How long does a heat pump quote last?

Most installers honour their quote for 30 to 90 days.

Should I get a quote before or after sorting my EPC?

Sort your EPC first if you're going for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme. The grant requires no outstanding loft or cavity wall recommendations on your current EPC, and if you get quoted, sign, and then discover your EPC blocks the grant, you'll either delay the install for months or end up paying the £7,500 yourself. A new EPC costs £60 to £120 and takes a week. Do that first.

Are heat pump quotes negotiable?

Yes, especially if you have three competing quotes in writing. Most installers will match a lower price from a comparable MCS-certified competitor if you ask directly. We'd avoid pushing too hard on the cheapest quote, though, because that's usually the one that's cut corners on the heat loss survey or radiator sizing.

Why do quotes vary so much for the same house?

Because installers are quoting different systems, not the same system at different prices. One might be sizing for 45°C flow temperature with radiator upgrades, another for 55°C flow with the existing radiators. The kW output, cylinder size, and labour all shift accordingly. Always compare the technical spec, not just the bottom line.

Do I have to pay VAT on a heat pump quote?

No. Heat pump installs are zero-rated for VAT until March 2027 under the energy-saving materials relief, which saves you around £2,000 on a typical install. Check the quote shows 0% VAT and not 5% or 20%.

Can I get a heat pump quote if I'm on oil or LPG heating?

Yes, and you're often a better candidate than someone on mains gas because the running cost savings are bigger. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is also expected to lift to £9,000 for oil and LPG households from summer 2026, though final details were still pending at the time of writing. Worth asking your installer to flag that in their quote timing.

Heat Pump Quote 2026: What to Expect & How to Save

Heat Pump Quote 2026: What to Expect & How to Save | Eco Home Check

What Does a Heat Pump Quote Actually Include?

A proper heat pump quote breaks down five things: the unit itself, the heat loss calculation, radiator or pipework changes, the hot water cylinder, and the install labour. Anything less is a guess on a clipboard.

The heat loss calculation is the most important number on the page. It tells you how many kilowatts your home actually needs on the coldest day of the year. Without it, the installer is sizing your system based on the boiler you already have, which was almost certainly oversized for a gas system and would be catastrophically oversized for a heat pump. Oversized heat pumps cycle on and off constantly, wear out faster, and run inefficiently.

Look for the phrase "MCS heat loss survey" or "room-by-room calculation". See our guide on how heat pumps work for more detail.

The quote should also list:

The specific make and model of the heat pump (Mitsubishi Ecodan, Vaillant aroTHERM, Daikin Altherma, Samsung EHS, etc.)
Kilowatt output at flow temperature (usually 7kW, 8.5kW, 11.2kW for typical UK homes)
The hot water cylinder size and brand (most installs need a 180L to 250L unvented cylinder)
Radiator upgrades, if any (some rooms usually need bigger radiators to work at lower flow temperatures)
Controls and any smart thermostat
MCS certification number for the installer

If the quote is one line that says "Air source heat pump fitted, £14,000", bin it.

We see this constantly. The cheap quotes skip the heat loss survey because doing one properly takes half a day. The expensive quotes include it as standard. That alone explains most of the price gap between installers.

How Much Does a Heat Pump Cost in 2026?

Most air source heat pump installs cost £10,000 to £14,000 before the grant, with ground source running £18,000 to £30,000. The MCS-certified installer market has settled into a fairly predictable range.

Here's what we typically see for an air source system on a three-bed semi:

System type	Typical quote	After BUS grant
Air source, 7kW	£10,500 – £12,500	£3,000 – £5,000
Air source, 9kW	£12,000 – £14,500	£4,500 – £7,000
Air source, 11kW+	£13,500 – £17,000	£6,000 – £9,500
Ground source, 8kW	£20,000 – £28,000	£12,500 – £20,500

Ground source is roughly double the cost because of the ground loops. You're paying for either boreholes drilled 80 to 120 metres deep, or horizontal trenches across a garden. Worth it for some homes, overkill for most. Our air source heat pump guide covers when each one makes sense.

The price depends heavily on three things the installer can't really negotiate: how leaky your house is, whether your existing radiators are big enough, and how complicated the pipework run is from the outdoor unit to the cylinder. A bungalow with a tidy plant room is cheap. A four-bed Victorian with the boiler in the loft and microbore pipework throughout is expensive.

For a deeper breakdown by property type, see our heat pump cost guide.

Which Grants Can Reduce Your Heat Pump Quote?

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme gives £7,500 off an air source or ground source heat pump in England and Wales, and it's the main one to know about. The grant runs until March 2030 and there's no income test.

Your installer claims it on your behalf. You don't fill in any forms yourself. The £7,500 is taken off the quote before you pay, so you only ever see the net figure. Biomass boilers get £5,000 and the newer air-to-air systems (which heat but don't do hot water) get £2,500. Full eligibility detail is in our Boiler Upgrade Scheme guide.

