Heat-pump Installations in Berkshire and surrounding counties

It depends on your property, that said, 95% of UK homes would benefit from a heat-pump. The benefits are that you will have the cheapest and most eco friendly heating system possible. It will last for twenty to thirty years without losing efficiency (versus boilers which start losing efficiency from day one and because of this need replacing every five to ten years). As the nation migrates to a smart grid, and a much larger proportion of renewable electricity you know that your home is ready to benefit from this now and into the future. Ask us about your home, you’ll get honest advice from us on whether a heat-pump is suitable for your home.

Installation of an air-source heat-pump to provide your home’s heating and hot-water is not a DIY job, and we strongly advise against taking this approach. Even heating engineers need specialist training so do not be tempted either to ask your friend-of-a-friend who is a gas boiler engineer to do it for mates-rates. If it is not installed correctly, you may experience continuous breakdowns, high running costs, and premature failure requiring replacement. A correctly designed and installed air-source heat-pump should give you twenty years plus of low running costs, and trouble-free operation, so it makes sense to make sure it is done right first time.  

Every system is different, but in general cost of installation of an air-source heat-pump is more than a mains gas boiler, it may also involve changing some or all of your radiators. However, once it is installed, you should expect not to have it replaced for twenty to thirty years. In that time, you might have had two or three boiler replacements, which makes the boiler installation costs more. 

A heat-pump installed by an MCS accredited installer (such as ourselves) qualifies for the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme until 2022. This will can pay you back 70% to 100% of your installation cost over a seven-year period, making the installation potentially for free. Ask us for details.

You need to carry out a room-by-room heat-loss calculation to correctly size the heat-pump and the radiators or under-floor heating. If your heat-pump is also doing your hot-water, then you will need a suitable hot-water cylinder/tank. If it is an air-source heat-pump. You will need a suitable location outside your house, which also complies with permitted development regulations. Contact us, we can help you with all the above.

Finding an acceptable location for the outside unit can sometimes be a problem. It is best to locate it against an outside wall, many new properties have so much glass with bi-fold doors and the like that this can sometimes be a challenge. 

Finding an engineer to service and maintain your system is currently not as easy as opening yellow pages and looking up gas engineer. However, this situation is rapidly changing. Many gas engineers are getting trained up on heat-pumps. As heat-pumps become even more mainstream, and even the default heating-system of choice, this problem will disappear. 

Heat-pumps are very efficient – some of the best are 500% efficient (yes you read that right). This means that for every unit of electricity that the heat-pump consumes, it produces five units of heat. It is impossible for a boiler to be more that 100% efficient, in fact most five year old boilers are probably operating as sixty to 60-65% efficiency, which means that for every unit of gas that the boiler burns, it delivers just over half a unit of heat.

If you switch from gas heating to a heat-pump your electricity usage will go up, but your gas usage will go down much more.

An air-source heat-pump should be located close to the house (preferably on the ground at an outside wall) but where that is not possible then it is perfectly possible to locate the unit away from the house. There are many factors to be considered in choice of location. We recommend that you speak to an expert (such as ourselves) regarding the location options that you might have at your particular property. 

Yes.

We think so. If your outlook is seven years or more then you will see the benefits of the investment in terms of lower running costs. 

You should expect an air-source heat-pump to last twenty to thirty years (without any loss of efficiency). Of course, it is important that it has been installed correctly in the first place and that you keep it regularly serviced. Some components for example valves or temperature sensors may fail through its lifetime, but these are easily replaced. 

A ground-source heat-pump has an even longer expected lifetime, more than thirty years. 

Yes, a correctly designed and installed heat-pump heating system is about ten percent cheaper to run than gas. This situation is only set to improve through the long lifetime of a heat-pump with the highly subsidised price of gas expected to change over time versus electricity which is becoming evermore renewable.

Most installations take two days.

Yes. All our installations are designed to provide 100% of the heating and hot-water requirements of the house. There is no need for a ‘back-up’ or ‘top-up’ any more than you would need one for a gas boiler. 

Click the link below for an article by Chris Woodford which provides, what we think is a succint and clear introduction to the topic of domestic heat-pumps.