When I first came across Heat Geek, I was always under the impression (based on their branding, positioning and messaging) that it stood on a platform of quality. Take your time. Do the calculations properly. Understand the property, the heat loss, the emitters. Design a system that works, that lasts, that delivers comfort and efficiency for decades.
That philosophy cut through a sector that was plagued by bodged installs, incorrectly sized units and undersized radiators, leaving homeowners with cold rooms, high running costs and a sense of disillusionment. In many ways, Heat Geek helped professionalise an industry that desperately needed it. They raised expectations. They told us that quality mattered more than speed. That was my perception.
Which is why their latest initiative, ZeroDisrupt, has left me scratching my head.
According to their own launch announcement, this is an AI-powered design system that can make heat pump installs up to 60% cheaper, 50% faster and with far less disruption. To homeowners weary of quotes in the £12,000-£15,000 range (even after the Boiler Upgrade Scheme), it must sound like manna from heaven. Faster, cheaper, less disruptive… who wouldn’t want that?
But my question is simple: have we not already seen how this story ends time and time again in the very recent past? We know exactly what happens when you throw heat pumps into homes with minimal radiator upgrades, with flow temperatures cranked up to compensate, with pipework that can’t cope and emitters that can’t deliver. It works beautifully on paper. The numbers look fine. The sales pitch is compelling. But the reality? Cold rooms, spiralling electricity bills, SCOPs that collapse under real-world use and homeowners who regret ever making the switch.
That, in turn, fuels the anti-heat pump narrative and sets back public confidence.
My concern with ZeroDisrupt is that “less disruption” often translates to no radiator upgrades, no system improvements and designs that lean on higher flow temperatures to make things “work”. That’s a guaranteed route to higher electricity bills. With tariffs unlikely to fall significantly any time soon, what looks like a cheaper install upfront can quickly become a financial haemorrhage… hundreds, even thousands of pounds a year lost to inefficiency.
I don’t see that as innovation. In my opinion, that’s shifting the cost burden from the installer to the homeowner. It’s a creative way to move the bill from capex to opex.
The real danger here is that the market is being seduced by volume (and perhaps by the expectations of shareholders). Octopus, British Gas and Aira are already throwing thousands of heat pumps into homes, often at a loss. Their installation arms are haemorrhaging tens of millions of pounds, but because Octopus and British Gas sell energy, they can claw it back later.
So what happens next? To survive, the model must shift toward scale with more installs, done faster, for thinner margins. It becomes a numbers game. And we all know who loses in that scenario: the homeowner. They’re left with a “cheap” system that’s supposed to last twenty years but ends up inefficient, underperforming and ultimately a liability.
I don’t claim to fully understand the workings of the AI modelling behind ZeroDisrupt. According to Heat Geek’s own video, it has been “trained” on thousands of installs. But no matter how clever the algorithm, AI cannot model the chaos of British housing stock. It cannot know what’s hidden behind the walls of a Victorian terrace, how poorly insulated an Edwardian semi might be or what decades-old cowboy pipework lies beneath floorboards. British homes are messy, idiosyncratic and unpredictable. There are too many variables.
AI can assist a designer. It cannot replace one.
Even among Heat Geek’s own elite installer network, unease is growing. Several have told me privately they’re uncomfortable with the direction of travel. They joined Heat Geek because of its founding ethos: slow down, design carefully, educate the homeowner, deliver systems that actually work as efficiently as they can. Now they feel the message has flipped on its head. SME installers are already operating on wafer-thin margins.
And let’s not gloss over the language now being thrown around. “ZeroDisrupt might work on smaller homes,” I’ve been told by an installer. Might. That is not a word any homeowner wants to hear when committing thousands of pounds to the system that will heat their family home for decades. Might is not acceptable. It must be must.
Heat pumps are not disposable tech, and they are fundamentally not cheap. They are the beating heart of a home’s heating system… something expected to perform reliably for 15 to 20 years. When the industry starts using words like might, maybe and probably, what it’s really saying is we’re not sure. And that’s truly terrifying. Experimenting on people’s homes that are paying a lot of money for the privilege is not OK!
This is where I fear the industry is heading for a cliff. Yes, we need to reduce costs and make heat pumps more accessible. But the obsession with “speed” and “minimal disruption” risks repeating the very mistakes that has poisoned the market already with ECO4 installs thrown in for good measure. Homeowners don’t need a £5,000 install that bleeds them dry on bills. They need a £10,000 system that works: properly, consistently, efficiently.
Cutting corners to meet a price point is not innovation. It’s rebranding the race to the bottom.
Homeowners need certainty, not might.
They need quality, not speed.
And they need trust, not condescension.
Because if we fail them again (if we let shortcuts and cost-cutting dictate the future) the heat pump industry won’t just stumble. It’ll fall flat on its face. And that would be tragic.
We have invited Heat Geek to respond to this article.
I too am surprised by the mixed messaging. Frankly I would prefer ZeroDisappointment to ZeroDisrupt.
I’m all for the application of AI, and technology such as LiDAR for improving heat loss calculations etc., but this should be as a sanity check to diligent, careful, and detailed design and excellent workmanship.
To be fair they do emphasise that any estimate on their website would need to be followed up by a site visit/appraisal to carry out a proper design and firm up costs.
Personally, I would be more reassured by the promise of meticulous and detailed design, work being carried out by experienced and highly trained heat pump installers who take pride in every aspect of their work.
I’ve invested a good deal of time researching and informing myself about renewable heating technology and I want my installer to explain why there NEEDS to be some disruption – that they need to rip out that unnecessary water pump and mixing valve; simplify and de-zone the UFH, resize some of the radiators, and why a little re-plastering absolutely outweighs the disadvantages of locating the heat pump far away from the hot water cylinder.
By all means disrupt the market through tech; but leave a little disruption for the customer – better that now than disappointment down the line!
Enjoying the book BTW Mars, good job!
