to heat your home and will also keep working right down to -20 or -25, depending on which model you have, some of the lower quality heat pumps will not work as good or be as efficient in cold weather, ultimately costing you more to run and leaving you with a colder home. In our opinion it is worth spending a little bit more to get a warm house, lower running costs and a good warranty, from a trustworthy brand. It is also important to note the importance of getting the right water cylinder size, if you have a large family make sure that this is reflected in the water tank size, a family of 4 would usually require a 200 to 250 litre cylinder, with larger families needing a little more. If you can add extra insulation to your home with loft insulation, cavity wall insulation, upgraded windows, floor insulation or draft proofing your home then this will only help keep your house warmer, meaning that your heat pump has to work less to achieve your desired temperature, which saves you more money on the running costs.

How Does An Air Source Heat Pump Work?

An air source heat pump, sometimes referred to as an air-to-water source heat pump, transfers heat from the outside air, into water, which heats your rooms via radiators or underfloor heating. It can also heat water stored in a hot water cylinder for your hot taps, showers and baths.

Heat energy from the outside air is absorbed into a fluid refrigerant, then an electric-driven compressor increases the pressure, subsequently increasing the temperature, this heat is then transferred to your heating circuit which runs around your house. The refrigerant then passes back through an expansion vessel where the pressure is reduced, returning to step one where the process is repeated until the desired internal temperature is reached.

Air source heat pumps can be used for air cooling, however, it is only air-to-air pumps that are capable of this and are usually only seen in commercial buildings, due to the complex nature of having to retrofit ducting to each room of your house. Air-to-water heat pumps are connected to a wet heating circuit and because of this, cooling by sending cold water through radiators or underfloor heating just doesn’t work like it does with air-to-air systems.

Here is a video from the Energy Saving Trust which explains an overview of how heat pumps work on a house.

How Much Does It Cost To Run An Air Source Heat Pump?

An air source heat pump is a more efficient way of heating your home and can save you a lot of money over time. There are a number of factors which make up the running costs of a heat pump, which are the size of your house, how hot you like the house to be, your electricity unit rate & the efficiency of the air source heat pump, which is also known as the COP (Coefficient of Performance).

A common misconception of heat pumps is that it is free to heat your home, or also that your house will be warmer than it was before without costing extra, both statements are untrue. It is true that your house should be warmer than it was before, but a financial saving will only be achieved if you are heating your home to the same level as before the heat pump was installed.

When you switch over to a heat pump from gas or oil, your utility bill will in most cases be just electricity and your standing charge, which means that providing you don’t have a gas fire or gas hob, then you can move away from gas fully and save the standing charge costs of between 25p & 50p per day, putting up to £180 per year back in your pocket. It is also important to shop around for a good electricity tariff, as this is going to be your main source of power, although the energy price cap is set by the government across the board, there is still some savings to be made if you have an electric vehicle, solar panels, solar batteries or just if you live outside of the regular working schedule, such as a night shift worker, as there are specific tariffs where you can get discounted electricity at different times of day, such as the ‘Octopus Go‘ tariff, aimed at giving electric vehicle drivers cheaper electricity through the night.

As mentioned above is it really important that you stick with a well branded heat pump, that will bring performance benefits to your heating system, the ‘coefficient of performance’ (COP) is a good way to measure the efficiency of a heat pump, sometimes also has an ‘S’ in front of it which stands for ‘seasonal’ (SCOP). The ‘SCOP’ is also known in some parts of the world as ‘SPF’ which stands for ‘Seasonal Performance Factor’ this is also a measure of annual heat generated vs annual electricity consumed, just the same as the SCOP.

New heat pump installations now can have a SCOP of 1:4, which means that they produce 4kWh of heat for every 1kWh of electricity consumed, in comparison to gas boilers which have a SCOP of around 1:0.9, so produce around 0.9kwh of heat for every 1kWh of gas, this makes heat pumps around 4.5x times more efficient than gas alternatives. Providing that your electricity tariff per kWh is less than 4.5x more than your gas tariff, you will be saving money, also by saving the gas standing charge if you no longer require gas in your home, which is an added bonus.

If you have a suitable property for Solar PV panels you can really accelerate your savings by using solar power to generate free electricity, which can be used to power your heat pump. See our Solar panel & battery storage page for more information on how this works.

