Heat Pumps

A heat pump is a unit that transfers heat from the outside air into usable heat for a heating and hot water system

A well-designed heat pump installation can produce 4KW of heat output per 1KW of electricity input on average.

Making them 400% efficient.

  • Central Plumbing & Heating’s heat pump team has in-depth knowledge of system design and installation.

    We appreciate the importance of an exemplary system design and commissioning process. Our customers appreciate our transparent system design process, where we explain all our decisions for the heating system.

  • We are registered with MCS the heat pump governing body and are a member of OFGEM’s BUS (Boiler Upgrade Scheme) grant.

    We can offer you the £7500 Air source heat pump grant and £7500 ground source heat pump grant.

    Central will deal with the grant application on your behalf. There are a few criteria which we will check if you are eligible when you make your enquiry with us.

  • Send your plans to our design team

    New build projects lend themselves to heat pump installations. We can design a very efficient system and advise on other areas of your build to get the most from your new system.

    Underfloor heating is recommended as this is more efficient for a heat pump system.

  • Retrofitting heat pumps into existing properties is our most popular installation type. Normally, many design considerations will be discussed with our surveyor during your initial survey appointment.

  • Our quotations are supplied with a heat pump performance estimate, helping you decide whether a heat pump will be the right installation type for you.

    A heat pump's performance is based on many factors, the most significant factors are system design and choice of heat pump.

Heat pump FAQs

  • The heat pump enquiry questionnaire below this FAQ section is the best way to get in touch.

    You will then be contacted by telephone by our heat pump team, who will discuss your property and heating system. After that, we will visit your property to conduct a survey. We will take measurements of all rooms. We call this the initial survey appointment.

    Please ensure the homeowners are present for this survey. The initial survey appointment takes around 1.5 – 2 hours. We will provide an estimate based on this survey and our discussions during the appointment.

    Once agreed, we will perform all the necessary calculations and BUS grant application and provide you with the legal documents required by MCS.

    An installation schedule is agreed upon, and we install the new system based on the system design.

  • 90% of UK homes are suitable for heat pumps. But heat pumps are not suitable for every property. Efficient systems heat the building using low-temperature radiators. Sometimes this isn’t suitable for properties with very poor insulation or high air changes.

    We will discuss your property on our initial phone call.

  • There are a few requirements for claiming the BUS grant.

    If there is a cavity in your external wall, it must be filled with cavity wall insulation.

    Solid walls are not penalised, although they will affect your energy consumption.

    Your loft insulation must meet the minimum requirements. This is usually about 200mm of fibreglass insulation.

    The heating system the heat pump is replacing must be fuelled by fossil fuel: oil, gas, electric, storage heaters, LPG, etc.

    The new heat pump system cannot be a bivalent/hybrid system. It must be fully renewable.

    The heat pump must meet the full heating and hot water demands of the property.

    The installation cannot be funded by another grant or scheme.

    The heat pump to be installed must be registered with MCS.

    The installation must be designed and installed by an MCS-registered company.

  • No, our initial phone call, site visit and estimate are free.

    If the estimate is agreed to, the full quotation, heat loss calculations and system designs are £300 which are included in the heat pump installation price.

  • Heat pumps use the refrigeration process, the same process used by your fridge and air conditioning units.

    The refrigeration process transfers heat. It does not create it.

    A heat pump can transfer more heat (KW) than power (KW) it uses. A very well-designed system can transfer 4KW of heat and only use 1KW of power, thus giving 400% efficiency.

  • Yes. Your heating system will be designed to around -3ºC outside, and the heat pump will work down to -27ºC.

    The refrigeration process uses a refrigerant gas which boils at a very low temperature of around -40ºC. Even at extremely low temperatures, it can transfer large amounts of energy, using heat from the outside air, into your heating system.

  • Not really. The most effective way of running a heat pump is at low temperatures. Running a heat pump at a high temperature is not efficient. We won’t install a heating system that isn’t efficient.

    Some high-temperature heat pumps are available on the market, but these should only be used as a last resort.

  • Yes. To ensure lower running costs, your radiators will need to be bigger.

    The bigger the radiators, the lower the radiator temperature. The lower the radiator temperature, the lower your heating bill.

    Some radiators may already be the right size for a heat pump. We can work this out during the initial survey appointment.

    Because a heat pump transfers heat from outside to your heating system, the lower the difference between outside air and radiator temperature, the less power it will use.

    On a heat pump, reducing the radiator temperatures by 5ºC will, on average, reduce the heating bill by £400 per year.

  • Sometimes, yes. The water in the heating system must be circulated faster than in a traditional heating system to ensure system efficiency.

    Sometimes, we can overcome small pipework by overcompensating in other areas like pump and primary pipework sizes. Sometimes, it is best to change sections of pipe. This must be accurately calculated as an increased pump load will use more energy.

    This will be discussed at your initial survey appointment.

  • Yes, there are some months when there will be a good crossover of solar energy and heating output. But the heat pump will run primarily on mains electricity in the winter.

    We do not install solar panels, but we do have some local companies to which we can refer.

  • Yes. Batteries are a great way to reduce the cost of running your heat pump. Batteries can charge using cheaper night rates, and the heat pump can use the energy during the day when the outside air is warmer, and the heat pump is most efficient.

  • Yes. Some heat pumps are smart-grid-ready and will “talk” to your energy provider. This has some design considerations, but we can discuss this during your initial survey appointment.

Heat pump service

Hydrogen as a zero carbon fuel

Hydrogen-ready Boilers

Hydrogen is a zero-carbon fuel.
New gas boilers are hydrogen ready which means they can use a mix of 80% natural gas and 20% hydrogen with no need for a boiler engineer to attend to change any settings.
The future of gas boilers and the gas network is a hydrogen blend which will help us achieve our net-zero 2050 target.

Why hydrogen-ready boilers?

Some new boilers are designed to be able to run normally with up to 20% hydrogen mixed with natural gas. We call this hydrogen-blend natural gas.

Hydrogen burns cleanly with zero emissions. Mixing it with our normal natural gas supply can reduce carbon without too much upheaval.

Hydrogen-blend is still in its infancy with tests on villages and towns currently going on around the country.

The downside to hydrogen is that most production worldwide uses fossil fuels, and the cost of production is high.

Green production is possible with renewable technology, so hopefully, in the near future, we can produce hydrogen cleanly and cost-effectively.

 
 

Become a Carbon Reducing Hero

Green Heroes campaign.

At Central Plumbing we strive to protect our planet for future generations, in the boilers and heat pumps we manufacture, the way we package and distribute them, and through the processes, we use at our UK manufacturing plants.

Our latest campaign aims to remind homeowners and landlords across the UK in a light-hearted way that one of the most impactful and simple things they can do to reduce their carbon footprint is to upgrade their heating system.