In the last few weeks, the Telegraph newspaper has been running a series of sponsored posts – paid for by the heat pump industry – to expound the huge benefits of heat pumps. Among the headlines are how heat pumps work for even stately homes – but are these claims true or are heat pumps an expensive scam.
The data behind heat pumps is often conveniently overlooked or disregarded by proponents of them, mainly because it doesn’t fit the green narrative they like to peddle.
Let’s actually dive into the data and tell you why heat pumps are extremely expensive and how inefficient they are.
Heat Pump Usage Around the World
In the UK, heat pumps are vastly underutilised compared to other locations.
Environmentalists frequently cite how Scandinavian countries like Sweden and Norway use heat pumps to keep homes warm. And given the much colder climate, it is obvious heat pumps are effective.
In the US, heat pumps are also more common, particularly in the north, where temperatures can be frigid. Again, it stands to reason that if colder locations in the US are using heat pumps, then the UK should have no problem.
The truth is far different. In the UK houses are very different to Scandinavian houses and US houses. Properties in these colder areas tend to be constructed with cold weather in mind. They are made of materials that insulate a house well.
In the UK our houses are made for variable – often wetter conditions. Specifically, our houses need to be able to breath and release heat in the summer and trap some heat in the winter.
Another significant difference is the UK houses tend to be much older than Scandinavian and US houses. Hell, some UK houses are older than the United States itself.
Historic houses were never constructed of materials that could trap heat. Quite the opposite, most period properties are frequently described as drafty.
Comparing Traditional Heating to Heat Pumps
The UK government conducted a survey on heat pumps to ascertain how effective they were and whether they could be rolled out across UK properties.
They found that properties needed to be substantially altered after heat pump installation to meet the same heat generation and retention of a standard oil or gas heating system.
This was even the case with modern or new build properties.
Among the problems identified for heat pump installation was:
- Whether windows were single, double or triple glazed,
- The size of the existing radiators,
- Whether there was underfloor heating,
- Size of the property,
- Age of the property,
- Whether there was any additional insulation such as cavity wall insulation.
What is the Cost of Installing Heat Pumps?
Your initial cost for heat pump installation will be the heat pump fitting itself.
The average price for heat pump installation in the UK is between £6,500 to £11,500 for air source heat pumps. Ground source heat pumps can be much costlier, with some installations costing in excess of £30,000.
That is the cost to buy and have the heat pump installed into your existing heating system.
If you do just that, you will be thousands of pounds out of pocket with a colder property compared to if you had left your existing gas or oil heating in place.
Now You Have Other Heat Pump Costs
To try and maximise the amount of heat output into your home, you will at minimum need to replace your existing radiators with larger radiators. The average cost of buying and fitting a larger radiator is £300 per radiator. For a typical UK property this equates to £2,100.
Even fitting larger radiators may not get you the same heat input as a traditional heating system and it is highly recommended you install underfloor heating to broaden the surface area for the heat being generated. The average cost per room for underfloor heating is £5,000 in the UK. Decking out your house to maximise warmth is going to cost in excess of £20,000.
Double glazing is decent for heat retention but it’s no secret it is now considered outdated with triple glazing becoming more common for energy efficiency. With an average price of £450 per triple glazed window, once again you will find the costs running past £5,000 to upgrade an entire property.
Cavity wall insulation has an average cost of £2,700 in the UK.
Total Initial Costs for Comparable Heating to Your Existing Heating
Your total anticipated cost of installing heat pumps and doing the bare minimum required to meet the same heat output and retention as traditional heating is a whopping £21,300.
To reiterate, this cost is not to go above and beyond your current heating system, it is to get a roughly comparable heating system installed.
Heat Pumps Scam – This Only Works on Modern Properties
All of the above only gets comparable results on modern properties (built after 1970).
A large proportion of UK homes were built in the post-war period between 1946 and 1960. These properties will need substantial work to get comparable heat generation to an existing oil or gas heating system.
For older properties – all I can say is good luck.
The Telegraph articles state you can fit heat pumps in older properties including stately homes. On the face of it, this is absolutely true. You CAN fit heat pumps in these types of property. It will do almost nothing in terms of generating heat for the property.
It is common sense you CAN install a heat pump in a castle, and we all know exactly how useful it would be in keeping the castle warm. You might as well light matches to keep warm.
Heat Pumps Need Replacing Every 15 Years or So
If the above costs were not enough to put you off, you should know the lifecycle of a typical heat pump system is between 10-15 years.
Heat pumps kept in optimal conditions can last longer – however no one ever described UK weather as optimal.
Heat Pumps Scam – the Math that Doesn’t Math
The headline promotional figures put out by the heat pump industry state a heat pump can save you £700 a year on heating costs.
This is when compared to an ‘older, inefficient’ heating system. The promotions do not state the size and age of the property and what remedial work has been carried out to optimise the heat pumps to get this figure.
But let’s be generous and assume this figure is absolutely correct (it isn’t remotely correct). The total saving you will make over the 15 year lifetime of a heat pump using the £700 is £10,500.
In most cases, this saving doesn’t even cover the cost of buying and installing the actual heat pump. Let alone the additional work required to make your property heat pump optimised.
The future price of heat pumps may be cheaper, however, to offset the cost mentioned above, your annual savings would need to be close to £2,000 a year. Bear in mind the average cost of heating a house annually in the UK is £600 – it is not only impossible to save the promotional £700 for an average household, the need for much higher savings for heat pumps to be viable is insane.
No matter which way you cut it, heat pumps will not save you money.
What About Heat Pump Technology – Surely it Will Improve?
This article has been written with current heat pump technology and outputs in mind.
In the future, the technology will improve. This improvement will NOT be equivalent to traditional heating systems. Unless some form of new physics and understanding of heat becomes apparent, heat pumps don’t have the capacity to scale to meet the efficiency of a traditional heating system.
So What – Give Up on the Environment?
Instead of being scammed into wasting your hard earned money on heat pumps, you can take a number of steps to reduce the wastage of your existing heating system.
For the price of heat pump installation, you could get cavity wall insulation and triple glazing installed. Reducing your demand on carbon burning heating for the long term. This means you are still cutting your carbon footprint.
If you want to look at renewable technology for your home, a combination solar system can generate heat and electricity for your property. The electricity you don’t use can be fed back into the national grid and generate you profit.
Heat Pumps Scam – Look for Alternatives Like Solar
Although solar will not save you money for heating compared to carbon systems, the ability to plug in electricity you don’t use and profit from it, make solar a much more cost effective installation compared to heat pumps.
To summarise, heat pumps are an expensive scam aimed at tricking people into thinking they are saving the environment and money at the same time. The reality is heat pumps cost a fortune and are vastly ineffective compared to existing heating methods in UK houses.