Heat pump owners across the UK are hosting visitor days in their homes in the latest effort to convince sceptical families to make the switch from traditional gas boilers.
The new ‘Visit A Heat Pump’ scheme will allow people to see the technology in a property near them, amid concerns uptake is at less than half the expected levels.
Efforts to get people to install the pumps are claimed to have been held back by low awareness and costs remaining high – four times more than a gas boiler. Uncertainty over a role hydrogen could play in homes is also said to have hampered investment.
Now, British innovation charity Nesta has teamed up with heat pump owners to launch the VisitAHeatPump.com website, to enable householders considering installing the technology to visit a property where one is already in and nhanlambangcap (https://nhanlambangcap24h.com) working.
But Pimlico Plumbers founder Charlie Mullins called the idea ‘dodgy and desperate’, adding: ‘Who would volunteer to have strangers tramping through their house?!’
Nesta said the move from polluting gas boilers to low-carbon heating such as heat pumps will be essential for the UK to meet its climate-tackling goals. The pumps are a key element of the Government’s bid to make homes greener and hit Net Zero.
But uptake has been far lower than hoped, with just 55,000 installed in 2022 against a Government target of 600,000 to be fitted a year by 2028 – and 1.6million by 2035.
The new idea has been compared to 1950s Tupperware parties when supporters of the container brand would invite people into their homes to show off the products.
And psychologists described the scheme as a ‘textbook example of how behavioural economics can be applied to encourage environmentally friendly choices’.
Among those signing up to the host viewings is John Condon who added a heat pump to his Victorian two-bedroom home in a conservation area in East London in September 2022
Three of the homes on the VisitAHeatPump.com website which are offering public viewings
A publicity picture for the new VisitAHeatPump.com website where people can book viewings
1950s — A woman holds containers while standing in front of a group of women in a living room during a Tupperware party. Some of the women are wearing hats made from the containers
Nesta claimed most people in the UK have never even seen a heat pump. It hopes giving more people the chance to see a heat pump in a real-world setting, and ask an existing user about it, will give them confidence that it is the right fit for their home.
