The hosts, their properties, and their installers
The platform launched nationwide on 11 April 2024. The launch was extensively covered in the media, with articles in The Independent, Mirror, Daily Mail and The Herald, amongst others. As a result, over a hundred hosts signed up in the first week. Since then, an average of six people a week have signed up to be hosts,
“I’m pretty sure it was an article in the Guardian. I saw a report on it and thought ‘that’s a brilliant idea’. There was a link there, and I clicked on it and signed up.”
Jonathan, a heat pump host in Kent
As of 14 October 2024, six months after the service launched, 425 people have signed up to be hosts on the platform. Figures in this section are accurate as of this date.
The hosts are spread across Great Britain, from Inverness to the Isle of Wight, and Neyland to Norwich. Of the hosts, 10 (2.4%) are located in Wales, 39 (9.2%) in Scotland, and the remaining 376 (88.5%) in England. This distribution reflects a slight underrepresentation of hosts in Wales compared to its share of the overall UK population, while England and Scotland are slightly overrepresented relative to their populations.
New installations dominate the platform
Most hosts had their heat pump installed within the past three years. Since the launch of the platform, we have seen a rapid increase in the number of listings with heat pumps installed in 2024. This suggests that many hosts sign up soon after their heat pump is installed, perhaps when the installation and their experience are still top of mind.
“I think once our house is in order I’ll become a host myself. Installing the heat pump gave us an excuse to get a new kitchen and finish the transition away from gas. Becoming a host is the least I can do as thanks for how [the host] and Nesta helped me!”
Dan, visited a heat pump in April and installed a heat pump in June
The oldest heat pump on the platform was installed in 2007.
Figure 2
Image Description
A horizontal bar chart titled "Most hosts have had fewer than six places booked across their events." It shows the number of hosts in the "Visit a Heat Pump" programme, categorised by the number of booked places on their scheduled events. The categories are:
- 1-5 booked places: 61 hosts
- 6-10 booked places: 28 hosts
- 11-20 booked places: 14 hosts
- More than 20 booked places: 3 hosts
The chart's source is "Visit a Heat Pump," dated October 14, 2024. A note explains that each visitor makes a booking, and each booking can contain multiple booked places if they are visiting as a group.
There are properties of all types and ages on the platform
Approximately half of hosts (215) live in detached properties, followed by semi-detached properties (105), terrace properties (67) and bungalows (21). Six hosts are showrooms, and five hosts live in flats.
“His house was rather different to ours. His house was Victorian, but he’d done a lot of installations on it, underfloor heating and so on. Ours is a relatively new house that I designed myself. But the visit was still really useful. Money is an issue when getting a heat pump, but he pointed me toward the government grant that made a difference. And he warned me that I would probably have to upgrade our radiators.”
Lawrence, visited a heat pump in Kent
Hosts most commonly live in pre-1920s properties, demonstrating that heat pumps can be a feasible option for properties of any age.
Figure 3
Image Description
A bar chart titled "Properties of all ages feature on the platform," showing the number of heat pumps on the "Visit a Heat Pump" platform, categorised by the age of property. The age categories and corresponding numbers of properties are:
- Pre-1920: 101 properties
- 1920-1944: 57 properties
- 1945-1964: 39 properties
- 1965-1982: 80 properties
- 1983-2002: 71 properties
- Post-2003: 71 properties
The chart has blue bars for each age group, with values displayed at the top of each bar. The source is "Visit a Heat Pump," dated October 14, 2024.
Almost 200 installers are represented on the platform
319 hosts told us who installed their heat pump. In total, 194 installers are represented on the platform, with 146 of them having only one heat pump featured on the platform. The most commonly used installers were Octopus (46 hosts), Aira (6 hosts), EnergyZone (5 hosts) and British Gas (5 hosts).
Several visitors told us that they first came into contact with Visit a Heat Pump through links on the Octopus website. By lightly integrating Visit a Heat Pump in the customer acquisition process, Octopus has likely increased and sped up their sales. Some of these visitors have since become hosts themselves, creating a positive feedback loop and a stronger sense of community around their brand. Local, regional and national installers could likely similarly benefit from featuring Visit a Heat Pump, as demonstrated by the experience of Lawrence, who used SGS Energy after getting it recommended by a host:
“I asked [the host] who had done the installation and he told me that he went with an installer called Sun God Solar, based in Ramsgate near us. I went with them for the installation and I am more than happy about their work. [...] I’ve thought about becoming a host myself. It wouldn’t have to be very complicated, I could just have people over for a cup of coffee. If the installer sent someone interested in getting a heat pump my way in order to see their work, I’d probably be happy to do so.”
Lawrence, visited a heat pump in Kent and then used the local installer recommended by the host
