The project started in November 2023 and will run until the end of June 2025. This section provides an overview of the milestones reached so far.

Recruitment process

With the support of our partner SNIPEF, we’ve recruited 36 heating professionals to take part in this pilot project, from within SNIPEF’s membership of plumbing and heating professionals who are owners of microbusinesses.

There are several reasons why we wanted to recruit microbusinesses. This term is usually used to indicate businesses with fewer than 10 employees – in practice, we allowed slight flexibility to go a little over this number in considering eligibility for the project.

First, the heating sector is dominated by small-sized businesses, with 95% sole traders of microbusinesses (fewer than 10 employees) and 5% small businesses (10-49 employees). In piloting the Start at home project with them, we ensure that we are designing a solution that suits most plumbing and heating businesses in the UK.

Second, they are the organisations that face the greatest challenges when entering the heat pump industry. They often have less capital and less capacity to invest which makes them more risk-averse. Also, as businesses build on reputation with their customers, they need to be confident they can do high-quality work without needing to spend precious time and cost returning to homes to undertake remedial work.

Third, by recruiting individuals in leadership roles in their business (typically business owners) we ensure that we test the appeal and feasibility of a scheme like Start at home with those who can influence the trajectory of their business and ensure that heat pump installation is included in their business portfolio.

Figure 3 illustrates the recruitment process. Project participants were self-selecting, responding to an email sent in early May 2024 by SNIPEF directly to their members. In the call for interest, businesses were told that they would receive free heat pump training (paid for by SNIPEF’s charitable fund – note that heating engineers in Scotland do not have access to the Heat Training Grant, although there are ad-hoc funds available). They were also told that they would have an opportunity to receive a free air-source heat pump to fit in their own home (paid for by Nesta). Out of the entire SNIPEF membership, 90 businesses opened and engaged with the content linked in the call for interest. Importantly, over half (53%) of those who engaged expressed an interest in taking part in the project.

Following discussions with interested businesses, screening against our selection criteria, and some dropouts later on, we were able to confirm 36 participants in our pilot, 40% of those who responded to the expression of interest. Two participants withdrew from the project as they were not able to attend training courses. Since the project started, five participants declined the heat pump offer and asked to be moved to the comparison group – training only pathway – and these heat pumps were offered to other participants.

Heat pump and low temperature training

All participants attended both a ‘level 3 air-source heat pump systems’ course and a ‘low temperature and hot water heating system’ course (examples of the qualification frameworks here and here). Eight participants had already completed their level 3 air-source heat pump systems training and one participant had already completed both courses before joining the project. However, while a few participants had already completed the heat pump installation course, none installed a heat pump in a retrofit. In total, 68 courses were booked as part of the Start at home project through several training providers selected by SNIPEF. All training planification and costs were covered by SNIPEF through their charitable fund.

Research activities

We designed a range of research activities to capture participants’ experiences over the course of the project. The findings from the activities that have so far been completed are discussed in the following sections. After the recruitment process was completed, we conducted a baseline survey with all participants in July 2024. The purpose of the survey was to capture their attitudes and knowledge levels about heat pumps before attending training, as well as their hopes and fears as they started the project. We intend to run the survey again in April 2025 to measure any change over the year.

We also conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with 24 out of 36 participants between November and December 2024. All interviews were conducted on Zoom or over the phone, depending on the participants’ availability and preference. The aim of the interviews were to understand their plumbing and heating career, their training experience, their knowledge of and confidence in heat pump installation, as well as their expectations for the year ahead. During the analysis, nine interviews were randomly selected to identify recurring themes. The remaining 15 interviews were then coded against this framework to classify the qualitative insights from all interviews and allow for content analysis. In the following sections, we explore participants’ profiles, their motivations for joining the project, and their reflections on the training.

Heat pump installations so far

As part of the Start at home project, 20 newly trained installers have started working on their home installation – these are in the ‘heat pump at home’ pathway of the project, while the remaining 16 are in the ‘training only’ pathway. We initially did a random prize draw to select 20 individuals out of our 36 participants in line with the agreed funding for the project. Five subsequent draws were conducted to reassign heat pumps that other participants had had to decline. Ultimately, while we intended to run a draw, most participants have had a chance to receive an air source heat pump making participation almost entirely self-selecting, and 20 confirmed their interest and availability to install it in their own home by the end of March 2025. Reflecting on the delivery of the project, asking plumbing and heating engineers to attend training in autumn and install a heat pump in their home during the winter months is a huge task, and the fact that 20 individuals were motivated to undertake this provides strong evidence of the appetite of a scheme like Start at home.

At the time of writing, 13 heat pumps have either been delivered to the installers or a final quote is being agreed upon. Among those, 5 heat pumps are already up and running.

We are working with City Plumbing to order and deliver heat pumps to installers. Participants in the ‘heat pump at home’ pathway were able to choose their preferred manufacturer and an installation kit was provided alongside the heat pump unit, including a hot water cylinder (pre-plumbed or standard), diverter valve, buffer (if required), feet, hoses, necessary manufacturer’s controls, filtration, frost protection, sealed system kit, and external pipe insulation. The current average cost for a heat pump installation kit (including VAT) is £8,000.

At the project's inception, we had expected that participants would also be able to receive funding from Home Energy Scotland's grant and loan scheme to fund other elements of their heat pump system. However, there has been some doubt as to whether installers would be able to claim the funding. Consequently, so far in the project, no installer has claimed HES funding. In future delivery of similar schemes, it will be important to ensure that participants are also eligible for government funding or incentives, given the indications that this type of scheme is likely to have high public value.