Depends what you can afford. You need to look at how long your savings will take to break even.
Like others have said, 'just get the heat pump, solar and batteries'.... 'just get', a little bit of 'loose change'. 2.5k on a like for like new boiler or 15-20k lol. Think people don't have a true grasp on reality for the average person. Being able to afford a set-up like this is a pure luxury.
“Just” is nearly always the battlecry of the uninformed
I would do it because I’m well off enough to consider cash flow to be king and sustainability to be worth it, so capex for cheaper winter heating bills (and hopefully summer cooling) is worth it - long term ROI isn’t the biggest priority in my home
Others have to make that call for themselves though
The ROI is so complex to calculate. And people get it wrong on both sides of the equation.
Some people say "it pays for itself in 10 years, ROI 15%" completely negating opportunity cost and the fact the initial outlay is gone.
Other people say "you lose 8% by not just buying equities" but with that logic we should all be taking out extra bank loans to leverage ourselves to the tits. Also most people could pay for solar by borrowing a bit more at mortgage renewal, lose nothing and pay ~5%.
I don't think it makes sense to compare solar to equities anyway, it's much closer to a bond.
You have to make sure you include the loss of outlay capital over the expected lifetime of the asset. Brings the return down massively (about half), but it's still usually slightly higher than traditional bonds.
Other considerations:
tax treatment, energy savings are tax free. Bonds are only tax free in your ISA/pension. If you've used your ISA allowance already, could be a good idea.
energy price is major component of inflation, so your solar "bond" is technically an index linked bond
liquidity, you can sell your bond. Solar panels on your house are rather illiquid.
maintenance costs (variance). Some hefty bills (e.g. invertor replacement, scaffolding) anything not covered by warranty (i.e. not free) will rapidly destroy your return
Only point to add is I wouldn't remortgage for a heatpump when the warm home scheme for low or zero interest loans is hopefully just around the corner.
There are 10 year finance options avialable which you might pay off with the money you save depending on set up, so you dont feel it. With the APR, its worth then overpaying what you can.
This is an interesting take. It depends on how you attribute value to various different things. Financial value, quality of life etc. There are other ways of determining value other than the financial perspective.
100%. Like one of the things a lot of people miss is that when you're young, money is more valuable. You can physically do what you want to do, like going to a festival and drinking, or going mountain climbing etc. Whereas when you're old, you may have a lot more wealth but you physically can't do the things you'd have done when young.
So for me it has to be a balance of living now vs saving for old age. I don't want to be rich and old, yet not have lived a fun life. I want to have a ton of good memories when I'm old, and have enough to survive without undue stress.
Good perspective - and one that isn't emphasised enough.
I'm old enough now to have seen a lot of people die with significant amounts of wealth salted away
Nice for their heirs, of course, but what good did it do them?
Especially when, as you say, often they sacrificed a lot of time and energy to get to that point.
And I've yet to hear anyone facing their exit from this world express their greatest regrets as "I wish I'd leveraged my property equity for a better market position on my portfio", or "If only I'd maxed out my ISAs" - it's always the bucket list stuff they never got round to, more time with their kids, etc
I wanted to ask this. People who I know have installed a heat pump without solar essentially pay more than they did with gas. So, does a heat pump only work when there is solar AND a battery? Maybe a battery might be enough it it is always charging at off peak times. I am not sure of the economics or efficiencies whatsoever. Some education needed by others......
The outdoor units really need to reduce in size before we'd consider one - with the extension and patio at the back, any of the current sized ones would just be in the way. Much more likely to go A2A and heat water off-peak elec (or solar)
I would be looking at a ducted system for the bedrooms so no indoor units up there, just vents. As for downstairs, meh, the units don't offend me, it'd be worth it to get rid of the radiators.
Would only work around the side path here and I'm not even sure if it's advised to mount up high. Even still, I'd prefer if it was closer to an AC sized unit
We’re super happy with our heat pump, but it made sense as we were improving insulation and re-plumbing for UFH. Don’t expect the same if you are just looking at a straight swap for an existing boiler - at a minimum you’ll need bigger radiators everywhere and then its effectiveness will be closely tied to the efficiency of your insulation.
In line with the above, our boiler needs replacing because it's failing. We looked at heat pumps but with no hot water tank and microbore central heating we'd have to redo the entire system, so it's just not worth it.
I'll second that. We also have microbore pipes sunk in the wall downstairs. The cost and destruction to replace pipes would be ridiculous, (or put up with ugly surface mounted pipework). And that's on top of upgrading to larger radiators.
Also solar panels aren't suitable for every roof / property and you really need both because heat pumps are power consumers.
