Learn more about how to find a certified installer, what to expect from the process and possible costs, as well as more stories from people who have made the switch to heat pumps in their homes.
The Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS), an independent certification scheme that certifies renewable energy products and installation companies has developed an online tool to identify heat pump installers that are certified with MCS.
You can use the online tool to identify installers in your area that are certified with MCS. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme (the Government scheme that offers £5,000 reduction off the cost of an air source heat pump) requires installers to be MCS-certified. There are more than 1,000 MCS-certified installers in the UK.
Home Energy Scotland have also created a helpful checklist for people looking to get a heat pump installed.
Heat pumps are at this stage difficult to find in UK homes. Fewer than half a million homes out of 29 million have a heat pump. You may want to get a heat pump, but might not know people who have got one to speak to.
Home Energy Scotland’s Heat Pump Heroes website shares the stories and case studies from a range of homes in Scotland, with information on the process they went through and experiences since getting a heat pump installed. You can have a look at case studies of people in different property types who have purchased a heat pump. They talk about their experiences, motivations, and technical details which you may find useful.
Energy performance certificates (EPC) tell you how energy efficient a building is and give it a rating from A, very efficient, to G, inefficient.
EPCs also include recommendations on measures that would make your home more energy-efficient, along with estimated costs for implementing the changes and the potential savings you could make.
Your property may have an EPC certificate, even if you did not commission it yourself. If you have made changes to your property since an EPC was published, the rating and recommendations may no longer be applicable.
See the Government’s online tool to retrieve your EPC.
Heat pumps are expensive. We’ve created a tool that uses data to give householders an estimation of the price of a heat pump installation in their own home. The calculator is hosted in a demo form on the Nesta website. Please click here to access it.
The tool is based on a machine learning model. The model explores connections between the data collected by the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (an independent certification body that certifies renewable energy products and installers), the features of a property from its energy performance certificate (EPC) and the overall cost of the heat pump installation at that property.
If you are interested in getting a heat pump you can use the tool to enter data about your own property and it can return an estimated cost for a heat pump installation based on the model’s calculations.
It is important to note the calculator’s limitations. The model provides the most accurate prediction possible using the limited available data. However, many other factors influence the cost and it isn't designed as a substitute for a quote from an experienced installer. Moreover, because it looks at past installations to produce its findings, it can only produce an output for homes it has data to look at. This means that it can’t give a figure for flats, for homes in Northern Ireland, or for very large or very small homes. When output to the tool, the model’s results are rounded to the nearest hundred pounds and shown as a range. We would expect at least 50% of heat pump installations for such a property to fall within this range.
