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.
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.
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.