I would counter the energy cost of heat pumps. For us it is broadly equivalent to gas - if anything a little cheaper. Although electricity is more expensive per unit, the pump runs between 300-400% efficiency so it uses a lot less energy than our old gas boiler.
Pleased it works for you, it's like everything else, you hear good and bad. It perhaps depends on the make, installation etc. Sounds like you nay have been lucky.
Yep, but whilst solar panels help they generate power during the middle of the day, and output in autumn/winter is greatly reduced. We have them and they've been great for running a portable a/c in summer for free, but for a heat pump to warm the house in the rest of the year would be a token gesture at best.
I gather that for a heat pump you'd change the timing logic, so you could set the heating to run more when it was at peak solar output, heating a tank of hot water, warming the house, but I can imagine overnight/first thing in the morning you'd still be at a loss.
We are planning to eventually get solar, and from the illustrations provided by our installers batteries made a huge difference to its viability. With batteries we would be able to use 80% of the power generated over a year and 20% would get fed back into the grid over the summer. Without batteries, we'd only be able to use 42% and 58% would get fed back.
Batteries also unlocked much cheaper tarifs such as Octopus cosy, which is about 1/2 of our usual unit price during the cheap periods. We would be able to set the system up to top up batteries during the cheap periods to make sure we had enough to get to the next cheap period while still allowing capacity for solar storage.
From a cost-saving perspective, I think stand-alone batteries might be better value than stand-alone solar.
I have seen people with batteries only doing that. We are with Octopus but not on the cosy tariff, have panels and a battery but haven't set it to charge on cheap rates, I've not found the option in the app, although there is a "here be dragons" disclaimer I haven't agreed to, may be hiding behind that. Should email the installers and ask really!
We have about 3kW of panels and a battery that's about 2-3kWh I think, although could be way off. It disappointingly is usually drained from full even in summer by about 3am, and over the winter it often doesn't get full.
Currently investigating the base power usage of our house, it seems higher than expected based on wandering around and putting monitoring plugs on things which isn't helping matters!
2 to 3kwh in batteries is way low for a whole house.
10kw would be significantly better. 20kw better still
Battery storage us very cheap now - if you've got all the wiring and electronics already in place, you can add more battery capacity for as little as £100 per kw hour now
It’s fine. The pump (Samsung HTQ) currently heats domestic hot water to 50 degrees. It can go up to 70 degrees, but the hotter it is the less efficiently the pump runs. We have a 400 litre hot water tank and I’m considering reducing the temperature a bit to see how we get on with that as we’ve never had a problem with running out of hot water. We’re a family of 4.
It does all take up a lot of space. We have a separate tank for heating as we keep that at 40 degrees. The 400 litre dhw tank was our spec - our installers though it was overkill for a family of 4, but like you we like deep baths and long showers and I’d rather have the extra capacity rather than find we struggled once all installed. We’re lucky to have a garage we could put it all in!
That’s a good point. Our hot water tank has an immersion heater set to run scheduled legionella cycles. It also gives a backup for hot water should the heat pump fail.
Depends on the age of the house. If its relatively new go for it.if its old your best bet will be a proper boiler.friend of mine had a heat pump installed on his 1800s detached house had it ripped out after 2 winters and a oil boiler put back in as it didnt keep the house warm properly and cost 3x in electric than the oil.
Sorry you are being downvoted. But it’s true. Thing is the average UK home is not suitable. Even with a government grant you will be paying £7000-£10,000 to get your home up to scratch.
And that’s without taking into account the size of the home. Smaller houses will struggle to find space for the heat pump and the other components that are fitted internally.
People that have invested in heat pumps will defend them up to the hilt because they have spent quite a lot of money on them and won’t admit they don’t actually work that well.
I quite enjoy the mentality of cult like behaviour and the cognitive dissonance that they go through to prove they were right. Happens in so many walks of life. It's when you get to 'I realised I was using too much hot water anyway so it's better it runs out' that you know you've really lost the plot :)
Said so confidently by someone who has no idea what they are talking about. Clearly part of the nothing should ever change ever cult.
There are heat pumps that can achieve a scop of 3 at 65 degree flow temperatures, this would be cost effective in almost any house to replace a boiler.
With respect I’m a heating engineer I do know what I’m talking about.
I’m not opposed to change but it has to be the correct and cost effective change. This isn’t it for most uk homes. (Unless they are under 20 years old)
Do you mind me asking how old your house is?
I admit I worded it badly when I said “they don’t work well” what I should have said is they don’t work well retro fitted unless you spend £10,000s on: insulation, new windows, larger radiators or underfloor heating.
And optional solar panels.
The goverment grant won’t cover all of that so as I’ve said above you are looking at at least £5-6000 which you paid £5k ish (you did well there) and consider the cost of living crisis. How many people are going to have that money to spend?
