If you are living in a well-insulated home with good windows and doors and can afford the extra upfront cost of a heat pump, then it is a low-risk investment that is cleaner and safer. Photograph: iStockPaul Deane: Asking people to install a heat pump to save the planet is a difficult sell; showing how to save money may gain more traction
If you are unfamiliar with the area, then figuring out what information on the internet is reliable or not is very hard. When I spoke to my plumber, they recommended what they knew best, which was to replace the current oil boiler with another oil-fired boiler. I have found the best information on whether to move ahead with a heat pump comes from registered technical energy assessors.
An option that can help address this is for the State to use the concept of property-linked finance as opposed to traditional person-linked finance. The idea here is that a State-backed loan for your retrofit is linked to the lifetime of the property rather than the economic lifetime of the person. However, there are many homeowners for whom installing a heat pump is not a realistic current option – and won’t become one soon. There are several reasons for this – cost, housing type and willingness to switch. Currently, 700,000 homeowners in Ireland rely on liquid fuels for their heating, with one in three over 65 years of age.