In this post, we reveal our top tips for making sure that your heat pump design and installation goes without a hitch.

Ready? Let’s dive in...

How to get the most out of your air source heat pump

1. Lower the flow temperature

The first thing to accomplish is an efficient means of getting low grade temperature from your heat pump to your rooms. We are talking about lowering the flow temperature of the system as far as possible to reduce running costs and improve Government Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) payments as much as possible. With lower temperature water being produced by your heat pump system, it has to do less work and as a result will use less electricity to run and keep your building warm.

The best way to get this low-grade heat into the building is to install an ultra-low flow underfloor heating system designed for 35ºC rather than the standard 45ºC. Even good quality highly-efficient low flow temperature radiators can be used if underfloor heating is not a practical option.

2. Correct sizing

The next piece of the puzzle to get right is to understand the precise heat loss of the home using BSEN12831 or CIBSE standards to identify the heat loss of the home in the depths of winter. Calculating this room by room helps in two ways. The first is with the underfloor heating design to make sure the individual rooms can be sufficiently warmed. The second is ensuring you specify and install the right heat pump size. Gone are the days when home heating systems were massively oversized, and an accurate calculation will make sure you are neither wasting money nor putting in an inappropriately large (or small!) heating solution.



For air source heating, it is critical to make sure the heat pump can provide the energy you need at the minimum outdoor temperature. Ask heat pump manufacturers for capacity tables and use the “integrated” or averaged energy value to make sure the heat pump will cope ok when it matters most.

4. Accredited product selection and installer

Make sure the air source heat pump and the installer you finally select is on the micro-generation certification scheme (MCS) list to ensure you will likely receive professional installation, consumer protection and tax-free Government RHI subsidies.

There is an official MCS site for finding installers and products in your local area. Alternatively, you can download our free Mesh App for your mobile.

5. Intelligent control

Without the right control, a heating system is at worst almost useless and at best highly inefficient. Invest in simple digital room thermostats and/or timers which can be easily adjusted to your lifestyle needs. Increasingly, you can access these through your mobile devices and check up on and change from anywhere in the world if you so desire!

There is a large selection of heating system control products on the market to suit all user needs from the very basic to hugely complex at reasonable prices which will optimise your running costs whilst being truly flexible.