The UK’s transition to low-carbon heating depends on heat pumps working well, not just in theory, but in the homes and lives of real people. Local authorities like Bristol City Council are leading the way in this transition by installing heat pumps in hundreds of homes across the city.

While heat pumps are a well-established technology, scaling them in social housing presents practical challenges and opportunities for learning. This project builds on the council’s proactive efforts to audit heat pump installation quality in its housing stock, using those findings as a starting point to test and scale practical improvements.

Nesta is supporting the council with a pilot phase to investigate how installation quality, post-install support, resident experience and remedial work influence outcomes. We’re working with residents, installers, council teams and auditors to understand what’s working well and what can be improved, and to share these insights with others tackling similar challenges.

We want to ensure heat pumps in social housing deliver reliable, affordable warmth for residents, while supporting councils and installers to improve outcomes across the board. Our goal is to turn real-world learning from Bristol into practical insights that inform better installation practice, resident engagement and policy design across the UK.

Heat pumps are a critical part of the UK’s plans to decarbonise home heating. But for heat pumps to work as intended, they need to be well installed, well commissioned and well understood by the people who use them.

Local authorities like Bristol City Council are leading the way in rolling out heat pumps in social housing, making vital progress towards net zero. But even with a well planned programme, delivering heat pump installations at scale, across a variety of property types and with a wide range of resident needs, can present practical challenges.

We’re working with the council to investigate the factors that shape heat pump performance in social housing. Our approach combines technical audits, resident interviews and input from expert installers and council teams.

We are combining technical heat pump installation audits with research with residents to better understand comfort, usability and performance. We’ll analyse this data to identify recurring issues, from installation quality to gaps in handover and support.

In selected homes, we’ll work with expert installers to carry out targeted remedial work and assess whether simple fixes can significantly improve system performance.

We’ll also explore how social landlords can commission and procure better, and what changes might be needed to standards, regulations or grant schemes to raise the bar on quality.

Throughout, we are aiming to document both challenges and success stories, and share learning with peers across the housing and retrofit sectors.