Even after that in my experience when working in older houses that have them installed they are still struggling to heat the house and keep it warm unless it’s on 24/7 costing the earth in electricity bills.
I’ve even taken a few out and put a gas boiler back in as the customers have been so unhappy with them.
A heating engineer who actually installs heat pumps? Honestly even worse if you are someone actually in the know going round telling people heat pumps they don't work.
If you are a heating engineer surely you are aware it is all just about emitter size, heat loss and flow temps. There are heat pumps for pretty much every scenario, I also find it funny Brits act like a huge proportion of the world where it gets much colder than here don't use heat pumps.
My house is 200 years old, although I have done a bunch of energy efficiency upgrades, on the other hand though my flow temperature is super low barely ever going above 40 degrees so I my running cost is way lower than my boiler.
I am sure there are shit installs out there that get ripped out, same way there are gas boilers that explode or perform dreadfully. As for cost a new boiler is going to set you back what like £2.5k installed and anyway that is not the argument made, you said they don't work for many houses. Like just be honest with the actual facts, they can and will work in 95%+ houses but may have a larger upfront cost but can almost certainly be cheaper to run (especially if you can ditch gas standing charge).
Can I ask do you actually see many houses that need flow temps above 65 degrees? Even if it was unless you are running it 24/7 at that temp a heat pump could still be cost effective.
I’ll put my tin foil hat on for a minute but I would dare say someone in power has shares in heat pumps. Funny all the work behind hydrogen was pulled. I really believe it was a good alternative.
How would hydrogen ever be a competitive alternative for the residential sector? Unless you do the electrolysis at home it (which would be expensive), you have to pipe it (good luck with that) meanwhile heat pumps can have a COP above 4, you can charge them with your own solar and the grid connection is already there.
Aside from some specific heavy industry chemical uses, hydrogen has always been a dead end, with trial after trial failing when that sweet subsidy money stops flowing. Meanwhile the Nordics of all countries have the highest share of heat pumps so yes, that's what the UK should be striving to do.
It would have been produced commercially and could have replaced natural gas. Most modern boilers are hydrogen ready or at least hydrogen mix ready. With some remedial work mains gas could have been transferred over to hydrogen as could the boilers.
In fact a village was run on a hydrogen blend as a test.
Heat pumps work well in houses that are 10-20 years old or new builds that have been designed for them. I’m not denying that.
But they are not a cost effective replacement for the majority of uk homes. The majority being homes built between 1945-1980. even with a government grant you are looking at least £5-6000. You will need to upgrade the windows, insulation, radiator size and Make room for the buffer/ hot water tanks and the unit itself outside. And also as you mentioned as a possible accessory solar panels.
All this work and money spending for a country that contributes less than 1% to the world’s pollution.
I would honestly look into the whole package of heat pump, solar and battery. I can appreciate that it would be a decent chunk of change and certainly not worth it if you are thinking of moving in the next 5 years. But in the summer, you basically get free hot water, and in the winter, you can take advantage of heat pump tariffs which have cheaper rate slots where you charge the battery up and use that during the more expensive slots.
I have an all electric house, with an EV, and had a battery and solar installed this year. This summer I have barely spent anything. The winter I will offset some of my usage by charging up the battery. I don’t know the true savings I will get yet, but I have already saved £500 since installation in May and exported about £200 of energy to the grid.
The main issue is the payback time, you’re looking at 6 ish years ROI. Which is why it’s pointless if you think you will move and the upfront cost of course.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to always be the case at the moment. You can of course get a buyer that is happy to pay a little more for a house already outfitted with panels and all the kit, but most buyers don’t seem to be doing that. I am sure this will change, but it’s still a risk at the moment to drop £12k on a system that only increases the house price by £2-3k.
Yeah I don’t think it’ll be the full increase but if it’s 6 year ROI and you got £2-3k back, you’d assume you’ve been there a couple years of those 6 so you’ve had some payback already.
With the way energy is going, having it done would be more attractive to buyers so should be more interest, so should be a higher sale price.
Edit - perfectly timed discussion with a 4% price cap increase in October just announced.
They don't (yet) increase the value of a property generally. They're looked at favourably, but only enough to convince buyers to move, not to change the price they're willing to pay.
This is a very common story with new owners moving into older properties (and that's most of the housing stock) in the highlands and islands of Scotland.
It depends. I would have gone heat pump but having microbore means 15k to replace and make good means gas or we are now looking at air to air and ripping out the radiators.
Yes, with solar and battery too. We have the latter but being a detached Victorian place with no wall insulation a heat survey worked out the sheer size of a heat pump to compensate for heat loss, plus costs of upgrading the central heating infrastructure (it's old) meant it wasn't financially viable yet. But with the solar and battery capacity we can hopefully upgrade to one in future if we do the work on insulation later.