@shaun, I couldn’t agree more. And thank you for the kind words about the book, really appreciate that, and thanks for your support.
I also absolutely love the phrase ZeroDisappointment. You’ve nailed it.
I’m all for innovation, AI and smarter design tools (they absolutely have their place) but only when they complement good engineering, not replace it. What worries me is the mixed messaging. The idea that we can “disrupt” by speeding things up and avoiding disruption in the home might sound attractive, but as you’ve rightly said, a bit of disruption during installation is often what ensures the system performs properly for the next 20 years. This is precisely what @Pirate Rich and I discussed today for our next podcast.
I’d much rather an installer explain why they need to resize radiators, remove redundant valves and simplify the system than one who tells me it’ll all be fine if we just leave it as-is. Less disruption up front too often leads to more disappointment later, both thermally and financially.
Disrupt the market by all means, but let’s not start cutting corners in the name of convenience.
It a ridiculous approach, impossible to have zero disrupt, that means as you say nothing is upgraded, just chuck in another poorly working heat pump. It’ll never be anything like zero disrupt unless we all fit R290 units set on highest setting. Another disaster waiting to happen.
The A2W industry is what it is with massive disruption to the homeowner. Went to a ‘sort it out service’ last week the lady is 82 and said there were 8 guys in for two days making so much noise and mess she wish she’d never been talked into it, now of course its costing more than her oil boiler did. (a little less now we’ve set up the controller)
@dgclimatecontrol, hard to disagree with that. “Zero disrupt” is an impossibility unless you’re happy to accept a system that’s only half-fit for purpose in a lot of UK properties.
The industry keeps chasing this dream of speed and minimal disruption, but low temperature heating systems don’t work that way. The reality is, the less disruption you have up front, the more disappointment you’ll have down the line.
After publishing this piece, I wanted to put the ZeroDisrupt model to the test with an open mind. I started with our own property, but the system flagged our home as “We are not ready for you yet. We currently don’t work with systems of this heat demand because it’s a much larger job.”
So I decided to use another real-world example to see what the proposition actually looked like in practice. Before we moved to our current home, we lived in a small bungalow in the South East, around 80m², with a mains gas boiler and compact radiators. A simple property. In other words, the kind of “ideal” candidate the ZeroDisrupt model is designed for.
When I entered the details, I was genuinely surprised by the results. I had previously described this approach as a race to the bottom, but I was wrong about that. It’s not cheap. Not at all.
With a single radiator upgrade and targeting their guaranteed 340% efficiency, the quoted price came in at £10,000 (£2,500 from the homeowner plus the £7,500 BUS grant) for a 5kW Vaillant aroTHERM. For one small radiator upgrade and an 80m² bungalow, that is not an affordable heat pump. Not in my opinion anyway.
Out of curiosity, I experimented with the model further:
No wall insulation upgrades. No pipework replacements. No major system changes. Just a basic bungalow, Zero Disrupt… and still a five-figure sum.
So, no, this isn’t the cheap or disruptive revolution that the marketing implies. The pricing, in my opinion, is squarely within the same range as traditional, carefully designed installations. That’s not necessarily a bad thing… it’s just the truth. And it undermines the narrative that this new approach is somehow making heat pumps dramatically more affordable or accessible for ordinary homeowners.But what troubles me most isn’t the price… it’s what the numbers don’t show.
The platform projects headline “efficiencies” of 340%, 370% and 400%, but I don’t think efficiency is the same as comfort. Those figures can be achieved, certainly, but usually at higher flow temperatures, smaller ΔTs and tighter margins. The heat pump may hit its lab-tested seasonal coefficient on paper, but if it’s doing so while running flat out to maintain room temperature in a cold snap, the homeowner loses where it matters most: comfort, stability and long-term cost.
That nuance does not appear to be captured anywhere in the public-facing calculations. And yet, it’s everything in real-world performance.
This is why I stand by the argument made earlier. What’s being marketed as “less disruption” is, in many cases, simply “less optimisation.” You can achieve an impressive efficiency figure, but often at the cost of comfort, reliability and running costs that will quietly climb over time.
And this brings us back to the fundamental point: efficiency alone does not equal a good installation.
If a small 80m² bungalow still costs around £10,000-£12,000 for a basic install, what hope does a larger, older or less efficient home have? For many households, this isn’t disruption-free… it’s simply exclusionary.
So while I retract my earlier assumption that this approach is cheap, my concern now cuts deeper. Because if this is the expensive version, yet still avoids the upgrades needed for true low-temperature performance, then we’re not just racing to the bottom, we’re paying a premium to get there.
Is the ZD is a bit of a marketing ploy? has the it been pitched high to make the upgrades seem good value & the customer just gets back to a normal HG quote …
Im know that we relatively rarely disagree, but on this occasion but I do disagree, quite strongly in fact.
The ‘zero disruption’ bit is a piece of marketing, pure and simple. I grant that one could object to that, but if one does there is plenty of marketing in all fields which is equally objectional.
Underlying the marketing is the real concept of offering the householder choice. Choice between a highly optimised system with high disruption and high up front price, and a less optimised system that could be easily upgraded at a later stage with very little ‘nugatory’ effort, (because its about replacing radiators), for low disruption and a lower price albeit with lower performance. What’s fundamentally wrong with this? Absolutely nothing in my book, in fact its a very good idea provided the trade offs are adequately explained so that people can make informed decisions. Now it may be that they aren’t adequately explained, in which case I would happily join you in the criticism, but we don’t know that and, until we do, we are judging prematurely. One size does not fit all.
Price is a separate issue. If Heat Geek are overpriced, which they may be, then by all means call them over priced. However again there are many people who charge high prices in all fields, that’s their prerogative just as it is the customers prerogative to look elsewhere. I don’t think its reasonable to judge anyone’s price from the website figure, the outturn figure is frequently(at least in my experience) very different.
@JamesPa, I don’t mind that you disagree 😀 I receive scores of DMs and messages this weekend from installers on the subject and it’s a divisive subject.
