Otter Heating are NICEIC (EE1) 2025 & JIB BES 2006 qualified to conduct Heat Loss Surveys and calculations.

Newly Built Home Survey after 1st Jan 2025 under Part L

From 1st Jan 2025 all new built homes must be heated with a low carbon system such as air source heat pumps. Hybrid systems have been excluded from this whilst ground source heat pumps are still under review.

Until now, heat pumps have not been installed on mass, but by specialised engineers.

It is therefore inevitable that the quality of new heat pump installations may be of a poorer standard or sized incorrectly. This will lead to low SCOP figures even though the installer has ticked all the right boxes.

Common problems do include, oversized heat pumps, under sized pipe work, unnecessary zoning, pumps, poorly installed cylinders and TRV’s.

Having these issues repaired post purchase can be a drawn out process with the developer, as the work will have been completed by a Sub-contracted. We all know that House builders are great at building homes but not fixing problems.

Otter Heating offer an independent survey of your proposed new property to ensure that you have peace of mind and will not have to struggle having remedial work completed after your purchase.

We are offering this preventative service due to the high volume of people who have been disappointed by the performance of their heating and hot water systems after completion.

New Home Survey Fee: £150.00 plus travel costs at 25p per mile.

Underfloor heating.

Low Temperature systems often require larger emitters or radiators, and the largest of these will always be underfloor heating. Underfloor heating requires a lower temperature than the radiators on a Gas boiler installation, and so is already suited to Heat Pumps. Retro fitting underfloor heating is rarely economic or practical. Purchasing a property with underfloor heating is a great way to help future proof your purchase.

If however the existing underfloor heating is heated by a gas boiler, there will be modifications needed to the manifold and water pump in order to convert to a heat pump system.

Existing Home Survey

From 2035 New or replacement Gas boilers installations will be banned. Buying a home now that will require extensive work in the future may see a reduction in the resale value of your home. I would even predict Mortgage lenders will withhold mortgages until remedial work has been completed.

From experience existing homes fall in to two categories:

1) The first are new homes built after 2002 under the rewritten Part L Energy Efficiency guidelines for domestic properties: ADL1. Nearly all of these have stud partitioned walls made from timber frame and plasterboard.

At that time many developers began using PEX plastic pipe and 10mm pipes to radiators. Pex tubing is flexible and so therefore the piping installation will all most never run in a straight line. It also has a thick wall, so a 15mm pipe will actually only be 11mm, and a 10mm pipe only 7mm. It will be clipped and strapped to timber frames in partitioned walls and joists using whatever route was easiest for the developer. Large chipboard flooring is then fitted and often glued on the first floor making its removal in tact almost impossible.

These homes will provide some of the greatest challenges for heat pump installers in the future as some of the existing pipework may not suit heat pumps which require a larger bore. Never once have I worked on a development where the Developer was remotely interested in future proofing the dwelling despite the cost during construction being very low.

2) The second are older homes with solid walls. These properties will often use surface mounted or boxed copper pipe, whilst flooring timbers are much easier to remove and usually expose straight lengths of copper installed in notches within the joist.

Installing heat pumps in the future in these homes may be easier, though they are likely to suffer from greater heat loss. In many older properties, the entire output of the heat pump must be used solely for heating, meaning that in the Winter months all the hot water must be generated electrically through emersion heaters which will be expensive.

In any scenario, Otter Heating can liaise with the Agent and provide you with a pre purchase survey. This survey will identify what challenges, and therefore the costs of retro fitting Air Source heat pumps to your potential new home, whilst also appraising the condition of the existing heating system. This may be a factor when making an offer to purchase.

Existing Home Survey Fee: £150.00 plus travel costs at 25p per mile.