Heat Pump Month blog series – Why choose a heat pump?

To mark Heat Pump Month, which starts today [17th June 2021], we’re publishing a series of blogs to highlight just some of the common questions around using a heat pump to heat your home or business.

Our first blog looks at key reasons to choose a heat pump.

There are so many great reasons to replace your oil or gas boiler, or indeed electric storage heating, with a heat pump system. Heat pumps can be fitted in properties during the construction stage or any number of years afterwards (known as retrofit), and they are ideal for homes or businesses of any size.

• Reduce your heating bills

Heat pumps are highly efficient so you’ll use less energy to heat your home, making your heating bills cheaper.  On average, for every 1kW of electricity used, an air source heat pump will generate 3.5kW of heat. Ground source heat pumps are even more efficient and will generate 4kW of heat for every 1kW of electricity used.

A ground source heat pump will typically cut your heating bills by 30 – 40% compared to an oil boiler, by 10 – 20% compared to gas and by as much as 75% compared to electric heating.

• Cut your carbon footprint

By choosing a heat pump, you will be doing your bit to cut your carbon emissions and help tackle climate change. Heat pumps are a renewable technology and produce no carbon at source. They provide clean, green heating for all manner of property types, ages and sizes, and work efficiently even if there are low levels of insulation. We’ve even used the technology to provide passive cooling in some installations too!

• Enjoy hassle-free heating

Heat pumps work best when they run on long cycles so you can simply set your thermostat and then leave the heat pump to ensure your home or business stays constantly at the right temperature. No need to ever run any timers or come home to a cold property, it will be efficiently and well heated all day long, all year round.

An air source heat pump will last for around 15 years – twice as long as the average lifespan of a gas boiler. Ground source heat pumps last even longer – around 30 years.

The system doesn’t use any kind of combustion and so not only is it cleaner to run, but it is also much easier to maintain. A quick service once a year should be all you need.

• Get paid to switch

The Government is currently offering an incentive for homeowners to install renewable heating such as heat pumps. The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) offers quarterly payments to homeowners for seven years based on their heat requirement via an assessed Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). With the Domestic RHI, the payback period for a heat pump is normally around five years. But be quick – the RHI ends for new applications in March 2022.

The renewable heating experts, Finn Geotherm has been installing heat pump systems for more than 15 years. For more benefits of choosing a heat pump, take a look at our infographic and our case studies showcase some recent installations we’re really proud of. We’d love to talk to you about your heat pump project so do get in touch.

17th June 2021