There is no doubt about it that raising public awareness about air source heat pumps (ASHP), how they work and the benefits of installing one are essential for the home building industry in the UK.
There are so many people out there who have no idea about ASHP’s AT ALL and are a million miles away from considering having one. That why I'm a brand ambassador for Mitsubishi Electric Ecodan.
I’ve become part of the family at Mitsubishi Electric to help the UK make the transition to net zero housing and raise public awareness as well as lobbying government.
It’s not easy when innovation pushes an industry change. It takes time for people to buy into that change. Just look at the electric car market. It’s taken decades of R&D in the car industry for us to begin making the transition to electric vehicles at any scale and we still aren’t where we could and should be.
Think about it. A home is way more of an investment than a car and it is an even slower change for conservative mindsets when it comes to real home innovation.
Once installed, he loved the new technology and trusted it. And he loved his new radiators
George Clarke TV presenter, architect, writer and Ecodan Ambassador
The end of coal
I remember my grandad telling me the story about when he was first approached to put gas central heating in his house. All he had ever known was to burn coal in open fires to heat his home. His family had a fire in the kitchen and another in the living room and coal deliveries would be regularly made and dropped off into the coal store at the back of the house.
There were no fires in the bedrooms upstairs. The only heat these rooms got were from the rising heat from the ground floor making its way up the staircase and of course from your own body heat.
It was freezing in winter. The family would regularly fill up a coal bucket from the coal shed, bring it into the house and keep the open fires burning in the kitchen and living room as much as they could afford to, which Grandad said wasn’t very often.
Every house on the estate and throughout the town would burn coal as a source of home heating. The smog and pollution were terrible. My grandad said he could taste it at the back of his throat. God knows what it did to his lungs!
And then the gas central heating man turned up and told him it was the end of coal, and that burning coal was a thing of the past when it came to home heating.
He said my Grandad could get rid of his open coal fires, have a mains gas pipe installed up to the house, install a new boiler in the ground floor toilet and have a new shiny combination boiler that would have an ignition, and a burning flame inside it to burn the gas when needed, to heat up the water for his shiny new radiators.
Gas is bonkers!
My grandad couldn’t get his head around it. A mains gas pipe going into his house and then having a naked flame inside his house that would ignite the gas coming out of the pipe?
He honestly thought the house would blow up! He didn’t want it.
He had known coal all his life and didn’t know anything else. Coal was absolutely fine and safe in his eyes so why change? Remember this was in the 1970’s, which wasn’t that long ago in the grand scheme of things.
Of course, back then there was very little conversation about climate change. He was sceptical and pessimistic, and he genuinely thought pumping gas into the house and then setting it alight was bonkers.
In many ways, over 50 years later, I get his point.
As more people made the transition from coal to gas on his street, my grandad reluctantly caved in and made the transition himself.
Once it was installed, he loved it. He lived with the new technology and trusted the new technology. And he loved his new radiators. Unfortunately, it took him ages to learn how to operate the central heating controls and thermostats (he never got tech!) but he got there in time.
One guy told me he didn’t need an ASHP because he’d “gone green” with a ‘Hydrogen-Ready Boiler’
George Clarke TV presenter, architect, writer and Ecodan Ambassador
Reluctance to change
I’m telling this story because it sums up the pessimism, cynicism and reluctance of homeowners to adapt and embrace innovative change. My grandad didn’t want to stop burning coal because it is all he ever knew, but he was thrilled in the end that he did and made the transition to gas.
Now, his children and grandad children have known no other form of home heating other than burning gas and oil.
But it is time for them to make the transition from gas boilers to air source heat pumps. I made that change myself 8 years ago and my children, the next generation of homeowners, have now grown up with air source heat pumps and completely get the benefits.
There is no way they would have a home with a gas boiler.
So, the transition to clean and green forms of home heating and adopting air source heat pumps really does take time and requires generational change. It also takes a lot of education, trust and reassurance.
