Managing a fifth of UK homes gives social housing providers a unique opportunity to drive housing decarbonisation and get heat pump deployment right at scale.
While landlords face intense pressure balancing constrained budgets with competing demands, improving installation quality should not be viewed as an added burden. Instead, getting installations right serves as a practical lever to align net-zero goals directly with core priorities: delivering warm homes, reducing fuel poverty and protecting vulnerable residents.
Nesta partnered with Bristol City Council (BCC) to investigate heat pump quality and tenant experiences in social housing. Alongside this action guide, we have published a report to investigate the quality of heat pump installations and the lived experiences of the tenants living with them
What’s in the action guide
This practical guide is grounded in real-world data from 39 technical heat pump audits, 30 follow-up repair visits and 37 tenant interviews conducted between 2025 and 2026. These insights are bolstered by 53 prior audits completed by Bristol City Council and the University of Bristol across 2024 -2025.
The guide offers practical recommendations to social housing landlords across procurement, deployment and quality assurance of heat pumps.
