Ground source heat pumps: Our guide to this low carbon heating option

illustration of ground source heat pump pipes in ground next to modern white house
(Image credit: Kange Studio/Getty Images)

Ground source heat pumps are a low-carbon heating solution playing a part in decarbonising the UK's housing stock, particularly as energy prices rise and climate change heightens.

"A ground source heat pump draws heat from beneath the ground," explains a Vaillant spokesperson, "and raises this heat to a useable temperature to provide heating and hot water to domestic homes and other buildings."

Tim Pullen

Tim is an expert in sustainable building methods and energy efficiency in residential homes and writes on the subject for magazines and national newspapers. He is the author of The Sustainable Building Bible, Simply Sustainable Homes and Anaerobic Digestion - Making Biogas - Making Energy: The Earthscan Expert Guide.

His interest in renewable energy and sustainability was first inspired by visits to the Royal Festival Hall heat pump and the Edmonton heat-from-waste projects. In 1979

this initial burst of enthusiasm lead to him trying (and failing) to build a biogas digester to convert pig manure into fuel, at a Kent oast-house, his first conversion project.

Moving in 2002 to a small-holding in South Wales, providing as it did access to a wider range of natural resources, fanned his enthusiasm for sustainability. He went on to install renewable technology at the property, including biomass boiler and wind turbine.

He formally ran energy efficiency consultancy WeatherWorks and was a speaker and expert at the Homebuilding & Renovating Shows across the country.