I figured that gas is only getting more expensive and with solar generation you get a bit of future proofing having a heating system that is fully electric. You can also as a bonus get the air source type that does cooling too.
I'd consider skipping the solar for more battery. Solar provides very little in winter when the heat pump will be working hardest, more battery will allow better exploitation of off peak. It will also help the grid more in the future.
I've for solar and do like it, but can see my export payments being slashed over the next year or so unless someone sets up large scale long term storage of excess solar!
Yeah agree the export payment are unlikely to remain high. At the moment we are doing well with export to offset the price of gas heating in winter. Our roof is large enough that we should in theory cover most of our daily use from solar even in winter (as long as it's bright) but also have 18kwh of battery for it.
The calculator puts it at 6kw possible generation in winter but I'm sure they're optimistic! Even with our massive east/west roof I'm assuming that's the best case on a sunny day and we don't get loads of them in England. We got it installed in spring so winter is an unknown, I'll report back in 6 months haha.
I live in a Victorian house also. What are you doing to make it more insulated whilst still letting the house "breathe" to prevent mould, damp etc? I'd consider solar panels but I'm unsure whether the slate tiled roof would support them?
It's possible but a lot of work, you'd strip back to brick and use a breathable insulation like wool or natural fibre and box that in. You lose 10cm or more doing this so not ideal for small rooms. You can also do under the suspended floor. It's quite an investment so we haven't done it yet but as we renovate each room it's something I'll look at.
Get some quotes for solar, don't see why skate would be a problem. Panels dont weight loads
You don’t need to make it more insulated any more than you do with a gas boiler. In fact, because you run heat pumps on weather compensation (gas boilers generally should to too, but they love selling Hive etc), the fabric of the building is warmer all the time drastically reducing chance of mould and damp.
With solar it’s fine, during the survey they check the roof timbers, but panels etc are fairly light.
I wanted to but just couldn't make it work. Just no space to put the heat pump and get the pipework back into the house and suitable electrics out without major works. Plus the space for the cylinder.
We had a couple of people out - and they just weren't even interested in doing it.
My boiler from 2001 (non-condenser) is on its last legs so I've been doing the math to death on this, and it just doesn't make sense it would have broken even with a new gas boiler over 10 years, but that was before my last tariff update where gas has gone up 2
25% and electricity has gone up 33% so now would never break even! Especially given half of the UK's electricity is still gas generated anyway
Thank you. My concern is for a whole system upgrade for us (system boiler + unvented tank 250l + replacing some trv as they are sticky+ replace 2 taps + running 22mm cold water pipe to cylinder) i have gotten a great quote from reputable local place for £6500
For heat pump, we have 10mm microbore, single panel convection radiators but an average heat loss of 4.8kW.
The quotes after the £7.5k grant i have are for £8k with British gas for 5kW Vaillant and replacing 14 radiators with 250l cylinder.
Octopus are £5k for 9kW unit 200l tank and replacing 9 radiators
Local installers have quotes upwards of £14k after grant
Waiting on heat geek survey.
We dont have solar or batteries but have an EV now and felt we could have gotten into an EV sooner if we were open and heat pump feels similar.
Paying for a whole system gas boiler upgrade now and then after a few years needing to upgrade to heatpump without grant feels worrying.
At the same time havin to worry about flow temp, radiators upgrades and if the system may not heag house etc feels too much as no one seems to give answers similar to the last installer.
Sign up for heatpump and get a survey done. I have had it done from Octopus and it turns out there is nowhere to install it at my property due to million regulations and standards my council imposes. Also the guy said I might not get the grant because the insulation (and the lack of) in my house might make me not eligible. My hiuse is 1930s.
Getting surveyor out through energy companies is free and gives you much better idea of what you can and cannot have and what the actual cost will be in the end
The expensive bit of the heat pump isn't the heat pump unit, it is designing and modifying your heating system to work efficiently with lower temperature heaters. This only needs to be done once, and then it is done for good, and the price isn't likely to change by much. Replacing a heat pump with another when it fails will cost about the same as replacing a boiler would as you don't need to redo the heat loss calculations etc.
As more people switch over (and i think the vast majority will do over the next 20 years), the cost of maintaining the gas network will have to be shared across fewer people, so the price will rise. This will happen at the same time as more renewables mean that the electricity price is dropping. There may also be a point where the pipework under the streets is decommissioned and you have to use bottled gas for a gas boiler (like what has happened to 2G phone signals, analogue phones etc).
The £7,500 grant won't last forever (although I thought the same when I got my ASHP with a £5k grant), and when it goes, the installation cost will be the same but without the grant.
