Here you can find more information about heat pumps: how they work, what they could mean for your home, things that you would need to consider, and what effect it might have on your energy consumption and environmental impact.
What are heat pumps and how do they work?
Things you need to know before installing a heat pump.
A little bit more about us!
Simply put, a heat pump is a clever piece of tech that heats your home, instead of having a conventional boiler. They are powered by electricity and transfer heat (found in the ground, air or water) rather than generating it. They’ve been around for decades, it’s just here in the UK we’ve been a bit slow to adopt them - but they're a proven technology and more and more people are realising their potential.
Heat pumps work by upgrading the energy that already exists in the air, water or ground for use in your home. Essentially, they move heat between environments, using a refrigerant to absorb and release thermal energy (think of them like a reversible fridge!). This process allows the system to efficiently heat or cool your home by transferring existing heat rather than burning fuel (as a traditional boiler would).
Imagine the energy in the air being sucked in, concentrated in a small space which gets much warmer and then released into your home at a nice temperature. Well, it’s not quite that. But we’ve yet to find a simpler way of explaining it!
Installed properly they can be 300%-500% efficient, depending on the technology. Sounds bonkers but it’s true. That's due to a combination of compression and expansion of refrigerants, with very low boiling points.
Good question, and that’s what we’re here to establish, so please take a couple of minutes to work through our very simple set of questions by following the ‘Get Started’ button.
A couple of things to note: 1) heat pumps operate most efficiently at lower temperatures and because of this, they work best in insulated properties and 2) they require a bit of space externally to house the main system, and also internally to store heat for hot water (so an airing cupboard or somewhere like that is ideal).
Don't worry, we'll tell you if your home is heat pump ready, and if it isn't, we'll say so and outline what you can do to make it a good match for a heat pump and ensure it's a success in your home.
Hopefully we've covered off a lot of your questions below. If not, please just drop us an email using the contact details below. We’ll get back to you with a direct answer, and we’ll add it in here too if need be. If you’re the first to ask and we add your query here, we’ll send you a Thermly t-shirt as a thank you.
Heat pumps operate ideally at lower temperatures – when they can be more efficient because they don’t work so hard. If your home is well insulated, and doesn’t lose heat easily, then it’s easier to maintain internal temperatures. This enables your heat pump to be smaller. It’s not impossible to whack a massive heat pump into something akin to a two storey tent, but we wouldn’t recommend it! The smaller the heat pump, the lower the installation cost, and the lower the ongoing running cost.
As a minimum we would tend to recommend walls and loft are properly insulated before installing a heat pump. However, it may be the case that the costs of externally insulating a solid wall are prohibitive, in which case you’d need a bigger pump - and have to put up with the higher running costs. Our installers will talk the options through with you if you’re keen to progress.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and some people do like a big white box (we appreciate that’s probably not many). However there is a growing range of heat pumps and manufacturers are finally cottoning onto the visuals, with many more smarter looking external units coming onto the market.
Yes. Households can currently get a grant of £7,500 towards the cost (ch-ching!). The installer will apply for this for you if you decide to go ahead.
You should allow a few days, depending on whether you’re having radiators and pipework replaced.
It depends on your circumstances (is the sitting-on-the-fence politician’s answer). It’s a requirement of the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) that accredited installers don’t promise any particular cost saving. What does it depend on? Well, how long have you got? How much you paid. How well it’s installed. The efficiency and quality of the system itself. How you use it. How you used your previous system. What your previous system was and the fuel it used. How energy efficient your property is. And so on. We’d like to say – “yeah, it’ll save you £X grand per year” - but we can’t. If you’re doing this now it’s because you see the long term value in futureproofing your home, because it reduces your environmental impact and because fossil fuels are so passe. If the Government gets their heads round the problem, and decouples electricity pricing from gas pricing, you’re much more likely to be quids in too. But we’re not the Government, so we can’t promise that either.
Well they could try, but you won’t get the government grant and there’s no guarantee it will work. We only engage local, fully Microgeneration Certification Scheme certified installers. We vet every installer on the Thermly platform and they need to demonstrate proven competency on the specific heat pump products they propose to install (i.e. manufacturer accreditation). We don’t let just anyone on the platform, just as you wouldn’t let anyone into your home.
They should be no more expensive to maintain than a standard heating boiler – and as with standard boilers they should be serviced regularly.
An air source heat pump converts outside air into heat, whereas a ground source heat pump absorbs heat from the ground. The latter needs a pipe dug into the ground – either horizontally using coiled pipework in trenches, or vertically using pipework in a borehole, whereas the former needs a heat pump fitted outside the house. Watch our video to understand more about how an air source heat pump is installed https://youtu.be/u1TyPArQtWY
The Government wants to encourage homeowners to install a heat pump. Since April 2022 it has been offering a range of grants for an air source or ground source heat pump, and even better, these grants went up on 23rd October 2023. The current scheme is running until 2027.
You can get one grant per property – and it’s currently worth £7,500. These grants help with the upfront cost of installing a low carbon heating system and encourage us all to make our homes more environmentally friendly.
In addition to the grant support, your local authority may offer additional low cost finance solutions, and over time we’ll be able to recommend and refer you to potential providers. If there are local council solutions in your area, we’ll sign post you to them when you go through the Thermly platform.
Our short Heat Pump Readiness Assessment is free, and only takes a few minutes. Sometimes a bit longer with a cup of tea...
