Visit a Heat Pump
A case study
Visit a Heat Pump
A case study
At a glance
Heat pumps are an essential technology for getting the UK to net zero. By 2027 the UK will need to be installing 420,00 heat pumps per year to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reach its 2050 emission targets. But most people have never seen one in action. Without understanding how a heat pump might work in their home, many don’t feel confident enough to have one installed.
To overcome this barrier to adoption, we created a novel service to connect homeowners considering a heat pump with those who already have one.
The service has now had 2,100 visitors seeing a heat pump in real life, with over 1,000 heat pump owners signed up to the platform. Through this work, we found that seeing this technology firsthand and talking to a heat pump owner, increased the number of people who could imagine having one in their own home from 21% to 79% - showing the power of behavioural nudges and social proof.
The service has since been scaled up, now featuring over 250 installers, making it easier than ever for people to take the final step toward installation.
"I am motivated by the fact that I have something to offer. I have my experience to offer, and therefore I feel like I really ought to share it. Ultimately, the fact that I have made this shift in my home is great, but I need everyone else to do it too. I want everyone on my street to run their home with a heat pump, or some form of non-fossil-fuel-based heating. The answer for me isn’t just in my house."
Lucy Halden, Visit a Heat Pump host
The challenge
Changing the way we heat our homes by switching from gas boilers to heat pumps is the most impactful thing a householder can do to cut pollution.
Heat pumps are a well established, efficient and reliable low-carbon home heating solution, and most people who have one installed in their home are happy with them - 81% of owners saying they are as satisfied or more satisfied with it compared to their previous heating systems.
But, unlike in Europe, they are a rarity in residential properties in the UK. Only around 1% of homes in this country have one, so most people haven't ever seen or come across one.
This lack of visibility creates a significant barrier for homeowners: it's hard to get answers to essential and practical questions like "Is it noisy?" or "Where will it fit?”. Our research found that this information is hard to come by through social media or the internet - even for people who know about heat pumps and are interested in getting one.
This is holding people back from making the switch.
The challenge
Changing the way we heat our homes by switching from gas boilers to heat pumps is the most impactful thing a householder can do to cut pollution.
Heat pumps are a well established, efficient and reliable low-carbon home heating solution, and most people who have one installed in their home are happy with them - 81% of owners saying they are as satisfied or more satisfied with it compared to their previous heating systems.
But, unlike in Europe, they are a rarity in residential properties in the UK. Only around 1% of homes in this country have one, so most people haven't ever seen or come across one.
This lack of visibility creates a significant barrier for homeowners: it's hard to get answers to essential and practical questions like "Is it noisy?" or "Where will it fit?”. Our research found that this information is hard to come by through social media or the internet - even for people who know about heat pumps and are interested in getting one.
This is holding people back from making the switch.
“I found Visit a Heat Pump through Google, and as luck would have it, I found someone who had a house I could immediately compare to - same size house, same type. And as I was heading to pick up my wife at Luton Airport, it was on the way, and I booked onto an event. It was the catalyst toward me getting one."
Dan, Visit a Heat Pump visitor
What we did
We wanted to see if it would be possible to connect people interested in heat pumps with owners near them and whether this would make a difference to them getting a heat pump.
Our team first developed small prototypes to explore how the needs of potential heat pump customers could be met by this service. We initially piloted a live version of the end-to-end service for 45 visitors in four host locations, collaborating with community groups and households and using a digital platform we built in-house.
The focus was on simple experiments to understand what it would actually take to make a good experience that’s useful and could be replicated at scale.
We deliberately didn't give hosts much training and found that they naturally did enough to provide what visitors needed. We learnt that it was really about connecting with the person who lives with the heat pump.
Over a year, we used feedback from hosts, visitors and installers to develop features and improve user journeys, testing different ways to increase visitor numbers and overall satisfaction.
It became clear that the needs of hosts were as important as those of visitors, and that enabling people to become hosts with minimal hassle was vital. Our focus shifted to making the entire process as easy as possible for them, which led to the design of a simple online platform that automated as much of the back-and-forth communication and admin for hosts.
By testing the service in a real world pilot setting, we learnt a lot about the best way to roll out the service and what the detailed needs of visitors and hosts were.
We took that learning into the re-launch of the platform when we moved into development of a full-scale service.
Building on these small scale pilots, the team committed to developing a custom platform. This work encompassed a product team of developers, designers and researchers working together to build and release a service, spanning features such as search, listing and booking management. We have had multiple development sprints since launching, ran multiple surveys with users to understand needs and bottlenecks, and added various functionalities including automatic reminders, the ability to follow hosts, better user dashboards and improved filtering.
The platform quickly became a valuable marketing tool for installers, who began sending prospective customers links to their installations. This leveraged the power of hosts to be more convincing than sales people, thereby increasing both host and visitor numbers. The team then further developed installer functionality, enabling them to sign up on the platform, add business details, and integrate it more effectively into their sales processes.
Throughout this process we took a multidisciplinary team approach to this project - pulling on the breadth of Nesta expertise - from building custom software to running in-depth evaluations and forging partnerships across the sector.
What we did
We wanted to see if it would be possible to connect people interested in heat pump with owners near them and whether this would make a difference to them getting a heat pump.
Our team first developed small prototypes to explore how the needs of potential heat pump customers could be met by this service. We initially piloted a live version of the end-to-end service for 45 visitors in 4 host locations, collaborating with community groups and households and using a digital platform we built in-house.
The focus was on simple experiments to understand what it would actually take to make a good experience that’s useful and could be replicated at scale.
