To reach net zero, the UK has to massively scale up heat pump adoption. To achieve this, Nesta aims to make existing heat pumps more visible and to make them more appealing and simpler to install for owner-occupiers.
The journey to becoming a heat pump owner
Heat pumps are more common than people think, yet most say they have never seen one. For those considering one, it’s difficult to find out how it might work in their home. We believe that if people are able to see a heat pump in real life, they will become more confident in the technology and more likely to take the next steps towards getting one. We developed the service Visit a Heat Pump to help more people see heat pumps in real-home settings.
How the service works
The Visit a Heat Pump website connects people interested in a heat pump with people who already have one.
People who live in a home with a heat pump sign up to the platform as hosts. To sign up, they upload some basic information about themselves and their property, such as where they live, the type and age of their property, and who installed their heat pump. They can then create time slots when they are available to receive visitors.
People who are interested in installing a heat pump use the website to find hosts based on a variety of filters, such as location, installer, or type of property. They can then sign up to visit a home and heat pump that is most relevant to them. Prospective visitors can also message hosts directly, either to ask for additional availability or to ask simpler questions that don’t require a visit.
Recently, we’ve also made it possible for heat pump installers to sign up on the platform. Heat pump installers can use the platform to showcase their installations and connect prospective customers with previous ones.
Visit a Heat Pump launched nationwide in April 2024.
Six months of Visit a Heat Pump: key takeaways
This report summarises what we’ve learned from the first six months of Visit a Heat Pump. We have gathered all the data we have on our hosts and their interactions with visitors, and we have surveyed our visitors to find out what they think. We also conducted twelve interviews with hosts and visitors. Here are five key takeaways:
- Over four hundred hosts have joined the platform, and over six hundred people have booked visits with them. Hosts enjoy the social aspect of hosting and feel like they can provide trusted testimonials based on their lived experiences.
- Visits make a measurable impact. Visitors reported significantly higher knowledge about heat pumps and what it’s like to live with them, and higher confidence in moving forward with the installation.
- Visits appear to help people make a quicker decision about moving ahead with an installation. Findings suggest that visits provide a final push and boost in confidence enabling visitors to accept a quote and progress to installation.
- Visitors recommend the service to others. On a scale from 0-10, more than 90% of visitors answered 8, 9, or 10 on how likely they were to recommend the service to a friend or colleague. Three out of five visitors told us that they’d already talked about the service with at least two other people.
- Almost 200 installers are featured on the platform, which can help them to convert customers. Some installers are already sharing the platform with prospective customers, and qualitative data suggests that these customers visit and go on to make an install. Interviews with both hosts and visitors reveal that visitors place high value on their host's installer recommendations.
The rest of this report goes more in-depth into who our hosts and visitors are, what their experience is like, and how we expect the platform to grow going forward.