But I think this goes a bit deeper than just marketing spin. Zero disruption isn’t simply a catchy tagline… it shapes perception and expectation. Most homeowners don’t interpret that as “you’ll have a choice between efficiency and disruption"… they read it as “this is the better, smarter, cheaper option," full stop. And that’s where the problem starts, because we both know the nuance between efficiency, comfort and running costs often gets lost in translation once it’s filtered through sales teams and marketing material.
In principle, offering choice is fine (essential, even) but only when it’s framed honestly and the trade-offs are crystal clear. If you tell a homeowner they can save thousands by keeping existing rads but don’t explain that they’ll pay hundreds more every year in electricity, that’s not a fair trade. And unfortunately, that’s the pattern we’ve seen repeated across this industry for years.
I don’t object to Heat Geek charging a premium: quality work should command a fair price. My concern is the narrative, because it risks fuelling a race to the bottom by encouraging copycats who’ll adopt the zero disruption promise without the competence or integrity to back it up.
I’m not judging prematurely though… I’m highlighting what the messaging implies to the average homeowner.
@Mars I feel that choice is a good thing – AS LONG AS … the options are clearly set out for the homeowner to understand. I realise that price will often speak louder than any efficiency gains costing more would provide.
I suspect that minimal disruption will win through in most instances but surely, this is still better than carrying on with fossil fuel burning? Life often means the occasional compromise and pragmatism will be involved. I think I have been fortunate in being able to afford new radiators and fewer compromises to achieve greater efficiency in the long run. Many less fortunate (poorer) people still need to keep warm without polluting the globe by continuing to burn fossil fuels – this is their choice and I can’t condemn them for not being able to afford a more efficient installation. Warm Regards, Toodles.
OK so if I read this correctly your main objection is marketing, and particularly the potential perception-shaping effect together, just like me, with an objection if they are not honest downstream about the trade off (we don’t know). Fair enough, Im not going to disagree.
In that case perhaps we can agree on congratulating them for offering choice, provided its properly explained, and castigating them on marketing in a way which is potentially deceptive and may lead to wider bad practice (which they would probably argue they cant be held responsible for).
I guess I like to find |(and maybe amplify) positives, where they exist, as well as negatives, otherwise almost any change or new idea becomes wholly negative and stasis is inevitable.
@JamesPa, that seems to me a pretty good summary. I’ve seen plenty of instances of things I wouldn’t touch with a bargepole that are nevertheless just what someone else wants. If choice is exercised in full possession of the facts, I can’t say those others are “wrong”; merely that I disagree.
Seems to bring your and @editor’s positions in line rather well from all I can see.
It’s worth adding that you don’t need to disagree to exercise different choices, you may just have different circumstances.
If you have loads of capital otherwise doing nothing it makes zero sense to get a loan to buy a house. If you don’t, then it does make sense.
No difference of opinion necessary, just a difference of circumstance.
@JamesPa, that’s a very fair summary and I completely agree that it’s important to recognise positives where they exist. I’m not against innovation or even the idea of simplifying installs. Anything that makes the process smoother for homeowners and easier for competent installers should be celebrated.
My issue, as you’ve correctly picked up, is about messaging and its knock-on effects. Heat Geek’s reach is significant and their words carry real weight across the sector. When they say “Zero Disruption”, that phrasing doesn’t just stay on their site… it seeps into how the wider market behaves. And as we’ve both seen before, less scrupulous installers will take that headline, strip out the nuance and run with it to justify cutting corners. That’s the danger.
But we have to keep holding everyone (not just Heat Geek) accountable for the clarity and honesty of the message, because the downstream consequences of overpromising are significant. Aira is another problem child.
That’s all I’m trying to do… flag the risks early before we find ourselves back where we were five years ago, untangling the fallout from thousands of bad installs and frustrated homeowners.
That’s a timely reminder on this note… one of the installers I spoke with this weekend suggested (though it’s unverified on my end) that for a heat pump installation in the UK, the existing hot water cylinder often needs to be replaced with a ‘heat pump ready’ cylinder.
The reason isn’t a direct building regulation mandate to replace the tank itself, but rather a performance requirement. Heat pumps run at lower temperatures than conventional boilers, so the cylinder’s internal heat exchange coil must have a much larger surface area to efficiently transfer the heat and meet the minimum required hot water temperature and reheat times. Using an old cylinder can drastically reduce the heat pump’s efficiency, which can violate compliance standards.
I will look into it this week.
That sounds suspiciously like an argument by an installer who just wants to replace cylinders at any cost to the customer, hasn’t got a technical argument for what he wants to do, and will happily ignore the same ‘standards’ when it suits them.
Depending on the circumstances the options are, so far as I am aware:
The trade offs depend on household usage, funds availability, heat pump capacity, nature of any existing cylinder and householder attitude to any noise which a circulator pump may cause. There are indeed many cases where replacing an existing dhw cylinder is necessary or desirable, but overall this is another example of the homeowner being denied choice for the convenience or profit of installers, unnecessarily pushing up the price of heat pump conversions at the expense of the taxpayer, the customer and the climate.
If you already have a reasonably recent UVC of sufficient size, I think I would argue that replacing it just to get a larger coil is probably the last option to be considered. Unless you consume unusually large amounts of DHW the payback time is just too long, particularly if you have, or intend to get, a ToU tarrif.
As it happens I did replace my small vented cylinder. One installer was prepared to reuse it by adding a circulator pump and phe (which is how he, by default, does cylinders for heat pumps) and I am pretty sure another would also have done. However after discussion I was happy that the usability advantages to me outweighed the disadvantages. Had it been a recent UVC (say < 10-15 years old), there was no way this would have been the case and thus no way it would have been replaced.
In defence of installers, most presumably dont have a lab in which they can test new ways of doing things, so when expected to guarantee that a particular solution will work will inevitably default to what they have done in the past unless the customer themselves shows an appetite for experiment. This applies, I’m sure, to other areas and is perhaps a structural issue in the industry.