Are Gas Boilers Going To Be Banned?

In October 2021 the government announced its plan to make the UK’s energy consumption net zero by 2050, now that means a string of successive changes need to come into play across the board. Home heating is one of the biggest contributors of greenhouse gasses in the UK, from gas, oil and solid fuel boilers, to gas-powered commercial electricity generation, which is why the UK is pushing through a change in the way we heat and power our homes.

The government has set ambitious targets to increase the installation of heat pumps instead of fossil fuel burning boilers, in the UK is it expected that by 2028, installations will top 600,000 per year, totalling 19 million heat pump installations by 2035. To help accelerate the transition to heat pumps, in 2019 the then chancellor Philip Hammond announced that gas heating will be banned for newly built homes by 2025, forming part of the government’s wider move to tackle climate change, followed by a removal of VAT on all renewable products, by the 2022 chancellor Rishi Sunak.

The 2025 ban on gas boiler installations in new build houses is not a ban on replacing existing gas boilers, however in October 2021, the government’s net zero plan document noted that gas-fired boilers would be withdrawn from the market by 2035, favouring the change towards air source heating and other renewable heat sources.

What is likely to happen, is that the change to electric air source heating will follow the same pathway as that of petrol and diesel vehicles switching towards electric vehicles (EVs). Governments around the world have announced that they will stop selling fossil fuel burning cars, in the UK this will happen in 2030, however in 2022, new car buyers are already switching to EVs because financially it doesn’t make sense to continue buying petrol and diesel cars, due to the lower running costs of switching to a ‘green’ alternative. So although replacing gas boilers hasn’t been outlawed yet, financially it will be worth doing sooner rather than later.

Do You Need To Service A Heat Pump?

Heat pumps are relatively low maintenance and shouldn’t need any attention to keep them working or keep them safe, however, most manufacturers require their heat pumps to be serviced annually to keep the warranties intact, should you need to fall back on it later down the line.

A service needs to be carried out by someone who is ‘Fgas’ registered, almost all heat pump installation companies will be able to service the heat pump for you, as well as air conditioning engineers. A service will include a clearing out of any debris caught in the heat pump, checking of all the electrical connections, motors and capacitors, as well as looking for leaking refrigerants & changing of particle filters.

Advantages Of An Air Source Heat Pump

Lower running costs are possible with savings of up to 75% in comparison to conventional fossil fuel burning heaters, also if coupled with renewable electricity generators, such as wind turbines. or solar photovoltaic panels you could get your running costs to £0.
The government are helping homeowners and landlords install Air Source Heat Pumps by giving out a £5,000 voucher to help pay for their heat pumps, the scheme is called the Boiler Upgrade Scheme.
You are contributing to a change that will help planet preservation for the next generation, you can say that ‘you have done your bit.
Heat pumps in most cases have a longer life expectancy of 15-30 years vs the 10-15 years life expectancy of traditional gas boilers.
With the exception of an annual service, heat pumps are fairly low maintenance.
Heat pumps not only save you money by reducing costs, but they also allow you to remove gas from your home should you wish to, as long as you don’t use a gas fire or a gas hob. Removing the standing charge can save you up to £190 a year.
Modern heat pumps are really quiet and although they may look a little unsightly, you won’t really hear that it is there, especially from inside.
Heat pumps are designed now to work in outside temperatures a low as -20 degrees and beyond, which means that if you live in a particularly cold area you will still be able to heat your home.

Disadvantages Of An Air Source Heat Pump

To install a heat pump can be an expensive investment, but remember it is an investment in your home and will add value to it, as well as saving you money along the way.
When you install a heat pump, it is common practice to replace the radiators with ones that are bigger and could look unsightly.
Installation can be disruptive and difficult, especially if you live an older building or a building with restricted outside space.
You will need to get a yearly service of your heat pump, not normally to prevent a malfunction, but to ensure it is in good working order, as most manufacturers state in their T&Cs that the heat pump requires an annual to keep the warranty valid.
Heat pumps run on electricity, so in times of a power cut, unfortunately, your heating won’t work, however, most gas systems also require electricity to make them work too, so you would be in no worse position if you had a gas or oil boiler.
If you don’t already have a hot water cylinder you will need to find space for one somewhere in your home.
Properties that are very big or built with particularly poor insulation may require two or more heat pumps, which can significantly increase the installation cost.

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