People tend to ring up about a heat pump once they have heard there is a grant going, and there is, that part is real. Home Energy Scotland will put money towards one if you own your home and live in it, and lend you the rest interest-free, which is the part that gets folk over the line, because what stops most people is finding the lump up front. I am not going to quote you a figure, it moves about with the property and the work, and the islands and far rural spots get a bit more than the rest of us. Most of Edinburgh is on the standard rate, so do not pencil in a figure somebody up north quoted you.
The house is what really decides it
What I will spend longer on is the house, because that is the part that decides whether any of this is worth doing.
A heat pump does not get properly hot. Your gas boiler runs the water round at seventy-odd degrees and the rads are too warm to leave your hand on, a heat pump sits far cooler and heats the place slowly through the day, which only keeps you warm if the house is holding the heat in rather than pouring it out the walls and windows. A good chunk of Edinburgh is solid sandstone with no cavity to fill, so how the place is built is the first thing worth looking at, and it is the bit installers tend to skate past. The loft matters. And somebody has to work out how fast the house is losing heat, or you end up sizing a heat pump for a building that throws warmth away faster than the unit can replace it.
Your radiators are probably in on it too
Your radiators are probably part of it too. They went in to suit a hot boiler, and because a heat pump runs cooler you usually need bigger ones to push the same heat into the room at a lower temperature, often most of them, and that is money people never see coming.
Then there's the hot water
Hot water trips up the flats especially. A combi makes your hot water the second you turn the tap, and that is what is in most flats round here. A heat pump will not do that. It wants a cylinder, a proper tank somewhere, and then you are standing in a wee flat working out where on earth a tank is meant to live now the airing cupboard got pulled out the day the combi went in. I have seen that one detail end the conversation on its own.
A couple of things there's no shifting on
A couple of things there is no shifting on, mind. Whoever installs it has to be MCS-registered, and the kit as well, or the grant simply does not pay out. The other is timing, and it catches people, because the money has to be signed off before any work starts, so let a keen installer make an early start to get things moving and the grant for that house is gone. Folk genuinely do this, lose thousands to save themselves a fortnight. And the order matters, the survey and a rough price first, then the heat loss and the design, then it goes to Home Energy Scotland and you sit waiting on the offer, and only after that does a radiator get touched. All the hanging about is in that stretch. The fitting is a few days at the end.
When it's just not the right house
So I will be straight, it does not suit every house. Tenements are the awkward ones. Where does the unit even go, on a back wall four neighbours share, in a drying green that belongs to the whole stair, on the front of sandstone the council will not let you bolt anything to. Nowhere to put the thing is a flat no, and the centre of town is full of that exact problem. A cold draughty single-skin house is much the same, where bringing the pipework and the radiators up to the job would eat a small fortune. In a place like that the money is better going into the walls and the loft first, or into heating it some other way, instead of forcing a heat pump into a house that is not ready for one.
So, is it worth it?
They do work, and the grant and the loan bring the cost down to something very doable for a house that suits one. If you are in Edinburgh and thinking about it, get your eligibility checked, and get somebody honest round to look at the actual house before you spend anything.
Get in touch and you will get a straight answer, no patter.
Heat pump grant FAQs
The questions Edinburgh homeowners ask before they get started.
It moves about with the property and the work involved, so I won't pin a figure to it. The islands and far rural spots get a bit more than the rest of us, but most of Edinburgh is on the standard rate. Don't pencil in a number somebody up north quoted you — get your own eligibility checked.