Why you should warm up to the heat pump trend
When making home improvements, more customers are now asking for solutions to be energy efficient and sustainable. Offering them greener energy sources to power their heating is a great way to meet their needs, as these products help them cut their energy bills and reduce the carbon footprint of their homes.
Heat pumps are quickly becoming the most popular environmentally friendly alternative to heating homes in the UK. This is largely driven by the government’s current push to get more of these systems installed in properties. It has set a target of 600,000 installations a year by 2028 to support plans to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
If you’re trying to talk your customer into making the switch to heat pumps, here’s a quick introduction to how they work and the benefits that come with them.
How do they work?
In a nutshell, heat pumps transfer the energy from either the ground or the air into the home. Although electricity is still needed for this process, it’s a much more energy efficient option than traditional heating. Heat pumps can be split into two categories, ground source and air source.
Ground source heat pumps take heat from the ground, that then passes through a compressor which increases the temperature using the energy to heat the property. Although this is the more efficient option, it tends to be less popular as customers need a lot of garden space or a borehole for all the required pipework. As this leads to higher up-front costs, they may not be suitable for those customers on tighter budgets.
Air source heat pumps, on the other hand, work in the same way, except the heat is absorbed from the outside air, rather than the ground. As you don’t need land for the installation, this version is more common, especially in urban areas.
What are the benefits?
The key benefit for customers is that heat pumps are the most cost-effective form of heating that uses electricity, with an average coefficient of performance (COP) rating of 2.5. This means that for every 2.5 kilowatts of heating, an average of just one kilowatt of electricity is used. This is pretty impressive when you consider than your standard gas boilers normally have a rating of less than one!
Of course, these systems will also help customers to drastically reduce their carbon footprints and futureproof their homes against any upcoming regulations.
As well as keeping homes cosy in the winter, heat pumps can also be installed to cool down a property in the summer, ensuring homes remain comfortable and stay at the owner’s optimum temperature all year round!
With the government keen to up the installations of heat pumps, it’s likely that more of your customers will be asking about these systems in the future. With benefits for both their pockets and the planet, they really are a great product to know about.