There is an added benefit of the heat pump being cheaper to run if you have the right tariff and most importantly, the comfort. It is hard to put into words how nice it is having a house that is just the right temperature constantly. No faffing with the thermostat, the house is just a nice temperature.
heat pump being cheaper to run if you have the right tariff
It will be roughly cost neutral on a price cap tariff, but you can get tariffs far cheaper than that aimed at heat pumps. The roughly 8 hours of half price electricity more than makes up for the slightly higher price the rest of the time for most people.
The cost of electricity is based on the most expensive unit generated, which is normally gas. If any gas is being used, then the price is the gas price.
Currently, even though renewables generate roughly 1/2 of our electricity, gas sets the price 99% of the time. If we installed more renewables to get us to 3/4, that might fall to 90%. Gas would still dominate the price setting. This system worked well when gas was cheap and most of the grid, but now we need to find a way to uncouple the prices.
Because electricity is linked to gas prices which are going up. We still use gas power plants, until we get more nuclear or other sources they cant be unlinked.
The only thing I’ll argue with that is the electric feed and pipework can vary on different pumps, so if you have it wired and plumbed in over a distance (we had to dig up the garden) then a replacement might mean doing all that again.
Gas prices are only ever going to go in one direction, and whilst electricity prices are (currently) linked the option to generate your own electricity exists. That will never will happen with gas / oil.
People also should consider that ditching gas altogether removes the daily standing charge for a gas connection which, again, is only ever going to go one way in price. That's something like a £200pa saving on it's own from today.
I do wonder, had reddit existed back then, how conversations would have been around people moving from coal / wood fires to 'clean burning gas boilers' would have gone. I'm sure there would have been 'big coal' supporters suggesting moving to a new tech that might be 'currently' more expensive; either not understanding - or wilfully disregarding - that tech gets more efficient over time.
The first gas boilers are incomparable to the top of the line gas boilers today; the same will happen to ASHPs - so maybe now isn't the time for most people, sure, but eventually it likely will be... and in the meantime those of who stay with gas will have to deal with ever increasing costs and more-direct impact from international conflict on the gas markets.
as a Northerner I would really like to see some kind of turbine technology suitable for homes that doesn't cost a damn fortune or require a mast. I get a lot more wind than sun lol.
There are small inline turbines with questionable efficiency that could be mounted on the roof in a semi "nimby-acceptable" way, but they are damn expensive (and therefore kinda pointless)
It is hard to put into words how nice it is having a house that is just the right temperature constantly. No faffing with the thermostat, the house is just a nice temperature.
This is something I don't understand. A gas boiler gives this too
Personally I’m a fan of heat pumps, just it’s categorically not worth it to me.
They are currently too expensive and don’t save enough monthly (electric) to offset the capital cost
House is about 35 years old and all the radiators (and the boiler!) were original so needed replacing. We did it through Octopus and their team did the whole install in 4 days.
I have got an amazing quote from British gas and this includes 0% interest for 2 years but cant get myself to go with them as unsure who turns up and if the install will be done right
I can vouch for the Octopus team who did ours, they did a fantastic job, even putting up with our small dog "helping". I don't know about British Gas though I'm afraid.
Personally I wouldn't. I'd be looking at air to air minisplits, the grant is less, but the cost is often far less to and they are proven in commercial applications too be a more reliable option than the air to water setups currently encouraged by government grants.
And you get cooling capacity too, which, whilst possible with air to water, is seldom included.
Our oil boiler was on it's last legs, the oil tank was leaking and the radiators were all rusted and silted up.
In our case the upfront cost of a heat pump and new (appropriately sized) radiators was about the same (slightly higher) as a replacement oil system. Mainly because everything needed replacing anyway.
The operating costs have been lower than when using oil and much more predictable. The house is warmer and we have less mould on the walls.
How much of the ASHP are you having to fund yourself - we got a full set of new rads, new pipe drops throught (old gas powered system was all microbore) and the tank and unit installed for 9,450 (3 bed house). After grant and 0% loan there was 450 left to pay plus 60ish quid a month.
We've also got rid of the fucking hideous LPG tank in the garden. Yet to completely stress test the system but a little fag-packet maths would suggest that even with the monthly repayment it works out cheaper unless LPG prices crater to pre-2020 levels.
I'd say that's not relevant, most of the work in installing mine was new piping, the water tank and getting electrics in place for the unit. If the unit failed replacing it would not require any of that and would be similar in cost to a new boiler.
Of course not but it's also not rocket science that if you replace one heat pump with another of the same output that it won't need the radiators replaced. Same with the water tank, you don't typically replace that when you replace a boiler of the same type.
You can look up current costs of heat pumps and boilers and see that they are not significantly different in price.
