Heat pump questions, answered straight

Most homes in England and Wales do. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is open to property owners — including landlords and second-home owners — who are replacing gas, oil, LPG or electric heating with a heat pump. It isn't means-tested, so age, income and benefits don't matter, and you no longer need an EPC to apply. If you rent, your landlord would need to be the applicant; we can still survey and design the system with their permission. Social housing and most new builds aren't eligible. The 30-second checker, or one phone call, is the quickest way to know.

Installation prices typically range from £7,000 to £18,000 depending on your property size, with a national reported median around £12,900. But that's before the grant, the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) takes £7,500 for air to water heat pump installations replacing a fossil fuel boiler or £9,000 for oil and LPG homes (temporary grant offered till March, 2027) straight off your quote before you pay anything. Mid-terrace houses and park homes often end up paying £0 to a few thousand pounds, larger detached homes typically pay more, mainly for radiators, pipework and a bigger cylinder. See our full cost breakdown by property type for real West Midlands examples here.

Mostly, yes. Modern high-output heat pumps run many 1930s and post-war West Midlands homes on their existing radiators, sometimes with one or two rooms needing a larger emitter. We never guess this, every free survey includes a room-by-room heat loss calculation, and everything is itemised in the custom fixed quote upfront. Often, it works with the radiators that are already in place, we usually have to upgrade items like pipes, extra wires if we are changing the radiators position. Replacing the radiator is rare. How an install is designed: air source heat pumps.

A modern unit is about as loud as a fridge from a few metres away, typically 40-50 decibels. MCS installation rules set a strict noise limit at your nearest neighbour's window, and we position the unit on the survey to meet it. If the only legal spot for your property is a poor one, we'll tell you honestly at survey stage rather than fit it anyway and deal with complaints later. More on how we site and fit a unit: air source heat pumps.

If you're replacing it with a heat pump, yes, you can get £7,500 (or £9,000 if you're on oil or LPG) through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, deducted before you pay. The government grant is specifically to replace a fossil fuel boiler or electric heating system with a heat pump, not for a like-for-like gas boiler swap. On oil or LPG? See oil and LPG replacement. To check if a heat pump is right for your home, we'll tell you honestly on the survey rather than push you toward one.