More than 600 people across Great Britain have used a new service to visit a heat pump in the programme’s first six months, with many visitors then going on to install their own. The Visit a Heat Pump service, run by innovation foundation Nesta, connects homeowners interested in installing a heat pump with those who have already taken the plunge.
Transitioning from gas boilers to low-carbon heating systems like heat pumps will be essential for the UK to get to net zero – but with only 250,000 existing heat pumps in UK homes, many people have never seen one in real life, making it difficult to imagine how they could work in their own home.
VisitAHeatPump.com is an online platform that allows heat pump owners to show off their installation to those interested in this low-carbon tech. People interested in getting one can search via their postcode on the website, find nearby owners, and book a visit to see it in that owner’s home.
The service now features 200 heat pump installers, enabling heat pump owners to feature and recommend their installer to visitors. Building trust through personal testimonials and positive real-life experiences with installers helps to address a key barrier to heat pump adoption. By seeing their work in action, new customers have a boost in confidence and installers are more able to grow their business. Some installers are already sharing the platform with prospective customers, with qualitative data suggesting that these customers visit and go on to make an install.
Nesta has marked the six-month point by publishing new data on the service. This includes insights on visitor motivations, outcomes and whether visits influence decisions on whether or not to install a heat pump. The data finds that heat pump visits have taken place across Great Britain, from Inverness to the Isle of Wight, and Neyland to Norwich. Buckinghamshire, Shropshire and Bristol have the most heat pump hosts – while most visits took place in Lambeth, Edinburgh and Stockport.
Visits to a heat pump by local authority [total attendees top ten]
Lambeth 40
City of Edinburgh 32
Stockport 29
Southwark 26
Wandsworth 23
Hackney 23
Central Bedfordshire 21
Winchester 19
Wiltshire 16
Fareham 15
Nesta surveyed users of the heat pump platform and found promising signs that visiting a heat pump is a positive step towards installing one. The service asked visitors to take a survey before and after they visited a heat pump to understand any changes in their attitudes, knowledge and confidence in heat pumps. Visits make a clear difference to people: there are significant improvements in all measures of attitudes, knowledge, and confidence. Following a visit, 79% of visitors stated that they could imagine what it would be like to have a heat pump in their home, which increased from 21%. This could indicate that visits reduce the psychological distance to heat pump ownership, making the technology and its benefits more tangible. In addition, visitors often visit houses similar to their own, indicating people are more likely to adopt a new technology when they see others like themselves using it.
The data suggests that visits helped people get a better sense of both the opportunities and challenges of having a heat pump installed and reach a decision about whether a heat pump is right for them. Helping people reach an informed decision more quickly saves time and money for both customers and installers. Many participants stated that their visit did help them to make the final decision to go ahead with an installation.
Katy King, deputy director of sustainable future at Nesta, comments: “Heat pumps are the most efficient low-carbon alternative for heating our homes. But it can be difficult for homeowners to make the switch without first seeing one in real life and understanding how it could work in their home.
“It’s promising to see that six months in, our Visit a Heat Pump service is making a meaningful difference and helping people decide if it’s the right time to get a heat pump themselves. Our research shows that visits provide people with a better understanding of heat pumps and that improves their confidence levels in moving forward with an installation. If more people can see the benefits of a heat pump in action, more people can upgrade their home heating and the UK can get one step closer to net zero.”
Case studies:
Dan, a heat pump visitor from Cambridge, booked a heat pump visit after finding someone with a house he “could immediately compare to – same size house, same type”. He combined his visit to a heat pump with an airport pick-up. He said, “As I was heading to pick up my wife at Luton Airport, it was on the way, and I booked onto an event. It was the catalyst towards me getting one”. Dan went on to install a heat pump in June 2024.
Heat pump owner and host Jonathan from Kent signed up for the platform in April 2024 in order to help people “who were curious but sceptical” about heat pumps. He wanted to give insight into “lived experience with as little bias as possible”. He said: “I want people to understand that you can have a house heated in a very normal way. And that understanding, combined with my natural extrovert tendencies, made me feel like I could help people.”
One of Jonathan’s visitors was Lawrence, 80, also from Kent, who travelled with his wife to see a heat pump in action. Lawrence said: “I visited this really nice, welcoming chap named Jonathan. It was about a twenty-mile mile trip, but it was towards the coast. So me and my wife went, it made for a good reason to visit the beach as well, to combine it with a bit of pleasure.”
He found the service “useful” and benefited from being able to “see it and hear someone actually talk about it – and someone who knows what he was talking about”. The visit spurred Lawrence on to install his own heat pump: “Overall [the visit] confirmed I ought to do it. And it reassured my wife as well. I told [the host] as I left that I’d made up my mind and was getting one. It moved me from doing more research to actually going ahead”. Lawrence installed a heat pump in July 2024.
Lucy, a heat pump owner and host from south-west London was motivated to sign up for the platform as she felt she had her own “experience to offer” and “wanted to share it”. She said “Ultimately, the fact that I have made this shift in my home is great, but I need everyone else to do it too. I want everyone on my street to run their home with a heat pump, or some form of non-fossil-fuel-based heating”.
Image credit: Aira UK