[…] off this debate and welcome the opportunity to talk through some of the issues highlighted in his original article. Mars’ platform is one of a few that brings installers and homeowners together to debate the […]
For those looking to hear Heat Geek’s response to this article, Mars kindly offered us a right of reply which you can see posted here:
https://renewableheatinghub.co.uk/forums/government-schemes/very-much-awake-renewing-the-heating-industry-one-step-at-a-time/#post-50468
I think I am somewhere in the middle of @Mars and @JamesPa. As someone who went through the “normal" heat geek design process I can say I would have appreciated some of the features in this zero disrupt version and may have ultimately decided to go that route with heat geek had it been an option a few months ago.
I can say that the careful design process is fine to a point but ultimately we had a budget. Our first quote from heat geek was over £12000 and required virtually all radiators to be changed and was over our budget
I went back to heat geek installer for changes but it took them a long time to make any changes an come back with updated quotes. He blamed the heat geek platform as he said it was difficult to make changes. I am not sure if that is the case or just an excuse.
I would have massively appreciated being able to review the effect of different design temps and efficiencies on the number of radiator changes and also budget so I could easily what “bang for buck" was acceptable for me.
I agree with @Mars it could prove slightly disconcerting initially if people are in the research phase and are expecting quotes at the lower end or with no disruption whatsoever, but ultimately I think as others have said, the more options the better. Most people have a budget for these projects and if they to able to see varying effects on money, potential savings etc if you spend a little bit more or a bit less is useful to every consumer and allows for a number of buying motivations.
I have decided to go for Adia system, but on the same basis – that to reach the ultimate system efficiency will come in stages not immediately but I am happy with that compromise
Thank you Aadil. We appreciate you taking the time to reply and share Heat Geek’s point of view.
Cheaper. Faster. Less Disruptive.
In this episode of Homeowners’ Q&A Podcast, Leah Robson, Mark Hall, Simon Wardle & James Clark dive into Heat Geek‘s ZeroDisrupt and answer the big question: does it make heat pumps truly accessible to the masses or is it just cutting corners in disguise?
🎧 Watch now:
@Mars Mars, speaking as a home and heat pump owner, I found myself nodding and agreeing with all those speaker’s comments and observations in that presentation.
I rather felt that you were demonstrating your suspicions and your scepticism of Zero Disrupt type schemes – or were you just playing ‘Devil’s Advocate’ perhaps?
A very balanced presentation I thought and my views on the scheme have been expressed elsewhere so need not be repeated here. Keep up the good work, Regards, Toodles.
Can I just say how refreshingly open this podcast was.
Mars you did a great job of grilling the installers and you were right to do so, yet at the same time the installers stuck to their guns and were clear that the industry has to offer choice and make itself available to customers who don’t have unlimited capital funds, and the ‘Zero Disrupt’ offering is a sound step towards saying to customers that its their choice whether to buy a Porsche or a Ford. It seems to me that the potential pitfalls were explored well and there was a remarkable degree of candidness.
Perhaps the one thing that was not (at least for me) resolved is what happens if the customer opts for ‘zero disrupt’ but when the engineer visits to do the survey it becomes immediately obvious it is not practical. Perhaps Heat geek have the stats to show that this happens sufficiently rarely that it can be dealt with in an equitable fashion, but we don’t know and it would be good to have clarity on this. I would have thought that giving the installer the option to decline to survey following a visit (and to return the survey money which as I understand it is paid upfront) might cover this fairly both to installer and customer. Perhaps that happens in practice, we don’t know.
I do agree with the installers that we need to get out of the ‘only the Porsche will do’ mentality that is attached to heat pumps. Of course that will never, ever, be an excuse for poor installs, but it is an argument that there is a valid trade off between high capital expense for lowest possible running costs, and lower capital expense for higher, but still acceptable, running costs, ie customer choice. That choice must of course be informed by honest representation of the trade offs which the installer has the responsibility to present.
Well done to everyone taking part!
Isn’t that the job of a robust interviewer?
@JamesPa Yup! 😉 Toodles.
🤣 I’m afraid my acting skills are about as convincing as a builder’s “I’ll be there at 8am.”
So no, not playing devil’s advocate. I’m genuinely sceptical… just without the poker face to hide it.
As I agreed with earlier in this thread, I think the concept of providing customer choice on compromises they can make to reduce the install cost and complexity is a good one. The recent podcast reinforces that for me.
At the same time, the early comment about “ZeroDisappointment” is shrewd. The idea of choice AS LONG AS compromises are made clear is rather undermined by the superlative name. The marketing is all wrong. If it were renamed to highlight the concept of chasing “good enough” as decided by the customer, I’d be far happier.
I take the point but who is ever going to do that? Do you expect Ford to market their cars with the slogan “does the same as a Porsche but not so swish and doesn’t go as fast’?
Also your comment implies that “good" is solely defined by performance, which is back to the “one size fits all" concept. Price and disruption are part of what defines goodness.
When I looked at the website it clearly communicated options for lesser or greater efficiency, surely that’s the point?
Except Ford don’t market their Mondeo as a Porsche alternative. People buy a Mondeo knowing what they’re getting for their considerably lower price. The marketing doesn’t imply the Mondeo is zero- anything (or maximum- anything either).
To switch analogies, Tesco’s “value” brand does very well with the “good enough but much cheaper” brief. It can be done.
Also your comment implies that “good" is solely defined by performance, which is back to the “one size fits all" concept. Price and disruption are part of what defines goodness.
IF that’s what I’ve implied then I haven’t expressed well enough. I agree with what you’ve said. However, the new model is about accepting some compromises to get an install that works well enough for the customer, and my point is simply that the slogan it’s been given seems to me to hide rather than sell that fact.
It is… in theory. But after some rather painful conversations with installers, the lack of clarity really worries me.
