Air Source Heat Pumps in Croydon

Let’s Fix Group Ltd, led by David Prince, designs and fits low-carbon heating across Croydon with our own engineers. Call or message the team to book a property survey, a system service or a repair visit.

Over 20 years fixing and fitting London’s heating gives you one thing on a heat pump job that no brochure can: the judgement to know which Croydon properties suit one and which do not.

David Prince heads a team of expert heating engineers, all our own people rather than subcontractors, covering every Croydon neighbourhood, and the same team looks after boiler servicing services Croydon homeowners already rely on.

Call Let’s Fix Group Ltd to book a heat pump survey for your Croydon property.

An air source heat pump takes heat out of the outside air and moves it into your home, so it heats radiators, underfloor pipes and a hot water cylinder using electricity rather than burning gas.

What Is an Air Source Heat Pump?

The awkward part first: a heat pump is not a boiler swap. It is a different way of making heat, and it needs the rest of the system to suit it. Skip that and the house feels cold.

An outdoor unit contains a fan, a compressor and a refrigerant circuit. Outdoor air passes over the refrigerant, the refrigerant boils at a low temperature, the compressor raises the pressure and the heat is passed into the water going round your heating. Indoors you get a small control unit and, in most homes, a hot water cylinder.

Because it moves heat rather than creating it, it delivers several units of heat for each unit of electricity. That efficiency depends on running at lower flow temperatures than a gas boiler, which is why radiator sizing and insulation matter as much as the pump itself.

David Prince and his team fit these systems, service them and repair them. That is the point. The people who install it are the people who come back to it.

How Air Source Heat Pumps Work in Croydon

Croydon’s housing stock is mixed, and that is the honest constraint. A solid-wall Victorian terrace behaves nothing like a purpose-built flat off London Road. Suitability is decided street by street, property by property. We survey before we promise anything.

Victorian and Edwardian houses

Croydon has street after street of terraced and semi-detached homes built before 1919, from Thornton Heath through South Norwood to South Croydon. These respond well once loft and floor insulation is sensible and the radiators are sized for lower flow temperatures. Some rooms need a bigger radiator. Some do not need touching. A room-by-room heat loss calculation tells us which.

Flats and converted maisonettes

Many of the larger Victorian and Edwardian houses across the borough have been converted into flats, and there are purpose-built blocks too. Outdoor space and mounting position become the deciding factors, along with the freeholder’s permission. Where a unit cannot go somewhere sensible, we say so rather than force it.

Post-war estates and newer homes

The 1960s and 70s stock and the newer estates around Shirley, Selsdon and Coulsdon often need less fabric work, because cavity walls and modern glazing already hold heat. Those homes are usually the straightforward jobs. Croydon Council identifies 16 neighbourhood areas, and there are expert heating engineers covering all of them, from Norbury and Broad Green down to Sanderstead, Purley, Kenley and Old Coulsdon.

Grants and Finance for Heat Pumps

Grant paperwork is where people give up. Forms, eligibility rules, certificates. It puts homeowners off a system that would suit them.

The government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme is the main route to support for replacing a fossil fuel system with an air source heat pump in England. Eligibility depends on the property, the certificate position and the system being replaced, and the rules change from time to time, so we go through what currently applies to your address rather than quoting a number that may have moved.

We will also be plain about what the scheme does not do. It reduces the cost of installation. It does not remove the need for a properly sized system, and it does not turn a poorly insulated house into a good candidate on its own. We will tell you if insulation should come first.

• Written costs before any work is booked, with the scope set out line by line
• Clear pricing, so there are no surprises added after the engineers arrive
• A 10 year guarantee on installations, and the firm is fully insured
• Servicing and repair handled by the same team afterwards

Benefits of Air Source Heat Pumps

The fear is mess. Floors up, dust everywhere, a radiator missing for a week and a room you cannot use. That fear is reasonable, because badly run installations do exactly that. So here is how ours are staged.

Work is broken into phases and each phase is closed down before the next starts. The outdoor unit and its base go in from outside. Pipework runs are agreed with you first, so you know which walls and floors are affected before anything is lifted. Cylinder and internal work is done in planned blocks, and heating and hot water are kept running as long as the sequence allows. When the day ends, tools go away, sheets and boards come up, floors are cleaned and the house goes back to how we found it.

On noise: the outdoor unit runs a fan and a compressor, so it is audible up close, closer to a fridge outside than a boiler flue. Siting decides how much you notice it. We position it away from bedroom windows and away from your neighbour’s, and we tell you where it will go before we drill anything.

Running costs and comfort

A heat pump runs the house at a steadier, lower temperature rather than short blasts of high heat. Rooms feel more even. Radiators feel less hot to the touch, which throws people at first. Savings depend on the tariff, the insulation and how the system is set up, so we will talk about your actual house rather than an average.

Lower carbon heating and one team for everything

Electricity gets cleaner every year, so a heat pump’s carbon footprint keeps falling without you doing anything. Whether you need air source heat pumps in Croydon or a local plumber in Croydon, the same firm covers the whole borough, which means the cylinder, the pipework and the radiators are all one responsibility. That matters when something needs looking at later.

Air Source Heat Pump Installation Process

Most complaints about heat pump installation come from a survey that was rushed. Get the design wrong and no amount of commissioning fixes it. So the survey is the long part, not the fitting.

Survey and system design

We measure the property, calculate heat loss room by room and check the existing pipework, radiators and cylinder position. Then we set the flow temperature the design will run at and size everything to it. You get the design in writing, including anything that needs upgrading and anything that can stay.

Installation and commissioning

The base and outdoor unit go in, the cylinder is fitted, the circuit is connected, flushed and filled, and the controls are set up. Electrical work is done to the current regulations. Commissioning is where the system is balanced and the flow temperature proved, and we hand over the settings so you know what each control does.

Servicing, repair and aftercare

Heat pumps need an annual service: filters, pressures, refrigerant circuit checks and a control review. If a fault appears, David or one of his expert heating engineers will be out to you, and nine in ten repairs are finished the same day. We also install and repair gas boilers, cylinders and radiators, so if a heat pump turns out to be the wrong answer for your property, we will say that too. Every engineer is our own, Gas Safe registered where gas work is involved, as the Gas Safe Register requires, and never a subcontractor. Faults are traced with thermal imaging and acoustic methods rather than guesswork and lifted floors.

David Prince has over 20 years behind him on London’s heating systems. That is why the design comes first.

Common Questions About Air Source Heat Pumps in Croydon