Lucy, South West London: lives in a 1970s two-storey, four bedroom terrace house
"We’d been living in our house for 10 or 11 years with my daughter and husband and were looking at renovating as the layout of the home just wasn’t working well. We are relatively eco-conscious and were keen not to burn gas in the house anymore, so it felt like a no-brainer to do both fabric and low-carbon heating upgrades at the same time."
"In 2021–22 we undertook a deep retrofit of our home, of which installing a heat pump was just one part. We also took steps to make our home better insulated and air tight. This involved us taking the roof off, strengthening, insulating and re-covering it, and then adding an array of solar panels. We added internal wall insulation to all externally facing walls and replaced our old, double-glazed windows with triple-glazing.
The whole process saw us reduce our home’s annual energy demand from around 24,000kWh down to 7,000kWh a year, and we have slashed our domestic carbon footprint from approx. 7–9 tonnes to around only 1 tonne a year! The cherry on the cake is that our home is also now very affordable to run. Our monthly direct debit for electricity is only £93 – remarkable for a family home of this size.
Living with a heat pump is incredibly easy. You don't really control the heat pump itself. It’s the worker bee in the hive – providing heat to your hot water tank and space-heating system when these ask for it. Choosing heating controls that suit you (there is a wide range of different manual, digital and smart systems on the market) should make running your heating system a breeze!
Our home is now much more comfortable, it's cosier to live in and we’re really happy with the heat pump.”
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