We deliberately didn't give hosts much training and found that they naturally did enough to provide what visitors needed. We learnt that it was really about connecting with the person who lives with the heat pump.
Over a year, we used feedback from hosts, visitors and installers to develop features and improve user journeys, testing different ways to increase visitor numbers and overall satisfaction.
It became clear that the needs of hosts were as important as those of visitors, and that enabling people to become hosts with minimal hassle was vital. Our focus shifted to making the entire process as easy as possible for them, which led to the design of a simple online platform that automated as much of the back-and-forth communication and admin for hosts.
By testing the service in a real world pilot setting, we learnt a lot about the best way to roll out the service and what the detailed needs of visitors and hosts were.
We took that learning into the re-launch of the platform when we moved into development of a full-scale service.
Building on these small scale pilots, the team committed to developing a custom platform. This work encompassed a product team of developers, designers and researchers working together to build and release a service, spanning features such as search, listing and booking management. We have had multiple development sprints since launching, ran multiple surveys with users to understand needs and bottlenecks, and added various functionalities including automatic reminders, the ability to follow hosts, better user dashboards and improved filtering.
The platform quickly became a valuable marketing tool for installers, who began sending prospective customers links to their installations. This leveraged the power of hosts to be more convincing than sales people, thereby increasing both host and visitor numbers. The team then further developed installer functionality, enabling them to sign up on the platform, add business details, and integrate it more effectively into their sales processes.
Throughout this process we took a multidisciplinary team approach to this project - pulling on the breadth of Nesta expertise - from building custom software to running in-depth evaluations and forging partnerships across the sector.
"My showroom is Visit a Heat Pump…the best time to sign up for it is probably yesterday because I think it's going to be a very essential tool for building the business."
Christoph Großbaier, Founder, Econic Energy
The outcome
So far, 2,100 people have paid a visit to a heat pump near them, more than 1000 people have signed up as hosts and over 2,500 messages have been exchanged via the platform which we are now seeing as a valuable additional offer from the website. Over 250 installers now feature on the website with 50 installers now advertising their business on the platform through the installer profile function.
The key question of course is whether people paying a visit to a local heat pump are more likely to go ahead and get one installed in their home.
Overall, visits made a measurable impact. Visitors were significantly more positive about the prospect of living with a heat pump after a visit with 83% stating that they could imagine what it would be like to have a heat pump in their home; up from 25% before the visit.
It’s also clear that visiting a heat pump encourages people to proceed with the installation. Findings suggest visits provided a final push and boosted confidence that this was the right step for them. In interviews, many visitors told us that the visit to a heat pump helped them make the final decision to go ahead with the installation. motivating people to accept a quote and progress.
What we learnt
Start with user needs
A common problem for people considering heat pumps is the difficulty of getting practical information from someone who has one. Researching user needs revealed that people had practical questions like "where does it fit?" or "is it noisy?" that are hard to answer through online channels. The project addressed this by creating a way to connect potential customers with people who already had experience of owning a heat pump.
Develop a solution within an ecosystem
The team considered how the "Visit a Heat Pump" service would fit within the wider landscape of services from various organisations, such as installers, energy companies, and government websites.
Seeing is believing
Visiting a heat pump is a powerful way to leverage behavioural science to drive action. People are much more likely to consider getting a heat pump if they have seen one and talked to someone who has one, which helps create a social norm. After a visit, the percentage of people who could imagine having a heat pump increased from 25% to 83%, demonstrating how 'seeing is believing' can help people make the final decision to install one.
Prototyping and iterating
A process of prototyping and iterating was used to test the concept with real-world feedback. Small-scale pilots in Glasgow and the south of England helped the team understand what it would take to create a useful and scalable service. Feedback from hosts, visitors, and commercial partners was used to develop features and improve user journeys over time.
Keep an open mind on direction and functionality
After launch, we kept an open mind as to what value the platform was adding and pivoted to expand functionality. We realised that installers were getting value from the platform, so we added installer functionality; we also realised that visits were not the only way users were getting value - many were using the platform to message hosts to ask questions, without ever going on a visit - and this had value in itself. So we pivoted to better emphasise that going on visits isn't the only way to make use of the platform.
Start with user needs
A common problem for people considering heat pumps is the difficulty of getting practical information from someone who has one. Researching user needs revealed that people had practical questions like "where does it fit?" or "is it noisy?" that are hard to answer through online channels. The project addressed this by creating a way to connect potential customers with people who already had experience of owning a heat pump.
Develop a solution within an ecosystem
The team considered how the "Visit a Heat Pump" service would fit within the wider landscape of services from various organisations, such as installers, energy companies, and government websites.
Seeing is believing
Visiting a heat pump is a powerful way to leverage behavioural science to drive action. People are much more likely to consider getting a heat pump if they have seen one and talked to someone who has one, which helps create a social norm. After a visit, the percentage of people who could imagine having a heat pump increased from 25% to 83%, demonstrating how 'seeing is believing' can help people make the final decision to install one.
Prototyping and iterating
A process of prototyping and iterating was used to test the concept with real-world feedback. Small-scale pilots in Glasgow and the south of England helped the team understand what it would take to create a useful and scalable service. Feedback from hosts, visitors, and commercial partners was used to develop features and improve user journeys over time.
Keep an open mind on direction and functionality
After launch, we kept an open mind as to what value the platform was adding and pivoted to expand functionality. We realised that installers were getting value from the platform, so we added installer functionality; we also realised that visits were not the only way users were getting value - many were using the platform to message hosts to ask questions, without ever going on a visit - and this had value in itself. So we pivoted to better emphasise that going on visits isn't the only way to make use of the platform.
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