heat-pumps – We need new stories…

I was yesterday day’s old when I discovered there’s no qualification to become a Retrofit Evaluator. Niche insight but it opened up a bit of a Pandora’s Box because under the British standard for retrofit – PAS 2035 – any evaluation of a retrofit should be completed by a suitably qualified Retrofit Evaluator. If there’s no qualification that can be done to get qualified, I think we can agree it’s hard to see how that is possible. In practice, what this means is the Retrofit Co-ordinator, another role under PAS 2035, and one that does have a qualification available does the evaluation.

In some respects perhaps not so surprising – monitoring and evaluation is an area most would agree is important in any context, yet it’s the area that is more likely to fall away than most. Whether because it’s for a project that is over-stretched, under resourced or behind schedule, evaluation is rarely seen as a core focus. Or the next project is getting scoped up and approved before there’s time to complete a proper evaluation of previous projects that might feed in to the development of the next project. So the fact there isn’t a qualification for this role is less of a concern than it might be for the actual installer roles.

Yet this role without a route to being meaningfully undertaken feels like such a symptom or metaphor for longstanding issues within the retrofit sector. The ongoing performance gap issue is one that has been long recognised but, as the recent 2025 National Audit Report (NAO) on energy efficiency installations showed, hasn’t been fully dealt with. Poor quality works, homes left worse off than they were before the works were undertaken because of mould and damp, affecting the health of the occupants and the fabric of the building itself. The NAO report itself found that 98% of homes that had external wall insulation installed under the Energy Company Obligation and Great British Insulation Scheme have got significant issues requiring remediation.

These issues arise in large amount because of a lack of attention, or ability, to deliver good quality works and ensure the details are right. Good processes, with monitoring and evaluation built in, can really help address or prevent issues. They can draw attention to areas where the work isn’t quite right and allow them to be improved or redone whilst the works are ongoing. Post-completion, they can identify issues with the works before they become much more serious. The intention is also that the Retrofit Evaluator can share lessons learned and areas for improvement with the installer to help them upskill people for subsequent projects.

More widely, in a context where approaches, products and technology are being developed, monitoring and evaluating their performance is crucial. Understanding how they work in practice, if they are easy to work with or need some workarounds to try and integrate them. Finding out how occupants respond, if they are easy for them to use or not. As more heat pumps have been installed in a great variety of homes, including ones that aren’t so well insulated, it’s become clear performance is better in a wider range of use cases than had previously been considered. That makes a massive difference in terms of the level of insulation needed for a home, with knock-on implications in terms of disruption and cost for the home-owner, and resourcing requirements for the supply chain. Without the monitoring and evaluation it’s harder to be confident in a particular approach and the status quo assumptions and actions are more likely to be considered.

What then is the workaround for the lack of a Retrofit Evaluator? As things stand, the Retrofit Co-ordinator now has to fulfil this role. They get to mark their own homework. If the basic level of feedback identifies any issues, they then have to escalate the evaluation to a more in-depth level. This would be undertaken by another Retrofit Co-ordinator. However, this requires them to do that escalation process. The worry is that in practice there might not be incentives to do so, or the quality assurance and monitoring of their work to pick up the cases when they don’t.

If there wasn’t a consistent drum-beat of stories and reports raising concerns about the quality of retrofit work undertaken, it might feel like that was an unfair assumption. Against that background, it feels like another reflection of a sector that recognises the need to change and improve – hence the development of the role in theory Yet it remains a sector that continues to struggle to address fundamental aspects around quality and reliability of the work it’s doing. Undermining trust, the health and well-being of people and their homes, and the ability of their work to get close to delivering the environmental and financial benefits people are paying for.

A recent report by Citizen’s Advice found that 72% of people would be open to making environmental improvements to their homes in the next five years. Absolute scenes – there’s the market transformation we need. 72% is just brilliant news, if we’re thinking about the Technology Adoption Curve, which of course we are, then we’re deep into late majority territory where this is just all very mainstream and normal. How do we go about getting the supply chain ready to do all of that work in that short space of time?

Hang on though, there’s a kicker. People went on to say that they would prioritise kitchens, bathrooms and other measures over environmental measures. Stand down the supply chain. Or maybe – as you were…

What I’m interested in is why people would prioritise kitchens, bathrooms and the rest over environmental measures. In some ways it seems obvious, kitchens and bathrooms are more appealing and desirable. There are magazines and shows which do makeovers and it’s all very lifestyled and lovely whereas lots of us – most of us? – find heat pumps ugly. It’s also crucial to eat and clean yourself, so there’s that. However, it’s also crucial to be able to keep warm, with lots of health conditions linked to, or exacerbated by cold weather. It’s also crucial to be able to use electricity in today’s society.

There’s more reasons besides but I’ve been wondering if there’s something about the comparative friction between kitchens, bathrooms and other aspects of home renovation, compared to energy and environmental measures. Friction on a day to day basis but maybe also societal frictions.

On a day to day basis, if you don’t like the look of your kitchen, bathroom or elsewhere, you will be constantly reminded of it. It might become a low grade hum that you get used to but this can then be amped up whenever you’re reminded of how much you don’t like it. Whether that’s visiting a friend who has a nice(r) place than yours, or seeing them on TV, in films, social media or magazines. There are potentially lots of times when you’ll be reminded of how you don’t like your kitchen or suchlike in a way that doesn’t happen so much with energy or environmental measures.