My issue with Heat Geek isn’t about quality… it’s about transparency. Despite what the website ‘journey’ suggests, homeowners don’t actually get to choose between greater or lesser efficiency.
For example, say I select ZeroDisrupt (no radiator or cylinder changes) and click “Proceed.” The installer then visits, does a survey, he can tell me I need half my radiators replaced and a new cylinder. That’s the quote you get, not the one you thought you’d chosen at the outset with ZeroDisrupt. So, in reality, it’s no different to any other installation process really.
I’ve spoken with several ZeroDisrupt installers, and even they seem unclear on how the process is meant to work. It just feels messy, like it’s been rolled out too quickly.
If anything, it comes across more as a marketing exercise to get Heat Geek installers through the door and compete with the likes of Octopus, Aira and other volume installers.
To me this feels like a marketing ploy from Heat Geek to attract more business.
Heat Geek have quite quickly built a brand, and in the large part a collection of good quality installers.
However, they have to compete with the likes of British Gas and Octopus who are installing significantly more (up front) cost effective systems, quite often at comparable quality.
Once the early adopters have bought their heat pumps, just like the first wave of electric car owners who would have bought one anyway, they need to persuade the rest of the population to switch from their trusty, reliable gas boilers.
In reality, trying to persuade people to invest the best part of £20,000 (minus the BUS) is going to be a very hard sell and I think they know it, unless they can get a grip on the (often excessive) installation costs.
I do agree, but surely that’s what we expect from marketing. If you are trying to sell things it’s normal practice to stress the upsides and leave the customer to work out the downsides. Almost everything you buy has compromises (or trade offs, which is perhaps a better term). I don’t see how we can reasonably expect anything else given the common practice.
I think we all have a healthy skepticism when it comes to marketing; that’s true.
Perhaps I’d be more comfortable if Heatgeek rebadged their two streams so as to work together. Black Label means nothing and Zerodisrupt is disingenuous, and neither distinguishes from the other. Something like “MaxPerformance” vs “MinimalChanges” (not my snappiest effort, but you get the idea) would highlight the strengths of each approach whilst also highlighting the difference in focuses. No customer obfuscation and plenty of opportunity to discuss, which is what both Heat Geek and customers ultimately want.
I could definitely go with that. Two distinct options with two distinct marketing terms.
Thanks, @JamesPa. Of course, it’s irrelevant unless Heat Geek move in that direction, but if they do then I’d personally find my objections largely evaporating as a result of transparency to the consumer.
@Majordennisbloodnok I wrote an extremely erudite and comprehensive response to all the above this morning – it was so good, the server lost it for me and just gave me a curt error message. I have been too busy since and of course now, I have forgotten all those pearls of wisdom lost to the ether.😉
What follows will of course be an impoverished relation to that which I wrote the first time!
I understand Mar’s feelings about providing an on-line quote that when looked at by an actual engineer is just not realistic; as has since been written, this is down to proper honest marketing of the various products and options – these would need to be explained in the earliest stage. If an explanation of the options is offered, then surely it is down to the individual homeowner to weigh up the options and then ‘cut their coat according to their cloth’ so to speak.
My savings allowed me to opt for almost all emitters to be replaced and opt for a DHW system that I had room for but would still comply with those dreaded MCS guidelines. I ended up with a good heat pump system that is quiet in operation, keeps us at a level of comfort we require and is very economic to run.
Had I not been able to afford such an installation but I had been offered the option of ZeroDisrupt, keep my old radiators and DHW tank but pay slightly more for a less efficient running system using a higher flow temperature, I could at least have looked at the options available. My feeling is that, with my convictions I would still have wanted to dump the gas boiler and fossil fuel burning in favour of a much cleaner renewable energy heating system.
Whether if I did not have such strong convictions about going green, maybe the price differential would still have taken a lot of swallowing – I would like to think I might still be attracted to renewables though and any move from installers that is backed by a solid guarantee of a working system that fulfils their promises should be commended.
Honesty and a full and frank setting out of the options with their advantages or disadvantages is key to this policy working – and of course, we needn’t worry ourselves about this as we have the MCS looking after our interests haven’t we? What could possibly go wrong?!😉 Regards, Toodles.
For minimal disruption and systems which are more affordable, and so likely to be more sellable, I wonder if there needs to be more pragmatism and allow options like hybrid heat pumps, using the kind of add-on heat-pump systems that are used in the Netherlands.
If you look at the installation details for these, they’re pitched as essentially leaving the existing heating and hot water system untouched, installing a small indoor unit next to the boiler and tying it into the central heating flow and return and boiler controls, installing the outdoor unit and some small-bore refrigerant plumbing between the two. Typically these cut gas usage in the 50-80% range, depending on the property, lifestyle etc for what seems minimum disruption and with a much quicker install.
They’re not perfect, there’s still some gas usage, but they seem a more viable approach to fit out millions of homes than the current heat-pump approach.
There may be times when that’s necessary, @Temperature_Gradient, but it won’t get the BUS grant and so won’t be cheaper to the customer. I also think, purely subjectively, that the need for hybrid systems is far lower than most boiler installers would think or lead us to believe.
A point worth considering, though.
Also it embeds a complex system, almost taking the homeowner down a blind alley.
I must admit to toying with a hybrid, but then coming to my senses. its just mad to maintain two systems for the same job imho.
I have almost the same view of some hybrid cars. The ones where the traction is electric and there is a petrol generator I can understand, this has existed in the rail industry for decades. At least it simplifies the drive train. However some hybrids appear to have the full fossil drive train with an electric motor bolted onto the gearbox. Really?
Hoi, hands off my Toyota hybrid. It is a very slick bit of engineering. An Atkinson cycle ICE (now that is a blast from the early days of combustion technology) and small battery. Traction can be provided by the ICE or the battery or both in varying degrees, the traction battery is charged by the ICE or regeneration. The end result, retire the dirty diesel, still get 60mpg, and no range anxiety in an area not served well by petrol stations let alone charge points. Charge an EV at home? Aye right. No smart meter signal, so no fancy shmancy off peak EV tariffs. Come back to me when someone builds an affordable EV with a 400 mile range, in the dark, cold, snowy hill roads of a Scottish winter.