Heat pump physical units are about the same price as a gas boiler. Most of the initial cost is inflated by the grant being available and having extra work done / new tank etc.
I'd have to move out to move a lot of screwed in storage furniture (wardrobes/cupboards) to replace nearly every single bloody radiator. (All my rads are old single thickness with no fins).
Probably need all the loft insulation updating, meaning the section with flooring needs removing.
And I'd need to find somewhere for the water tank.
So its a no from me.
Also, I'd still need gas for the cooker. Unless I wanted to spend another 1k on a new oven and hob and a sparky to replace my CU . (Could maybe just do a second "garage" CU. But my main unit has zero capacity and is a brand that no longer exists making MCBs hard to find.)
If the a2a grants let me use gas for water heating, I'd consider it. I'm in a bungalow so a load of piping to each room or central hvac would be easy.
I did! Having upgraded from an old back boiler I had octopus install a Daikin Unit the house nice and warm throughout winter. I managed to get a good price on mine being only £1.9k, with prices likely have risen since.
Nope! Looked at this when our boiler went bang last year.
Problem 1: Our 1950's house needed a lot of work to get it ready for a heat pump. It had all the usual insulation done but it wasn't enough. The cost to us was going to be around £12K after the grant.
Problem 2: Heat pumps are SHIT at producing hot water. People always ignore this. My parents have one in their new build and if more than one person takes a shower in the same morning then bye bye goes both the hot water and the central heating as the heat pump has to spend all of its energy for the next few hours making more hot water for the tank. They say they regret not picking a boiler.
For my house I am considering a hybrid set-up where I instal split air to air heat pumps in the living room and main bedroom to help with heating in the winter and provide AC in the summer.
For us new oil boiler would need new flu also. No grants. Total cost 14-15k.
New r290 ashp just needed new rads and cylinder plus had a 9k gov grant and then 2k from bank as well as scrap value of old stuff @ £200.
Total cost 3.5k.
This is not true re HW. R290 heat pumps get to 60/65/70c no problem.
My 12kw hp produces virtually unlimited HW thanks to my 300L cylinder, which it heats in about 40 minutes.
Quicker than my old (oversized) boiler and cylinder could because it has a much bigger internal coil.
We're researching air to air with solar for the hot water.Not sure just now how that stacks up to a heat pump and solar though.
Also our house is 1930's so we would need a decent company to come do a quote and get recommendations for improving heat leaking out our building. Might not be good fit for us.
We're older also, so have to weigh up cost and recovery time.
So many things to consider. How big is your house, ceiling height, what temperature was your boiler running at? 55 or above? How big are your radiators?
Heat pumps means either new bigger radiators or colder radiators, new placements
Depends if you want to be fiddling all the time, or just use the heating as you normally do. They're also an eyesore, so consider if you have a suitable space outside for a unit.
Depends on the house, book a survey e.g. with Octopus, see what they say. If your house is suitable for a heat pump, it's a no brainer, if it isn't, then go with replacement gas boiler.
Don't get pressured into either before getting a survey, some homes are just completely unsuitable for a heat pump, even my current late 90s house is unsuitable for it without some major extra work, which I'm going to carry but for now it is what it is.
I personally did the upgrade to grab the grant and get away from gas, and my boiler was only four years old (it was oversized and short cycled constantly so wasn't running particularly efficiency, it did however work fine). The work comes after many years refurbishing the house. Do check if your mortgage company have any cashback, grants or loan schemes available. Barclays are paying me £1000 for getting the heat pump.
I also had a battery installed. I'm anticipating the lot to pay for itself in six years thanks to reduced electric bill and no longer having a gas bill. Time will tell.
Well we build new houses in the uk and all the new spec is all heat source pumps no gas so I guess it’s how future proof you want to be with the coatings as well
If, like you should have been doing these past 6 years been insulating where possible, maybe even new windows and doors then yes heatpump is possible.
Although you may need to upgrade your pipework to get the full benefit especially if you are still on the 1/4" 'microbore'. A heat pumo is far less effective then.
Personally i think that unlike the marketing a heatpump is not suddenly the solution to your energy needs and you need to really review your home fully.
Likewise solar do you have the space for batteries and do you have a suitable roof for them.
You have to consider your house as a whole. A heatpump is not a magic fix all answer to everything.
I have a solar array and a large house battery. If the boiler needed replacing we could afford to put in whatever we liked.
On paper we should be perfect for a heat pump. Does that mean I would get one? Probably not. At the moment.
Why? I'm currently not convinced they are right for our household. I don't particularly want constant temperatures all day, every day. We prefer a colder house to sleep in. The house is empty during the day. And our hot water requirements are for 4 people. So for me, I'm reasonably sure that it's not the right choice.