An Ideal time for heat pumps
That is why Mitsubishi Electric represented the air source heat pump industry at the Ideal Home Show recently.
We weren’t there to sell air source heat pumps themselves (although that would have been nice) but we were certainly there to sell the benefits of air source heat pump technology and how they can transform your home heating for the better. It was a resounding success!
We had all the equipment on the stand and a small army of amazing Mitsubishi Electric staff (and senior management!) engaging with the public. There were interactive screens and toolkits where you could input all the data you know about your existing house and the software would work out what ASHP unit to go for.
It would compare your existing energy bills and emissions with what your new electric bill and emissions would be with a new ASHP, and it would even put you in contact with a local ASHP installer.
The range of visitors to the stand varied massively. There were some people who had never heard of ASHP’s before. There were others who had heard of air source heat pumps, but didn’t really know how they worked.
Some came to the stand with quite a lot of knowledge of ASHP’s and had already bought into the idea of changing their existing system but wanted to know specifically about the Ecodan products and their prices.
Tackling cynicism
Some of my favourite visitors to the stand were the absolute cynics and pessimists, who were dead against air source heat pumps and didn’t believe in the technology at all.
The truth was they had often been fed many lies and myths from those industries whose very survival may be on the line because of heat pump innovation.
The gas boiler industry in one of them. One guy told me on the stand that he didn’t need an ASHP because he had already “gone green” by installing a ‘Hydrogen-Ready Boiler’. I’ve never heard any plans from the government or energy suppliers about them providing a brand-new nationwide hydrogen grid to replace the current gas grid.
His ‘Hydrogen-Ready Boiler’ is simply another gas combi boiler. It’s never going to be powered using hydrogen. He’s been sold the idea of a new heating source that can’t even get close to his house, never mind heat his radiators!
Nothing gave us more pleasure than giving the most cynical and pessimistic visitor to the stand the knowledge and confidence to take the step and choose to book an appointment and consultation for an ASHP installer to visit their house.
It happened a lot and we were thrilled with how we changed mindsets.
Increasing public awareness is absolutely key and as we approach over 100,000 ASHP installs in the last year there is growing confidence in the industry too. More and more gas boiler engineers realise that big changes are happening in the industry and are retraining to become Air Source Heat Pump Engineers. We need more installers to meet the increasing demand for ASHP installations.
Big bold steps
But what is absolutely vital is for government to take even bigger and bolder steps too.
Of course, there are fantastic government-backed campaigns such as the ‘Boiler Upgrade Scheme’ which gives you a £7,500 grant (that’s free money you never have to pay back!) towards the cost of an approved installer removing your old gas or oil-fired boiler and replacing it with a clean and green sustainable Air Source Heat Pump and I commend the government 100% for that. It’s an incredible financial incentive.
Now though, the government needs to take the even bolder step of legislating for Air Source Heat Pumps to be installed in ALL NEW BUILD HOMES (say by 2027) in order for for us to have any change of meeting our legally binding net zero targets by 2050.
This was originally meant to come into force this year in 2025, but Rishi Sunak back tracked. We now have no deadline set at all for gas boilers to be banned in new build homes which is ridiculous.
The new ‘Future Homes Standard’ (to make UK homes as green and sustainable as possible) has been discussed and consulted upon since 2019 AND STILL hasn’t been brought into force.
6 years and still nothing!
I hope it comes into force very soon and creates the ecological changes our home building industry desperately needs for a clean and green built environment.
I know from experience that so many UK first-time buyers really want to see these ecological changes come in place so they can have cheaper energy bills, energy security and more comfortable, sustainable homes.
And talking with some of the 165,000 visitors to this year’s Ideal Home Show, finding cleaner, greener ways to heat all our buildings – both old and new, is something that really appeals to existing homeowners as well.
If you missed the Ideal Home Show in Olympia this year, then please try and make it along to the next one. I’ll be there again and so will Mitsubishi Electric Ecodan Air Source Heat Pumps!
George Clarke is a TV presenter, architect, writer and Ecodan Ambassador