Admittedly I don’t get the plugin hybrid which even with their 30/40 mile battery range means lugging two drive trains around. Self charging hybrids make more sense to me.
The Toyota plugin hybrids are very similar to their regular hybrids, same design of drive train but with slightly more powerful motors, and the hybrid battery is larger to provide the extra EV range. There isn’t 2 drive trains. It’s like a regular hybrid, but with 30 miles electric range when you plugin.
Alright, I concede that the Toyotas are, as you say a very slick piece of engineering, maybe its a case of original and best. Some others seem cruder so far as I can tell.
Thats 10p/mile for fuel, as opposed to less than 2p per mile that I pay. As an added as a bonus I almost never have to visit a petrol station!
Obviously the practicality of electric cars is currently a bit dependent on use pattern, but my Niro cost 20K (bought a little over 3 years old) and does 300 miles real world in summer, 240-250miles in the depths of winter and 280 miles in the shoulder seasons. Range anxiety disappears after a while because you know what it will do, trust it to do it and plan accordingly on the occasions that planning is necessary. I dont even bother with a ‘proper’ charger, just the granny charger that came with the car + an EV rated 13A socket.
‘We learn from history that we do not learn from history.’
I wonder if someone from marketing or a focus group came up with ZeroDisrup!
You only have to join a few Facebook groups and ask for new pictures of new installations to see some of the issues.
One of the things I am trying to do with TICA is to publish a White Paper as a basis to issue a “call to action" to encourage the Government to support improved thermal insulation. If this is of interest, please message me for a draft copy.
Zero Disrupt could be best innovation yet, & hope for the A2W sector.: We need to install approx 30m heat pumps, the Gov unlikely to fund £200Billion of BUS grant , so getting it to work cheaply with existing installs is critical. Especially changing the HW cylinder, for a cost of £2k to save only £50 a year ( Off peak £20) with a better HW cop is a luxury we can not afford..( & for combi we need a monoblock with built in cylinder) … Yes an small elite of highly trained installers in needed that do 6 day installs is needed & will make a good living from the complex middle class installs.
But for most people we need installers that serve the broken boiler market . .HG .ZD online quote for my normal terrace house is appox £10k (7.5+2.5) including " installing one new radiator .. £1000 labour" ! Perhaps the whole A2W is luxury wrong turn for the masses ? gov should be funding A2A & drafting the soldiers as helpers for f-gas installers… I would say A2W is actually better than A2A IF the 2040 replacement monoblock was guaranteed to be a direct swap , same base same pipes, installed as easy as new washing machine .
Let’ start with first thing first, HG is a startup, they are creating a software platform with the aim to sell it and make money for themselves and the investors. That doesn’t mean they are bad, it is quite opposite, UK badly need something to fix its “plumbing industry", if someone makes money during the process, I am all up for that!HeatGeek ZeroDisrupt is an “AI software platform", because nowadays “AI" in the name increases company evaluation few billion times. Have they trained an AI on a few thousands installs, dataset is too small, and the feedback loop might been not great as if I understand correctly ,not all HG installers have real time access to the customers system performance, neither HG themselves. Can you create a good software just on data they have allowing better heat-loss calculation, volume, correct rads size. The answer is definitely YES. And seeing HG doing survey I am sure they have absolutely miles ahead leading software. So ZD is more marketing and product term rather than massive change how HG installers are doing things, this is why they struggled to even explain that on the podcast. Basically ZD is the next version of their software, like iPhone 12 is replacing iPhone 11. Now it allows to accommodate more installs, by tweaking target parameters, do you want to replace HW cylinder or not, are you happy with 50C design vs 40 or 35C in terms of savings.
What they are aiming at: we are replacing 1.7 million gas boilers every year and installing ~60,000 heat pumps. This is not a progress of adoption, economy of scale can’t kick in, prices are high, ZD aims to those who are replacing the boiler, can we make it more comparable as a price? I have a friend, his system boiler died, I suggested to check options with HP install, he tried quote online from his energy provider, saw £10k+ and went for another boiler. I am confident that a HP will work fine in his house as it is, not 500% but with SCOP 3.5+, so his bill would be about the same or a bit less, the install might’ve been cheaper than boiler, and one more house moved to the HP. If he went for a survey with a good installer he would’ve seen the benefit. As a summary HG ZD is just a tool, it is best on the market, it is superseded their previous version of software, website quotes are an attempt to bring people in, or at least consider the option, instead of opting for another boiler.
I personally went through HG experience myself, so this is the result:
I have 3 bed + extension semi from 1960x, the house had EPC D, with the heat demand according to EPC 13,066kWh + 2,200kWh for hot water. HG ZD (the old one had similar numbers also) estimated 7kW heat loss, 10kW Vaillant + new cylinder (coming from combi) + 2 rads change (£2k in the quote) with the total after grant ~£4k, 330% guarantee. I know my real heat loss numbers (3.3kW), my boiler runs at sub 45C flow with 10l/m flows (pump at lowest with dt10, because it is gas, stage 2 make no difference, just dt goes to 5), all rads are balanced (all TRV’s fully open or removed) and house kept at 21C. my annual gas consumption ~6100kWh, so I know I do not need rads changed, neither that big heat pump, so I booked the survey expecting the quote go down to almost £2k.
the survey was good, the installer was super professional, as I mentioned software I think is a state of the art. Results: ~4.5kW heat loss calc (I’ve sent to the installer all my monitoring data on 30 mins gas consumption, inside/outside temps at the times, etc), 5kW Vaillant HP, new cylinder, no rads change – £7,500k after the grant with 310% efficiency guarantee 50C design flow, the install that can’t be any more less “Disruptive". £2k of “Integration" was added to the quote. I’ve asked why so expensive, the answer was it is the normal price of an HP install. I didn’t go with the install, my annual gas bill is £450,and £7,500 is 15 years worth of heating for me. Even If I need to replace boiler I will go to another boiler for that price. my example is not a rule, it just one case, and I think it is more even exception, possibly the installer just didn’t want to do the job, he would rather do another job with rads change where they can make more money.