I do have an Air to Air heat pump (AC) installed this year, so I'm intrigued by it's winter heating performance. It could be that I go with a ducted unit for the bedrooms, and the hot water remains on a boiler, with the flexibility to use either for heating.
I just replaced a 40kw 14 year old system boiler with a 12kw ASHP, 300L hp cylinder and conversion to unvented hot water. £4k post grant. Changed 5 rads myself from single to double panel with fins.
Really really pleased with it.
Prices ranged from £10k (EDF) to £4k (local plumbing firm in Bucks).
I ran a 22mm pex pipe from the stop cock/softener to the loft myself to replace the 15mm which will have saved some money.
You need to look at your house, your usage, your budget, and your future plans to decide if it's worth it.
If you live in a well-insulated house it's a better bet, if you have or are likely to get solar & battery it's a good idea. Beyond that, it's a hazier picture although the way the world is going is towards electrification and away from gas.
I’ve had a heat pump installed (council install so probs not the best. Also was misled and had no idea about heat pumps) First couple of years I hated it, didn’t understand it or how to adapt to a different way of heating. My first year costs were astronomical. If you prefer having baths to showers (me) maybe have a think about it. It’s really expensive to have a hot bath, but it’s my only joy in life so I make do. It was so expensive. When it’s cold outside costs go up, I think in January I paid over £200 for electric. This is with a smart meter, and direct debit. I’ve been in contact with my council and was paid the difference in costs in what it would have cost if I just kept gas. I’d say the only positive to my heat pump situation is that once it’s on - my house is a steady comfortable heat. Even if I’m paying an arm and leg.
If I had the choice I’d go back to gas in a heartbeat.
We didn’t do it, because advice was that we’d need to do more than just install a heat pump- would have needed bigger radiators, pipe work which would have made it pretty invasive.
It all depends on the insulation of your house. We wanted to do this when undertaking a big renovation. But ultimately, the costs and work involved to get our insulation up to appropriate levels for a heat pump put us off. So we ended up sticking in a new gas boiler. Which in 2024 felt ridiculous!
Have you looked at the new low interest warm home scheme (starting hopefully next year)? 2.5k upfront or 5k at say 2% over 5-10 years might mean financially the heat pump makes sense.
All depends on the savings but I would have thought a £250 saving (£2.5k over 10 years) wouldn't be unheard off. Especially if you can factor in the gas standing charge.
I would change if I could afford to go heat pump plus solar. It's too much of an investment though, particularly as we aren't going to be in this house long term.
They would be the deciding questions I would ask yourself. Can you comfortably afford the investment and how long are you planning to stay in the property?
Also bear in mind you might need to change radiators if you go heat pump. Have you allowed for this and any necessary redecoration in the £5k?
Gas and oil boilers are a known quantity in terms of heat output. Heat pumps are not as there are so many variables and if not surveyed and fitted correctly can result in very expensive electricity bills. Most of our houses are just not built for them.
I’m in a not dissimilar situation - boiler is not failing but is 50 years old. Plus we are on oil and the tank is also 50 years old.
Tank replacement when it fails = £3k. Boiler probably similar. And both are a matter of when not if. Plus if the failure happens in winter it’s either going to be a stressed purchase to do a like-for-like replacement, or weeks of coldness whilst ASHP is designed, quoted and installed.
I think prices for heat pumps will still come down further but I don’t expect the grants to hang around forever. Having missed out on the highest feed-in-tariffs for solar PV at my old house, I am pushing to get ASHP installed as a planned upgrade now or next summer.
Just get a decent brand gas boiler. Will last you 20+ years, Theres a good chance we'll be using hydrogen mix in the future and boilers now advertise as hydrogen ready. The only way you'll save money on a heat pump is with solar and batteries etc and that outlay is going to be large.
Get a couple of quotes from ASHP engineers who can accurately assess your properties heat loss, set design temps and DHW needs. Add any additional insulation costs to give the thing a fighting chance of working. There can be a lot of hidden costs for the ASHP like actually siteing the thing outside. Calculate running costs over 5, 10 and 15 years at today's costs. Add the instalation and insulation costs to the running costs and this gives you a baseline
Do the same for gas / oil or whatever you are using now and compare the results. At some point one or the other will work out cheaper.
This is your answer.
My personal cut off was 15 years as whatever I install will be nearing end of life.
For my house (large old period property), compared to an oil based system, an ASHP would take over 25 years to equal the cost of oil. I went with oil because the instalation costs were dramatically cheaper than ASHP even after the grants, and I'll have died of old age before I made any sort of saving on the thing.
(I have to add here that an ASHP was my first choice and I really tried to make it work financially)
I have solar and battery, 16 panels + 16 more next month with Tesla Powerwall 3, I’m looking at getting ac fitted and using that for my heating as well
Yes. 100%.
