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Heat Pump Training vs. Real-World Installation

Mars · 2025-11-26T11:10:45Z

I recently completed the Heat Geek Mastery course, partly out of personal interest, partly out of necessity. Running Renewable Heating Hub, speaking to manufacturers, interviewing engineers and engaging with thousands of homeowners on the forums puts me in daily contact with the complexities and disputes of the heat pump world. I wanted to deepen my understanding so I could engage meaningfully with engineers, challenge poor practice, interpret the jargon and ultimately give homeowners more accurate guidance. From that perspective, the course did exactly what I hoped it would. I now understand the theory of heating systems and heat pumps at a level I didn’t expect, including maths that at times felt designed to expose my limits. I can read a radiator schedule. I can understand pump curves, delta T, emitter output tables, frictional resistance, DT5 versus DT10 design assumptions and the implications of flow temperature on efficiency. I can look at a system and roughly understand why something is performing well or why it’s not. But after all of that, there’s one glaring truth that needs to be said plainly: even after completing one of the most theoretical and structured courses available, I still have absolutely no idea how to actually install a heat pump. What the course gave me is knowledge. What it could never give me is competence. The installation of a heat pump is not just a theoretical exercise, nor is it a single skillset. It is the convergence of multiple trades, each of which has its own depth, its own technical culture and its own ways of going disastrously wrong. Even if a person mastered the Heat Geek content, plus the basic Level 3 heat pump qualification, plus a wiring course, plus the usual plumbing prerequisites, they still wouldn’t necessarily be capable of installing a heat pump to a high standard. Because the reality is this: heat pump installation demands an unusual combination of theoretical discipline, practical skill, experience, judgement, patience and, frankly, humility. And almost no one has all of those things at once. The plumbing element alone requires years of experience to do well. Achieving clean, tidy pipework that is both functional and aesthetically respectable is a craft in itself. Poor pipe routing can restrict flow, create noise or starve emitters within a system. Lift the lid on the majority of failing systems and somewhere in the bowels of the installation you’ll find a poor plumbing decision: a lazy connection, a kinked pipe, a badly sized pump, an unnecessary buffer or low-loss header that destroys the system’s efficiency. The pipework is literally the bloodstream of a system. You can know all the theory in the world, but if you can’t physically execute it, you cannot produce a good installation. Then there’s electrics. Controls wiring on a heat pump installation is not glamorous, but it’s absolutely critical. If you mis-wire a sensor, misinterpret a terminal or fail to integrate correctly with a cylinder stat, mixing valve or third-party controller, the system can behave unpredictably, short cycle, refuse to defrost correctly or, in some cases, not function at all. We've witnessed this firsthand on our system. This requires proper electrical knowledge, not just the ability to follow a schematic, but the ability to interpret a manufacturer’s quirks, understand relay logic, fault-find under pressure and correct mistakes without making more of them. And then we get to the theory. This is the part that most people outside the industry underestimate, and the part that many inside the industry like to quietly ignore. A good heat pump installation is fundamentally a design exercise. It requires accurate heat loss calculations, appropriate emitter sizing, correct pump and pipe sizing, a flow temperature target that is realistic and a design margin that allows the system to function in real, messy life, not just in neat spreadsheets. The Heat Geek course makes the theory accessible. But knowing the formula for emitter output at different delta Ts and actually applying it in a Victorian terrace with unknown insulation, mislabelled pipework, unbalanced radiators and rooms that behave completely differently than the design suggests, these are two very different worlds. I now understand why good installers are constantly balancing theory with reality. They aren’t “forgetting the maths,” nor are they blindly obeying it. They are interpreting it, through experience, judgement and, sometimes, creative compromise. The best installers have a feel for a building, a sense of how it will behave in extreme weather, an intuition for where the pinch points are, which parts of the design matter most, and where you can safely flex. That only comes from doing it. It does not come from any online course, no matter how good the teaching. These are the installers that we are trying to find on a daily basis so that they can be added to our recommended installer list. At the opposite end of the sp...

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Batpred

(@batpred)

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Joined: 2 years ago

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18/08/2026 11:31 am

Posted by: @toodles

↑

@majordennisbloodnok Picture the scene: You open the front door and you see the plumber’s van has just pulled up. Young fresh faced person in overalls bounces up your path. “Hello, I’ve come to install your new heat pump - I’m fully qualified, I have just completed my 3 month government sponsored apprenticeship!” 🙀

Our instal was very much the opposite. White haired bloke, not a great talker, built the whole thing pretty himself (except the electrics) in 3.5 days. We could have this type of building work anytime..

This post was modified 2 months ago by Majordennisbloodnok

8kW Solis S6-EH1P8K-L-PLUS hybrid inverter; G99: 8kW export; 16kWh Seplos Fogstar battery; Ohme Home Pro EV charger; Vaillant Arotherm Pro 7kW; 100Amp head, HA lab on mini PC

👍

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