I have written three books about heat pumps and, after all these years, I remain fascinated by the technology, the engineering and its potential to transform how we heat British homes.
The fourth book required a different approach because the longer I observed everything surrounding the technology, the harder it became to describe politely. Heat pumps are not the joke, but the circus built around them often is.
We have taken a proven heating system, wrapped it in grants, certification, contradictory advice, dubious sales promises, excitable headlines and weak consumer protection, then expressed surprise when homeowners become confused.
A homeowner begins with one perfectly reasonable question: can I replace my boiler with a heat pump?
Within weeks, they may have three quotations describing what appear to be three entirely different houses. Each installer has calculated a different heat loss, selected different equipment and reached a different conclusion about the radiators, pipework and hot water cylinder. Meanwhile, the homeowner is discussing shower duration with a complete stranger and wondering whether certification proves competence or merely confirms that somebody knows how to upload a PDF.
None of this is cheap either. Add the heat pump, radiator upgrades, electrical work, solar panels, battery storage and the technology required to persuade everything to acknowledge one another, and a household may have committed an enormous amount of money to the transition.
When it works well, bravo. When it doesn’t work, which is still far too frequent, the homeowner can find themselves surrounded by installers, manufacturers, certification bodies, consumer codes, warranty providers and grant administrators, all carrying reassuring logos and answering slightly different questions while nobody takes ownership of the cold house in the middle.
That is why I wrote Britain’s Heat Pump Shitshow: How Installing a Heating System Became a National Nervous Breakdown, and after writing, editing and proofing the book, what struck me most was how little needed exaggerating. Put the entire journey in the correct order and much of the absurdity has already been surveyed, designed, installed, commissioned and certified.
The book is for homeowners, competent installers, politicians, policymakers, journalists, media commentators, energy obsessives and anyone curious to see how a sensible heating transition became so unnecessarily complicated. It is particularly relevant to anyone who wants to understand what happens after an installation is botched and the homeowner discovers that getting it corrected can be considerably harder than getting the thing installed in the first place.
It is now available to order directly from Renewable Heating Hub for £10.99 with free shipping.
If you’d prefer to buy through Amazon, you can order either the paperback edition here or the Kindle edition.
Order your copy below.
This book is the kind of honest appraisal we need of how a badly implemented policy can affect an entire industry. The book is easy to read yet an accurate depiction of most people’s experiences when changing to a product which should be an improvement over gas boilers.
Government, please take note!
Customer service from Mars was also excellent.
Thank you for such a thoughtful review, and for the kind words about the service. That gap between what heat pumps can deliver and what homeowners sometimes endure is exactly why I wrote it. Good technology deserves better, and so do the people paying for it.
Copies have gone to MPs (including the PM) and policymakers. Whether they read them before commissioning another report or useless policy remains to be seen!
I have just finished reading this booklet and found it amusing, and informative, but personally in this case, sadly, rather too appropriate! I have also bought and read the 2 other recommended ASHP books, and found them to be excellent, if still somewhat baffling in parts! It’s a lot to take in….
However, armed with the information and some very good AI help, after the Error 320 first appeared on my Samsung control panel screen on 22 July (!), and no DHW, a replacement faulty PCB was incorrectly installed on the pump on 2 September, which left the ASHP running permanently 24/24hr with the corresponding horrific spike in kW & £, for 6 days. I switched off the system! I finally found an engineer who fully understood the Samsung system and on 2 October, and he appears to have finally been able to recover the whole system to working order! The DH was also checked to confirm that setup had not been ‘changed’!
It proved a very difficult to find anyone in my area (Bristol) who could actually undertake a ‘visit and fix’ situation. With a top ‘call-out’ quote of £550+VAT plus mileage, and perhaps a follow-up second similar charge, should that be necessary, with any parts extra, it could prove an extraordinary expensive repair. In this case I had verbal quotes for the replacement PCB vary from £105 to £800, plus VAT!!! I settled on the £105 and a couple of ££ for an additional contactor, and a fair mileage charge and 4 hours time. Fingers crossed!
Thank you for reading the books and for sharing your experience, although I’m sorry Shitshow turned out to be so personally relevant. It’s meant to offer a little comic relief, not read like your service history. Yikes!
What you describe is precisely why competent aftercare deserves far more attention. A homeowner shouldn’t have to spend months researching faults, comparing wildly different repair quotes and hunting for somebody who understands the equipment, all while worrying about the electricity bill. You paid for a heating system, not an unpaid apprenticeship in repairing it.
I’m pleased you’ve finally found an engineer who appears to have put things right, and I hope you can now enjoy some thoroughly uneventful heating and hot water. Thank you again for supporting the books, and please keep us posted on how the system settles down.