Thanks for sharing, it could be the installer is after people keener on green goals and interested in swapping rads. I am pretty sure you can get a more reasonable cost with octopus, as they seem to have some of that scale already. I think even EDF quoted me 3 or 4k (on top of BUS) for that brand.
Octopus won’t not touch my house because of microbore, company policy, the survey guy said, because the loss is low microbore is not a problem, but Octopus doesn’t install on microbore as the rule.
@ksim, I agree with you that HG has essentially evolved into a software-led company trying to solve a systemic problem and the UK probably does need better design tooling, better standardisation and fewer installs that rely on “that’ll probably be fine” as a design principle.
Where things get uncomfortable, and where I think the podcast ‘friction’ came from, is that software confidence doesn’t always translate cleanly into real-world pricing or homeowner outcomes. The messaging leans hard into “less disruption, lower cost, faster installs”, but the lived experience for some homeowners (including yours) doesn’t always line up with that promise once you get past the headline numbers. When someone arrives expecting a £2-4k marginal upgrade and instead lands on a £7.5k “that’s just what heat pumps cost” conversation, that gap is important.
Your example is especially interesting because you’re not a typical homeowner wandering in blind. You know your heat loss, you know your flows, you know how your house behaves thermally, and you went into the process expecting the software and survey to reduce scope, not inflate it. From a technical perspective, your logic is sound. If anything, your case is exactly the sort of property Zero Disrupt is supposed to excel in. Yet even there, the final number snapped back to the gravitational pull of “normal heat pump pricing”.
That’s the bit I keep circling back to. We now have two universes forming in the heat pump world. On one side, the big, software-led, volume-driven players trying to compress time, cost and friction. On the other, smaller installers who design deeply, move slowly, charge more and often have long lead times. ZeroDisrupt is clearly trying to bridge that gap, but in practice it’s still constrained by installer economics, risk, warranty and the simple fact that turning theory into a working system in a real house still requires skilled humans on site for multiple days.
None of that makes ZD pointless. As you say, it’s a tool. But tools don’t set prices, installers do. And until the cost structure of installs genuinely changes, there’s a risk that ZeroDisrupt becomes more of a framing device than a price revolution. For homeowners like your friend, or like you, the danger is that they get close enough to the idea of a heat pump to be intrigued, but still bounce back to a boiler when the final number lands because it’s not going to be as cheap as initially communicated to them.
I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say it’s not done in bad faith or hype for the sake of it. I think it’s about a collision between ambition, software capability and the messy reality of retrofit installations.
@Mars You are absolutely right in pricing, but it is not software inflated the price, it is the installer inflated price, he has plenty of work coming his way and not enough competition to drop prices.
I would love not to be, and the reason I learned that is not heat pumps. I was born in a country where heating is designed for -35C, with 50C flows, because no one want their child getting burns if they touch a radiator, radiators are aluminium, built by section, last forever, pipes are plastic. And no one talks about heating, it just works, if it doesn’t you call a plumber, and they fix it really cheap. Gas is dirt cheap, so, sadly, nobody cares about HP either.When I moved into the UK, first, oh, how cold it is, ok rented property, old back boiler, just accept and pay. Bought a house, 3 years old renovation, UFH, new condensing boiler, and even worse; wife complains it constantly cold, condensation… So I had to learn heating, was not even thinking about heat pumps at that time. My boiler setup was: 2 zones with 2 different thermostats in strange places, flow 80C, unbalanced rads, massively oversized boiler (25kW vs 3kW loss), at 80C flow the boiler was overheating the small zones go into anti-cycling, resulting no heat and massive gas usage. I removed all zoning, balanced radiators, set the boiler on the lowest power, written custom controller first on load compensation and next weather compensation. now boiler runs sub 45C flows, never goes into anti-cycling, the house is at constant comfortable temperature. My has usage dropped from ~9500kWh to ~6100 kWh with 0 complains from my wife.
Why I mention this? simple, People just live with bad boilers installs, nobody says gas boilers are bad, do not work in the UK climate, just complain that energy bill is high and asking for government to subsidise cost of their inefficient systems; I walk in my town and see “clouds manufacturing" with people “heating" outside of their houses, with my boiler you can’t see vapour until it is freezing and even it is freezing it barely noticeable. With Heat pumps people blame HP immediately. The problem is not HP or boiler, the problem is installers. I have no doubt professional experienced installer which will crawl through every inch of the house can do more efficient than approximating and averaging software, those installers are rare and expensive. So HG ZD might not match the top 1% of the installers, but it is better than 90% of gas and HP installers we have right now. So far only HG made the system proposal to the level I think it is reasonable, the rest is specifying 9-10kW Heat pumps with buffers and low loss headers. I got a quote for 9kW system+cylinder with buffer for £2700, which is reasonable in price and I would pay that, but proposed configuration will cost me 50-100% of efficiency.
I do not think retrofit is messy, or heat pumps that complex, it is just quality of training, outdated guidelines, and low quantity manufactures making misleading recommendations with their heat pump. I had one of the Grant UK HP installers, on your youtube channel Neil Sawers says buffers are killing the efficiency and they do not recommend buffers, but the installer come and says it is Grant who says to fit low loss headers and volumisers, as if there is any problem with warranty the installer will be in trouble for not fitting one. His words not mine….
