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Our columnist Graham Hendra offers his distinctive perspective on the hot topics in the world of heat pumps.
Recently I was in Ghent in Belgium, visiting an old colleague. We were both at Daikin together in the Noughties. He has moved on to be a very successful heat pump and air con contractor, while I am now a heat pump…can’t think of the word…’dude’, that will do. [Advocate? Ambassador? Influencer? Flagwaver? Tubthumper? Ed.]
We were discussing how hilarious it is that in Belgium, people used to ask questions like “Are heat pumps noisy?” about 15 years ago, but that no-one has mentioned noise for years. I told him come to the good old UK, where we are still talking about this. In fact it’s a hot topic. If you read the Telegraph, it seems to be all they talk about – that and sending people to Rwanda.
To be honest it’s embarrassing and it shows how resistant we are to change in this country. In fact, I’m currently writing this column with my headphones on, to drown out the droning sound coming from the experts, shouting about how noisy they are, despite never having seen a heat pump operating.
A few points: Firstly, this column is not about me trying to sell you a heat pump, This is because I am contractually not allowed to until October 19th 2025 (not that I’m counting). So, I don’t profit if you a specify a heat pump or not. For the next 14 months, at least, I’m unbiased.
But here are the facts: Heat pumps are, officially, quiet. The decent ones are quieter than the flue of a gas boiler.
That often provokes gasps when I say that to hardened gas engineers, but it’s true: combi boilers tend to be 48-51dB, and the majority of 10kW heat pumps are now under 50dB, while the quiet models are under 46dB.
For those less acquainted with sound output, that means you cannot hear a heat pump over traffic, or a bit of wind – or in many cases, over the birds singing.
That also means that they don’t annoy the neighbours – unless you point them right at the neighbour’s house, so they get a blast of cold air every time they open the bedroom window.
But in a nod to a time aeons ago when heat pumps were much noisier, we in the heat pump industry have to do a noise calculation for every installation in order to get the heat pump installed under permitted development. A failure under this calculation is very rare indeed these days, but if it happens, we then have to apply for planning permission. No such thing has ever happened with boilers. For reasons that are unclear, there are currently a number of local planning officers who seem to be very anti heat pumps. Perhaps they haven’t seen many operating either.
I have a request for those experts who don’t like heat pumps. Please get over it. Do the decent thing and just say “I’m not really into them”, or ‘I still really like boilers.” Even better, you could say: “I don’t feel I know enough about them, so I’m not going to comment.”
Here is an analogy: I hate football and know nothing about it. But I don’t ring up Gary Lineker to give him my point of view or slag off the Southampton manager’s tactics on social media, because if I did it wouldn’t take long before people realised, I didn’t have a clue.
If this nonsense around noise carries on much longer, I’m going to start lobbying for gas boilers also to require planning permission and a noise assessment before they can be installed. What a ridiculous waste of time and effort that would be, wouldn’t it? And if anyone complains, I’d just say. “Pipe down. You started it.”
