Summary of this article: While heat pumps may work differently to more familiar systems, preparing your home to use one isn’t overly complicated. It’s about ensuring your home is well insulated and you have the right radiators or underfloor heating to suit the lower temperature output of a heat pump. Once these elements are in place, your heat pump will heat your home more efficiently.
Investing in a heat pump as part of your home renovation means investing in your future. And, when there’s so much at stake, it’s important to get it right from the start.
This doesn’t mean it’s overly complicated, however. In much the same way as you wouldn’t expect a home with gas central heating to stay warm if it was leaking heat, it’s the same when preparing your home for a heat pump.
It’s all about making sure your home is well insulated so it’s as airtight as it can be, and that your heating system is designed to achieve the best results when powered by a heat pump. With the help of the experts at E.ON Next, here’s what you need to do.
Make sure your insulation is up to standard
Regardless of the age of property you are renovating, there’s a sizable chance you will need to assess the current level of insulation in your home. It’s important to remember, however, that insulation doesn’t just feature in one area of your home, and the cost benefits of adding it are well documented.
According to the Energy Saving Trust, an uninsulated home loses around 25% of its heat through the roof, 33% through the walls and you could also be losing heat through uninsulated floors.
The solution? Undertaking an insulation audit is always one of the most important first steps when renovating a home. It’s also one of the key areas the experts at E.ON Next will look at when undertaking your home survey to prepare your heat pump quote. With years of expertise, they can also help advise you where to include insulation in order to make your new system operate as efficiently as possible.
But, that’s not all. The benefits of insulating well during your renovation in preparation for a heat pump are two-fold.
1. Improved retention of heat
As heat pumps work best when set to run at a lower, more constant temperature, insulating well will help ensure your home retains the heat that’s emitted into each room.
2. Lower upfront and long-term costs
If your home isn’t leaking heat as a result of poor insulation, E.ON Next may also be able to give you a quote for a smaller heat pump. As well as reducing your upfront purchase and installation costs, it could also use less electricity to power it throughout the year than a larger model, further reducing your energy bills.
Design your heating system with a heat pump in mind
If upgrading to a heat pump features in your home renovation plans, then as well as ensuring your home is well insulated, you need to think about how the heat transfers into each room. In other words, whether your current radiators or heat emitters are suitable for a heat pump.
As the most efficient way to use a heat pump is on a lower temperature flow, it may be that the current radiators in your home aren’t as compatible with a heat pump as they could be. Again, it’s nothing to worry about as E.ON Next can help advise on the type of improvements you could make.
What could this look like? In some cases, it may be that you need to add some additional radiators in order to account for the lower temperature output, or switch to larger ones. Other homeowners may find themselves choosing to replace existing radiators due to their age or design, in which case you can consider purchasing radiators that are specifically designed with a heat pump in mind. Or, perhaps you might be considering a combination of underfloor heating and radiators for your home.
Either way, designing the right system in the early stages of your home renovation will create the right home heating system for your heat pump to perform to the best of its ability once it’s installed and is up and running.
While heat pumps may be different to the type of heating systems you’re familiar with, preparing your home renovation to include one isn’t as tricky as you might think. In fact, it’s not too different to how you would undertake any renovation and heating upgrade. Choosing a heat pump also means you could benefit from a grant through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme to help you with the financial costs. This is something else that E.ON Next can help you with, too.
In summary, insulating well is important for any home as it helps keep you warm in winter and cooler in summer. Then, it’s simply a case of choosing the right heat emitters to allow your heat pump to do its job, leaving you with the confidence that your investment will ensure your newly renovated home is future-proofed, energy efficient and low-carbon.
