People with heat pumps are calling the installation a key to reducing bills and cutting their carbon emissions.
Many people are intimidated by the cost, even with a £7,500 Government grant. Homeowners in bigger, older properties may still have concerns, but experts say pumps can work even in old buildings.
But those who have taken the plunge say heat pumps – electric-powered systems that use ambient heat from the air or ground for heating and hot water – can work, even where a traditional gas boiler might have struggled.
Retired GP Richard Smithson, who lives with his wife in an Edwardian six-bedroom semi-detached in North Tyneside, made the switch from a gas boiler two and a half years ago, to “reduce our carbon footprint”.
Mr Smithson said: “This house was never that warm with the gas boiler, I’d say it was warmer now with the heat pump.”
Homeowners are advised to keep the heating on at a constant temperature all the time. This enables the building to store warmth in walls to reduce heat loss and enable the heat pump to run most efficiently.
It means the heat pump works hardest overnight, when variable tariffs give Mr Smithson cheaper energy for charging his electric car. As a result, he says his electricity bill is less than they were previously paying for gas.
He added: “Some people say how long is it before you get your money back?
“That’s irrelevant, if you’re a retiring professional who’s fairly well-off, which you will be if you live in this kind of house, and you get a big lump sum, do you spend it on a round-the-world cruise or do you spend it on a heat pump.
“To me there’s only one answer – get a heat pump.”
Nick Barr, who is renovating a detached five-bedroom Edwardian house in south London, really liked the efficiency of heat pumps, but “wasn’t sure a heat pump could work on such a big or old house”.
But now he says his heat pump is efficient, “elegant” and extremely quiet, giving him no regrets. He said: “It’s not cheap, but if you’re putting something in new or if you’ve got to replace a system, it does make sense.
“The number one thing is to get a heat-loss calculation assessment for the building. That allows you to make the right, informed decisions going forward.”
Leah Robson, managing director of Your Energy Your Way, which primarily deals with properties that are hard to heat with heat pumps, says people “really don’t expect” the level of comfort.
She said: “People are genuinely concerned, often they’re struggling to heat their home as it is. And when you turn up and say, ‘yes, you can have a heat pump and yes, you will be able to run it all day and it won’t cost you any more to run than your gas boiler’, people are understandably a little bit sceptical.”
The experts talk to customers about living with a heat pump and conducts heat loss assessments and tests for draughts that can be easily fixed.
She said the type of installations the firm carries out are “not cheap projects” and that “sometimes it’s just not the right thing. But, typically, even in a solid-wall house, if it’s got double glazing and reasonable loft insulation, we can fit a heat pump”.
A demonstration project led by Energy Systems Catapult (ESC) found heat pumps could be successfully installed in all types of homes.
Eight percent of the 742 homes that had heat pumps installed for the project were pre-1919 properties, the majority of which were detached or semi-detached. Monitoring found that the house age and type did not impact the efficiency of the heat pumps.