A woman from Cornwall is paying hundreds of pounds more per month on heating after having a heat pump installed at her property.
Jane, 57, purchased her 200-year-old home in 2019 and, being based in a rural location with no access to mains gas, had limited options to heat her home.
Jane opted for a heat pump after being encouraged by the eco-friendly drive happening in her area at the time.
She forked out £25,000 for the system in April 2022, which also came with two solar panels.
Jane calculated that her heating bills would average around £125 a month. However, the system didn’t function until October and it struggled to heat the property to the expected temperature of 21C.
Jane told i: “I have the heating on all the time but instead of running for a few hours, and then turning it off while it maintains the temperature, my heat pump is running up to 15 hours a day. It’s costing up somewhere in the region of £20 a day.”
This works out to around £600 a month – a staggering increase from Jane’s initial £125 calculation.
Jane described the experience as “stressful”, noting that nobody has been able to fix any of the issues she’s encountered.
She said: “The radiators aren’t getting warm. I gave it weeks to bed in but our rooms just weren’t warming up.”
Jane called the company and told them, but she claimed they just gave “one excuse after another”.
The “whizzing” and “whooshing” from the pumps also disturb her, likening the sound to “a helicopter”, and she also “ran into problems” with the fans.
Jane told the i that the fans had been using £8 of energy a day but “weren’t doing anything”.
According to Jane, the issues are still being investigated by the firm that installed the system.
She said: “All I think about is how cold I am going to be and how much money this heat pump is using. What’s the point of having one if it’s not keeping my house warm?
“It’s colder in here than it is outside.”
While the pumps work for thousands of others, it hasn’t worked for Jane, which has left her feeling regretful.
Jane said she “absolutely regrets” having a heat pump. She added: “It’s massively stressful, takes up a lot of your energy and money – and you’re still left freezing cold.”