To qualify you need an EPC without outstanding recommendations for loft or cavity wall insulation. If your EPC says "install loft insulation", you'll need to either do that first or get a fresh EPC that doesn't mention it.

ECO4 is the other route, and it's a different beast. If your household receives qualifying benefits (Universal Credit, Pension Credit, Income Support and similar) and your home has a poor EPC rating (D or below for most flex routes), ECO4 can fund the entire installation. Not £7,500 off. The whole thing. It's administered by energy suppliers and the eligibility is fiddly, so check our ECO4 guide for the full criteria.

Warm Homes: Local Grant runs alongside ECO4 in some areas, with funding routed through local councils. Amounts vary. If you're in Scotland, the equivalent is Home Energy Scotland's interest-free loan plus grant, which is a separate scheme entirely.

Here's the honest bit. Most middle-income homeowners get the £7,500 BUS grant, full stop. ECO4 sounds amazing but the benefits threshold is real and the EPC requirements are tighter than people expect.

How to Compare Quotes From Different Installers

Get three quotes minimum. Then compare them on kW output, flow temperature, and radiator schedule, not just the headline price.

This is where most homeowners come unstuck. They assume two quotes for "an air source heat pump" are quoting the same thing. They aren't. One might be a 7kW unit at 45°C flow temperature with two radiator upgrades. The other might be an 11kW unit at 55°C flow temperature with no radiator changes. Same house, completely different systems, completely different running costs.

Lower flow temperatures are better. A heat pump running at 35°C to 45°C will use far less electricity than one running at 55°C. But achieving low flow temperatures usually means bigger radiators. So the cheap quote that promises "no radiator changes needed" is often promising a worse-running system.

Ask every installer for:

The full heat loss calculation in writing (kW per room)
The proposed flow temperature
Estimated SCOP (seasonal coefficient of performance, you want 3.5+)
Predicted annual running cost based on your usage
Their MCS certification number, which you can verify on the MCS register

If an installer won't give you the heat loss calculation, walk away. We've seen homeowners locked into systems that don't actually heat the house in January because the survey was eyeballed rather than calculated.

Octopus Energy's heat pump arm and British Gas both offer installs at relatively standardised prices, which can be useful as a benchmark even if you don't go with them. Local MCS installers often beat the big names on price but vary wildly in quality. Reviews on Trustpilot and the MCS register are worth twenty minutes of your time.

What to Watch Out For Before You Accept a Quote

The biggest red flag is a quote that doesn't mention your existing radiators. If your home has gas central heating designed for 70°C flow temperatures, almost no installer can drop in a heat pump at 45°C without changing at least some radiators.

A quote that says "all existing radiators retained" on a system that was previously running at high flow temperatures is either wrong or is going to produce a heat pump that runs at high flow temperatures too, which means high bills.

Other things we'd push back on:

No mention of the noise assessment for the outdoor unit (planning permission usually requires it to be more than one metre from your boundary and below 42dB at the neighbour's window)
A cylinder smaller than 180L for a family of four
No commissioning paperwork or MCS handover certificate
Pressure to sign on the day with a "discount expires tonight" approach
No reference to the manufacturer's warranty (typically 5 to 7 years, extendable if registered)

And watch the running cost claims. Some installers quote SCOP figures from lab conditions, not from your actual home. A SCOP of 4.0 in a manufacturer's datasheet might translate to 3.2 in real-world running, which is the difference between a heat pump that beats gas on cost and one that's roughly level.

One more thing. If your installer suggests skipping the EPC requirement "because you'll improve the rating anyway", don't. The BUS grant is claimed against your current EPC. If it has outstanding insulation recommendations, the grant gets clawed back from the installer and you'll likely end up paying the difference.

Worth checking our insulation grants guide before getting heat pump quotes. Sorting loft insulation first costs a few hundred pounds and clears the BUS pathway.

How to Get an Accurate Heat Pump Quote Today

Start by checking your eligibility for the grants you can actually access, then book three MCS-certified installers for in-person surveys.

Don't bother with online "instant quote" tools that ask for your postcode and bedroom count. They produce a number that has almost nothing to do with what you'll actually pay. Heat pumps are too dependent on the specific fabric of your home for remote pricing to work.

A proper installer visit takes 60 to 90 minutes. They'll measure rooms, check radiator sizes, look at your pipework, assess where the outdoor unit can sit, and ask about your hot water usage. If someone offers a quote without visiting, that's your answer on whether to trust them.

The full process from first quote to commissioned system usually runs 8 to 14 weeks. Surveys take 1 to 2 weeks to turn into formal quotes. The install itself is 3 to 5 days on site. Grant paperwork adds another 2 to 4 weeks at the end.

Check your eligibility for the £7,500 BUS grant and any local schemes before you book surveys. Knowing what you qualify for shapes which installers are worth talking to and what your real out-of-pocket cost will be.