As Pennartz notes in ‘At home: An anthropology of domestic spaces‘, an aspect of a space being pleasant is how easy it is to be convivial in it. If the space makes it harder to do that, say the kitchen is designed for just one person then that doesn’t feel very sociable and there’s a friction between the desire and the reality.

There has been a shift away from gendered spaces, with men also likely to be in the kitchen. As such, that sense of friction between what people want and how the space operates affects both genders, and therefore more people, more often.

There’s also the friction in use. If a kitchen or bathroom isn’t set-up as you would want then this can catch you each day. Whether it’s a cupboard that doesn’t shut properly, a shower that doesn’t properly attach to the wall so you have to hold it to shower yourself, or whatever else it may be, there can be things which every day, sometimes multiple times a day, create friction and frustration.

Where is the friction with energy usage though? People who pay by direct debit don’t need to really engage with their bill on a daily or monthly basis, as it’s smoothed out across the year. It’s hard then to get any real time friction between the usage and the cost. Not least because, as costs continue to rise, people can reduce their energy consumption and still see rising prices. Under the current pricing structure with standing charges fixed irrespective of consumption, this regressive pricing structure makes that particularly true for those on lower incomes or using less energy.

People don’t have the social friction of not having a heat pump because most people don’t have one either. There’s also not so much of a friction around having a home that isn’t so warm. People will often choose to put the heating on when they’ve got guests, to make sure they feel comfortable.

There’s also not so much friction from the supply chain when trying to get more environmentally friendly measures – for instance a replacement boiler rather than a new heat pump. There are just over 20,000 qualified heat pump installers in the UK, compared to over 150,000 gas engineers. It’s therefore much easier to find someone who can repair or replace your gas boiler on a like-for-like basis. Homes are set up for boilers rather than a heat pump. If you want to switch to a heat pump if your boiler dies you’ll end up with friction. The heat pump can’t go into the space you had your boiler in. You’ve then got a random space you need to sort out, which might or might not be useful. Mine is in a wall cupboard with no base, so the boiler bits can disgorge themselves. If I switched to a heat pump I’d then have a cupboard I can’t use. More friction arises trying to figure out where a heat pump and hot water tank can go. This has been made easier by the removal of a planning requirement which says it needs to be at least one meter from the boundary

Is friction different to hassle though?

The ‘hassle-factor’ is often cited as a rationale for people not to do something, in relation to the home or more generally. Friction seems different to hassle in terms of the ongoing impact, particularly in relation to the visibility of a heat pump or solar. The hassle might be there to get it put in but then once in that hassle would go. The friction might remain when you see it on a daily basis and find it really ugly, or it’s taking up space and it takes a while to get used to the new configuration of the spaces and knock-on impact on the various practices. With larger properties with lots of land that might not be an issue – it can be hidden away somewhere and that friction doesn’t arise as often. For people with less space that might be experienced as daily friction which has been introduced into their lives.

Energy usage can create a sense of friction. A room which isn’t a comfortable temperature creates a sense of friction. This can be between the need for it to be warm and cosy and the sense of how it is. As expectations have increased about the level of warmth we should be feeling in our homes, there can also be a friction between lifestyles – the clothes we wear at home, and the temperature of the space. Whilst for much of history the initial focus would have been on putting on more clothes or being more active to get warmer, people are now more likely to focus on the heating to get their required level of warmth.

The friction between want and reality can also lead people to not use rooms at certain times or temperatures because they are too uncomfortable. This can also manifest in making it harder to do certain activities – studying can be more difficult when it’s cold for instance, as can other more sedentary actions like reading or watching TV.

This leads to a friction in use but most people focus on ways to reduce their energy bills by changing their tariff or provider as the way to reduce that friction. By cutting the costs of energy it’s therefore more affordable to use the same amount of energy, or more – hence the rebound effect where people take cost savings from more insulation as higher levels of comfort.

Inherently though, most people don’t experience friction when using their boilers, which is the main fuel source for most people. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that actually people aren’t using their boilers very effectively or efficiently and if they were they could cut their costs significantly. That actual friction is not visible to them though – the cost of their energy bills are hard to relate to any actual friction as most people can make the boiler switch on and off, so the fact it’s not working as efficiently is somewhat hidden to them.

This can then lead people to feel like changes to their heating system is someone else’s desire or need rather than their own. Someone else is experiencing a sense of friction between what they think should be happening and what isn’t happening. Being asked to do something about it means that people can feel they are being told to choose something that isn’t a priority for themselves, over things which are. This can create multiple frictions – between their own sense of themselves as people who care about these things and yet are choosing to put time, money and energy into other things; and on a financial level between the things they want to spend money on and what they are being told they should be spending money on. Potentially this also creates a friction which then impacts upon their voting actions – looking for those who help to reduce that friction for them.

On a daily basis then, people are perhaps more likely to feel a sense of friction by other factors in the home than energy or environmental issues. Even where they do manifest as friction they can be mediated by other actions in a less time, money and personally energy intensive way, so it’s perhaps not a surprise people don’t prioritise home improvements with environmental dimensions more often.

Tag: heat-pumps

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