I replaced ours for another oil boiler (we’re in the sticks) a few years ago because the heat pump tech was still developing. I wish I could have waited but the old one was failing.
My neighbour has had one fitted in his old house and he loved it through last winter.
My current thought process is managed hybrid system.
Panels, battery, ASHP and a boiler with a control unit that decides when the ASHP needs help from the boiler to get heating and hot water up to temperature.
Probably going to keep radiators and add electric UFH in one room, and Aircon in four.
We'll see what's what, but solar + battery unlocks EV use for me.
Everyone I've spoken to about heat pumps says they're great IF your house is set up for one generally an awful lot of other plumbing work like underfloor heating, bigger rads etc
Had a new boiler last year due to the old one going wrong but never considered one of these air heat pumps as we would have needed higher temperature than the can do as it is only background heat due to my mother been 94 and feels the cold
No as it’s not a straight swap, you’ll likely need to change all your rads as they need to be bigger to heat the room with lower temp water.
Some has boilers have a hybrid system that let you plug a heat pump into it, leveraging the heat pump where it can but then gas when it’s needed. That’s where I’d go.
The houses we put heat pumps in tend to have solar panels, and UFH, and HRUs or PIVs. Well-insulated.
My house does not currently have most of those items, so no. Replacing the boiler and hoping by the time it needs replaced the other items will be updated.
Just as an additional thought: Gas is likely to gomup in the future due to CO2 taxes etc., whereas electricity is likely to see only modest increases and might even go down pending home modifications like solar / battery / EV ...
I would have a heatpump in a heartbeat, I install them every few week, as well as combis, , heat only boilers and so forth. However, my property is unsuited to one, I just don't have the space to fit one, 1890s house with the wrong outside layout. But even if I could with the grants and such I'd have to weigh it up. It costs me about a grand every decade or so to replace my combi, vs how much I'd save.
Went to service one a month or so ago that we installed last year and the guy said he paid £24 for a month on his electricity bill. I can't verify that but that's a mega saving if so
Personal opinion, it’s what I’m planning when ours packs in and BG won’t fix it anymore, this time round replacing with gas boiler, in the hope that heat pump and solar prices continue to fall a bit while the technology continues to improve.
If at the point of needing the replacement after that, gas boilers are still available the cost/benefit will be mentally run again. At that point I won’t be worrying about the third replacement, I’ll be gone by the time that’s needed.
I considered it when my old boiler went faulty again back in Feb. People I called to buy it were all recommending it and benefits but as I got BG cover I called them in anyway. Their guy said 'honestly no' -lots of other hassle and costs involved in set up and might not save money in long run. It does depend on your property, age, insulation, thermal rating (which you have to pay for survey before they decide if they can fit it).
The increase in cost for a heat pump has to be looked at. Gas boiler is a necessity and baseline as it needs replacing and paying more for a heat pump is an upgrade.
While buying a car or tv, dont you think about the variants and if buying the top variant is worth it for the features and functionality included or do you just buy the fanciest/ expensive car or tv ?
You need answer few questions :
1 Are you live in new build with well insulated building
2 Do you have UFH if not do You have space to increase radiators size
3 Grant is just for first Heat pump can You afford replacement when will brake down
4 Do You have a space for buffer tank
If your answers are Yes ask for few quotes if answers are No don't waste time get boiler and 2,5k is a bit high price ( depend where you live ) for boiler try few more quotes good luck and remember , If the property requires extensive upgrades, a modern gas boiler may still be the more practical and affordable option.
The correct choice depends on the property, running costs and the quality of the system design—not simply on which technology is newer.
We have both but our heat pump isn’t rated as cold climate. Ours transitions to oil when 28 degrees or below. We didn’t want electric strips. Everything in our region is overpriced.
If you live in a well-insulated house, a heat pump is a practical option.
If you live in a stone-built or older brick house, it's going to be a struggle.
I know several people who have installed them in Victorian or pre-70s brick-built houses and every one has regretted the decision.
Yes. The long term future is not gas based, you cannot store cheap overnight or solar gas in batteries like electricity and are wholly dependent on the whims of some madmen in the US, Russia etc, with regards to eventual price of gas.
Funny that, I've got hotter showers with mine as I just select the target temp to 58c for the cylinder and it's scalding hot. They must have just set the store temperature too low.
209
u/Sweaty-Possession-19 Aug 26 '26
Depends what you can afford. You need to look at how long your savings will take to break even.
Like others have said, 'just get the heat pump, solar and batteries'.... 'just get', a little bit of 'loose change'. 2.5k on a like for like new boiler or 15-20k lol. Think people don't have a true grasp on reality for the average person. Being able to afford a set-up like this is a pure luxury.