What happens during a heat pump design consultation?
Heat pumps are a cost-effective and low carbon way to heat your home and hot water. As they work differently to traditional boilers, getting a heat pump can involve making some significant changes to your current heating system – changes that are unique to each home.
At Good Energy, we conduct a detailed design consulation for every customers to ensure we design a heating system that’s exactly right for your home. In this article, we explain what happens during one of our heat pump design consultations, and how to book in with us.
Should I choose a virtual or an in-home design consultation?
We give our customers the option of having an in-person or a virtual heat pump design consultation via video call.
The the vast majority of our customers opt for in-person, to get assurance that everything has been measured accurately by our expert team. In order to book a virtual design consultation, you will need to have detailed floor plans of your property, showing measurements.
Both options take between 2-3 hours for the team to capture everything they need to know to create your bespoke heat pump design.
What will a heat pump design consultation cover?
Our design consultations are thorough and detailed, because we are passionate about designing the very best heating system for your home. The way we conduct our surveys and configure our heat pump systems makes them more efficient than industry average. Remote monitoring data from the heat pumps we have installed shows that they achieve an average efficiency of 340% – compared with an industry average of 290%.
Our expert team will cover following areas to ensure we design the right heating system for you.
Your preferences and priorities: We’ll ask you what you are hoping to get from your heating system, including where you’d ideally like the heat pump to be located, your target home temperature and whether it’s more important to you to have lower installation costs or lower ongoing running costs.
Detailed measurements: Our surveyors will perform a heat-loss assessment of your property on a room-by-room basis, which includes measuring all rooms, windows and radiators.
Placement of your heat pump: We will assess where to place your heat pump on the outside of your property, taking your preferences into account.
Hot water cylinder: Most customers need to replace their exisiting hot water cylinder with one that is designed for use with a heat pump, but we will advise if your existing cylinder might be suitable. If you do not have a cylinder, we will advise where this would be installed.
The layout of your system: Your surveyor will gather all of the data we need to enable our technical and design teams to design your heating system, including routing of any pipework.
Radiators: We’ll assess all of your radiators to see if they are sized correctly for each room. Heat pumps require radiators with a larger surface area than traditional boilers, as they work most efficiently when they run at a lower flow temperature.
Every home is different. We often find that many existing radiators are already large enough, or only slightly undersized meaning they would still work sufficiently as part of your heating system. On average, customers replace four radiators as part of a heat pump installation.
Settings and configurations: We will discuss your ideal home temperature, budget and goals for your home heating costs, and how best to run your heat pump to achieve your goals.
Electricity load: We will review your electricity load and meters to ensure they are suitable for adding a heat pump.
Sound assessment: We will carry out a thorough sound assessment to ensure that your heat pump will be quieter than 42dB, measured from one meter away from your closest neighbour’s door or window.
Special requirements: We will take into account any special requirements you might have like Solar Thermal, underfloor heating; or design challenges such as where to position your hot water cylinder.
Payment options: We’ll give you a full overview of how you can pay for your new system, including how we will apply for the Government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme on your behalf.
What areas in your property will we need to access?
To complete a successful design consulatation, we will need to access the following areas. If you have opted for a virtual consultation, we will need you to access these on our behalf during the video call, or via photographs:
- Every room and radiator in your property
- Your loft space
- Boiler
- Fusebox
- Hot water tank (if relevant)
- Internet router
- Water softener (if relevant)
- Gas meter (if relevant)
- Electricity meter
- Thermostat(s)
What’s the result of a heat pump design consulation?
We will use all of the information and data gathered to put together a thorough design proposal for your new heating system, which we will present to you during an online meeting so that you can ask questions. This will include:
- Your heat pump design, including location of heat pump, hot water cylinder and pipework routes
- Forecasted system efficiency and projected running costs
- Any recommended upgrades we suggest making to your current heating system (like new radiators and a hot water tank), and the impacts these upgrades would have on your running costs.
- A final cost for your new heating system.
How do I book a heat pump design consulatation?
You can complete our online quote journey in only two minutes to understand what sort of upgrades your home might need, as well as an indication about how much your new heating system might cost. After completing the quote journey, one of our experts will call you to chat about the next steps, and book in a design consultation if you would like to proceed.
You are also welcome to contact our team to discuss your requirements. You can call us on 0333 016 4500 – we’re here Monday to Friday 9am to 5.30pm, or email us on works@goodenergy.co.uk.
