I am consistently told by aircon folks (ie air/air) that the MCS requirements are such that they'd be better off not bothering because they'd have to charge more than £2500 more per install just to cover the MCS stuff, even before you worry about getting rid of gas and the water heating question. However it's all very new and the government announcing it didn't mean the rest of the policies and stuff were even finished.

The industry has been around for decades, it's mostly focussed on commercial work and they just don't need the MCS. Most residential installs are adding aircon to an existing property, lots of people use the gas as backup or gradually migrate.

That’s very disappointment. Like nobody bothered to even ask the most basic questions of the installers. Like would this work? Are you interested? So it’s an extra £1000 to get the grant. Amazing that somebody got paid to come up with and “implement” it. 

Perhaps MCS needs to change and support the industry?

Posted by: @adrian

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And searching the mcs database returns no installers for e11, when applying the air to air installer filter. 
Has anybody heard of an installer claiming this grant?

I understand that MCS are having to wait for another body to create some certification so that they can then accredit it. 

I agree though with other comments that MCS have a very paper focused process that looks to cover the installers more than protect the end consumer and achieve the intended benefit on a value for money basis. They also add restrictions that slow adoption (like they did defining that PV panels need to be a certain distance from the edge of the roof - probably sounded good but silly to do it irrespectively of whether the installer thinks that is required).   

I hope some way forward is found since small flats would probably be well/better served with an air to air heatpump - maybe multisplit system (and either instant water heating for hot water or a cylinder with an good overnight tariff). The alternative may be a heat network for the block of flats (essentially air to water). 

Posted by: @batpred

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I hope some way forward is found since small flats would probably be well/better served with an air to air heatpump - maybe multisplit system (and either instant water heating for hot water or a cylinder with an good overnight tariff). The alternative may be a heat network for the block of flats (essentially air to water). 

Given we have a long established perfectly functional and competitive air/air heatpump install market maybe we should just leave it alone. Maybe we should ask hard questions about why mostly well off people are getting 7500 quid to give to their installer to give most of it to a manufacturer to pocket whilst driving up sticker prices for air/water equipment ?

Why exactly is the state bankrolling A2W and skewing the market badly whilst making people unhappy and slowing adoption due to prices and awful installs of overcomplicated equipment ?

There are lots of questions that need asking about the whole sorry mess, just like the way chunks of standing charges (proportionally more of the bill of a poor person than rich) are going from poor people to folks with solar arrays, who aren't generally needy. The whole model is broken - taxing the poor to pay the rich or to pay grants to wreck their houses with EWI, adding huge overhead to installs to fund a bunch of suits and rent seekers we don't need, and blowing government money on free money to equipment manufacturers ?

Thanks all, all seems a bit of a mess and probably all a result of the fact that the governments listen to too many lobbyists which come in two flavours:

industry lobbyist: just give us money!

fossile fuel lobbyists: please make a mess of it so gas and oil seems like a good idea. 

And unfortunately in modern times not enough economists who understand things like money and that grants end up in the wrong pockets.

Cutting the vat on electricity as is now supposed to happen in October, and plug in solar are going to do more for heatpumps, than grants, the MCS and the rest of the current mess.

There's also a lot of "if you invented a grant scheme for X then someone would have to manage it, £££", and "if you add a regulation about Y to 'protect the public' then you'll need a trained workforce, and a professional body, £££" involved in it. As opposed to if you just stopping giving money out on grants and make electricity cheaper with it then heatpumps would happen anyway, and poor people would be better able to pay their bills too.

Posted by: @etchedpixels

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There's also a lot of "if you invented a grant scheme for X then someone would have to manage it, £££", and "if you add a regulation about Y to 'protect the public' then you'll need a trained workforce, and a professional body, £££" involved in it. As opposed to if you just stopping giving money out on grants and make electricity cheaper with it then heatpumps would happen anyway, and poor people would be better able to pay their bills too.

@Adrian, I don’t think you’ve failed to find the right installer. The £2,500 air-to-air grant now exists within the BUS rules, but the delivery mechanism does not appear to be operational in practice.

BUS applications have to be made through an installer certified by MCS for the relevant technology. The problem appears to be that air-to-air has not yet been brought fully within the certification system, so conventional air conditioning installers cannot currently claim the grant on a customer’s behalf, however experienced they may be.

That would explain why your search of the MCS directory returned nobody, rather than merely nobody close to E11.

I recorded a podcast today with Charlotte Lee, Chief Executive of Heat Pump Association UK, which will be published on Wednesday, 29 July. She made essentially the same point: air-to-air heat pumps have been introduced into the regulations with a grant of up to £2,500, but the grant cannot currently be accessed because of delays and challenges surrounding the certification scheme.

Your daughter’s flat sounds like exactly the sort of property where air-to-air could make sense. The scheme allows air-to-air systems in residential properties and they can replace existing direct electric heating, provided the system is designed to meet the property’s space-heating requirement. Separate electric water heating can remain part of the overall arrangement.

So the answer, at least for now, appears to be that there may not be an installer anywhere who can actually deliver this through BUS yet. The government has announced the grant and added it to the scheme before the certification route needed to use it was ready.

Even when that route becomes available, there is a second question: how many established air-conditioning firms will consider the additional MCS cost and administration worthwhile for a £2,500 grant?

For the moment, though, the immediate problem is simpler. The grant exists on paper, but homeowners cannot yet access it.

@adrian might be worth watching this: 

Posted by: @adrian

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My daughter owns a 55m2 ground floor flat that is currently heated by night storage and direction electric heaters. Installing a wet system and a heatpump would make little sense, for starters there are no heat pumps small enough for the heat loss and it would require major disruptions. 
so an alternative would be an air to air heatpump, aka multi split air conditioning system. 
Seeing as the bus grant has in 2026 been expanded to include this scenario with a £2500 grant I’ve been searching for any installers that are doing this but haven’t found any. 
for example Boxt don’t support the bus grant for air to water heat pumps, but not for air to air. And searching the mcs database returns no installers for e11, when applying the air to air installer filter. 
Has anybody heard of an installer claiming this grant?

There are now a few heat pumps around that are fully self contained in the indoor unit, requiring 2 typically 200mm diameter holes through the outside wall.  Here is one, bhut there are others by more well known manufacturers eg I think Panasonic.  For 55sq m these might well be worth considering.  No grant unfortunately for the reason @editor states but perhaps simple and cheap enough to fit not to bother. 

FWIW Im personally not convinced that MCS is capable of dealing with a situation where the grant is only £2500, the overheads they impose are just too high.  I suspect the rules may eventually have to change to exclude MCS from this part of the ecosystem.