FAQ - Heat pumps
Heat pumps use electricity to move heat from a cold place to a hot place. For example, the heat pump in your fridge takes heat out of the cold fridge and moves it into your warm kitchen. Air-source heat pumps use a fan to gather heat from the outside air, while ground-source heat pumps collect heat from flexi-pipes or a borehole in the garden. Air-source heat pumps are the most common type installed in the U.K. today.
Heat pumps typically use pipes and radiators (or underfloor heating) to heat your home, similar to a gas or boil boiler. They also provide hot water, typically using a hot water storage tank.
Changing from a gas or oil boiler to a heat pump is the most impactful way to reduce the carbon emissions of your home. You can eliminate over 60% of your home’s carbon emissions, more than adding solar PV (about 12% carbon savings), wall insulation (up to 30%), or a high efficiency boiler (about 5%).
A heat pump can reduce the annual cost of heating your home. With a heat pump, most of the heat going into your home comes from the outside, and only a small part (typically 25-35%) comes from electricity. Depending on how you use your home and your electricity tariff, you can save between £50/year and £350/year.
Heating with a heat pump is also more comfortable. Heat pumps are most efficient when they run slow and steady, keeping your home at an even temperature throughout the day, rather than heating in short bursts.
Heat pumps can work well in almost all homes – even those without a high level of insulation. The challenge with heat pumps is that the whole heating system – radiators, pipework, hot water tank, and controls – needs to be set up for use with a heat pump. As you may have seen from stories in the media, this is unfortunately not always the case.
Heat pumps are most efficient when water going to the radiators is at 50 C or less, while a boiler doesn’t mind producing water at 65 C or higher. The whole heating system needs to work together to heat your home with low flow temperatures. This may mean making changes to the pipes or radiators.
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) currently provides £7,500 off the upfront cost of heat pump installations in England and Wales. The Home Energy Grant and Loan are available in Scotland. You may be able to finance the remaining costs (which vary between £1,000 and £10,000) through your mortgage or via the installer. Read our blog post with full details of the eligibility criteria for the BUS.
Further support for households with low incomes may become available in future. The government has announced the Warm Homes Plan but the full details are not yet available.
FAQ - Home energy retrofit
Retrofitting is the process of making changes to existing buildings to cut energy consumption and emissions. This can involve changes to the fabric of a home, reducing energy demand through insulation, airtightness and efficient ventilation, as well as replacing boilers with low-carbon alternatives such as heat pumps.
To solve problems
Depends on your house and budget
FAQ - Green Heat Coop
Gas and oil heating for homes is the largest single contributor to carbon emissions in North Hertfordshire, making up nearly one quarter of our region’s emissions (BEIS, 2020). These emissions must be brought close to zero within the next 10 to 15 years to avoid runaway climate change. Emissions from home heating can be reduced or eliminated through energy efficiency (i.e. insulation) and replacing gas and oil boilers with renewable heating systems like heat pumps.
Heating is the most complex system within the home and contributes 65% of the average utility bill and over 70% of the typical home’s emissions*. Switching to low carbon heating such as a heat pump therefore has the largest potential for reducing home emissions. But making the switch can be expensive and disruptive, and good advice is not readily available. Green Heat Coop aims to support households through this process, providing impartial, independent, and tailored advice on low carbon home heating and home energy efficiency measures.
*Based upon the 2017 median house consumption (BEIS, 2021), the 2021 carbon intensity of electricity and natural gas, and energy prices as of August 2022.
A co-op is a business or organisation that is democratically owned and controlled by its members, to meet their shared needs. Co-operatives are built on a shared set of values: self-help and self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity.
We believe that a co-operative approach is critical to realising the transformation to our homes and communities that is needed to to eliminate carbon emissions. It is hard for homeowners to get started with their projects and find skilled installers, and meanwhile existing tradespeople see limited demand for their retrofit services. We need to simultaneously bring more households into retrofit and more suppliers. Both sides of the market need to know it is safe to retrofit. A co-op is the perfect vehicle for a community to build trust and capability as we address the common needs and aspirations.
We are not installers – our goal is to create a plan for your home that’s right for you. When you’re ready to move forward, we can connect you with skilled, pre-vetted local trades. We only work with contractors who will put the same care into your project as we do.