As another example, just got off the call with a partner of EDF Heat pumps, they (26 years of experience fitting heat pumps from their words) wouldn’t fit a heat pump to my house, because: and let me quote: “microbore is too restrictive, by the time water get to the radiator it looses temperature". I would love the guy just to have the software tell him what to do instead of doing taking himself; went to their website, buffers, separation all the way. But we agreed that I have a magic boiler which somehow heats the house with flows sub 45C, but in reality it is not possible…
@ksim Mathematicians have calculated that bees can’t fly – but fortunately, no-one has told the bees! 🤨 Toodles.
@ksim, I don’t actually disagree with much of what you’ve said… in fact, your boiler example is a perfect illustration of the real problem. Most people live for years with badly designed heating systems, whether gas or heat pump, because the system kind of works and no one ever joins the dots between comfort, efficiency and design. High bills get normalised. Poor installs get tolerated. At the end of the day, boilers are forgiving.
Where I’d push back slightly is on where the system failure sits in the UK. Yes, installers inflate prices when demand outstrips supply… that’s basic economics. But that market distortion has been turbo-charged by a scheme that doesn’t properly enforce design quality. If you can self-certify a system, issue a certificate, unlock public money and never have to submit or defend your heat loss, emitter design or hydraulic logic, then the installer incentive is skewed toward speed, not excellence.
Your experience shows exactly why this is important. You understood the heat loss, reduced flow temperatures, removed pointless zoning and suddenly the system worked properly. Most homeowners never get that opportunity because the design decisions are opaque and unchallengeable. When the result is poor, the paperwork still says everything is “compliant”. That’s the difference between living with a bad gas boiler quietly and a heat pump being publicly blamed… heat pumps are sold on performance, so when performance falls short, the technology takes the hit.
On software, I’m not arguing that it beats the top 1% of installers who will crawl every inch of a house. I agree with you… those people exist, they’re excellent and they’re rare. My concern is that the floor is too low. If software-led design can reliably outperform 70-90% of current installs, then that tells us how broken the baseline is, not that the software is the problem. There are a lot of incompetent installers out there.
Buffers, low loss headers and volumisers are a great example of this mess too. One part of the industry publicly acknowledges they damage efficiency, while another hides behind “manufacturer guidance” to protect warranty and liability (which is garbage). The homeowner ends up paying for the inefficiency, in running costs and reputation damage to heat pumps as a whole.
So yes, the core problem is installer quality. But systems like MCS exist because we cannot rely on every install being done by the top 1%. If the scheme doesn’t enforce competence, evidence and outcomes, then it rewards mediocrity while the technology takes the blame. And that’s where things have gone badly wrong, because MCS in its current form is not fit for purpose.
The thing that worries me is that this brainless crap is only going to get worse as AI reinforces AI trained by brainless crap like this.
Physically humans are not, by a very long way, the apex predator. We currently occupy the apex position because of our ability to think and to share our thoughts with other humans.
That ability was already set to decline starting 20-30 years ago when it became obvious that, broad brush, the more intelligent people were having fewer offspring than the less intelligent people (no causality or comment intended, just fact at least in Western Europe). This is possible (from a genetic point of view) because the benefits of modern society result in a decline in the genetic advantage of intelligence (and indeed of physical strength).
With the advent of AI the evolutionary advantage of intelligence will be further eroded. The reproductive/survival advantage will lie solely with those who are ruthless or whose parents own the AI, until such time as the humans with physical strength decide that enough is enough, and create a bloody revolution. Alternatively much of the human race will be consumed from its boundaries by physically strong creatures (or less strong but equally potent forces such as a virus or bacterium) which those who own the AI no longer need fend off because they no longer need the rest of humanity.
Not a nice thought, but well worth deep contemplation before making voting choices!
Above all THINK, because that is the only reason homo sapiens currently enjoys its favoured position.
…otherwise known as “hive got news for you”.
And don’t bother; my taxi’s already ordered.
@Majordennisbloodnok And did ‘Honey’ order it for you? Toodles.
@Mars how about a video “ChatGPT vs average heating engineer". 🤣 So I did an experiment and asked ChatGPT for HP size recommendation and would it recommend hydraulic separation like low-loss header or buffer, fed to it all numbers from by gas consumption and boiler data flow temps data. this is the result:
Almost the same question for Gemini:
Final was Claude:
I can experiment with feeding to it the heat loss calculation, but decided to make it fairer as not all installers I’ve contacted were able to do it, basically everyone had the same or even more data, so I would say LLMs are better than 90% of boiler and heat pump installers out there.
I’ll be honest, I love that idea! I’ll start working on that later this week. “Average" heating engineer vs ChatGPT vs Wattson…
@ksim, this document (Heat Pump Suitability Assessment & Recommendation) what is the information modelled on? Is it your property or a hypothetical one?
@Mars It is based on my property, I described my heating system open loop + UFH + radiators on 8mm microbore, indoor temperatures, current Gas boiler delta T, boiler power and for how long it is running every hour, + annual gas consumption. asked to calculate required flows because of microbore. My gas boiler data is deeper than many houses have, but installers had access to it also, so I think it is fair. I can also compare the results with what I was told by different surveyors and installers about exactly the same property.Happy to provide prompt I’ve used, all used models are reasoning, which also very interesting to read, for example Gemini calculates that the flow should be fine, but still scared of microbore so recommends buffer tank. I didn’t spent any time optimising the prompts. It would be interesting maybe experiment with longer chats, but my experiment was simple prompt -> response, low effort ;-).
That’s a very interesting exercise…. And it’s good to see some caveats in what was offered. I think Gemini is cautious of microbore for good reason since there are too many unknowns.
Apart from specific bore size…. How was it installed eg with kinks and tight bends? How many radiators are Daisy chained off a 10mm branch pipe? Is there any push-fit plastic microbore. To name a few.
We do have some microbore and it does work but we did do some remedial work to ensure the pipe sizes cascaded down so that only 1 radiator was fed from one branch of 10mm pipework. There is a limit as to how much heat energy a 10mm pipe can carry. The attached file shows how much energy can be carried by a given pipe size.
ps adding a buffer tank doesn’t solve the problem of under sized heat carrying pipes for a given load requirement.