In the last section of our interviews, participants were prompted to imagine a national mandate for landlords to install heat pumps in their properties. The aim of the scenario was to move beyond interviewees’ potential reticence towards the technology and to home in on the practicalities of installation - including what trusted bodies and sources of information they would turn to, and what service(s) or support they would need. Answers were not necessarily a representation of landlords’ real-world decisions or behaviours. At times, we found some participants lacked relevant knowledge, either about heat pumps or existing grants and schemes, and supplied them with this information. The scenario also did not take into account situations where participants had already made plans to sell their properties or, in one instance, already had a heat pump installed in their property.

Initial responses and expected impact

When faced with the scenario, the majority of interviewees initially expressed negative emotions, ranging from concern to anger. Two interviewees (Matthew and Bea) expressed more positive emotions, but both intend to sell their properties in the near future, and one (Bea) already had a heat pump - meaning the scenario would have no impact on them.

Cost

While a cost was not explicitly mentioned in the scenario, upfront investment was our interviewees’ key concern. Most interviewees had a preconceived idea about the cost of heat pumps, but not all knew about financial support options such as BUS, and interviewers provided additional information about BUS to eight participants.

Some of the most negative responses to the prompt came from smaller landlords who relied on letting agents, especially those nearer retirement age, such as Valerie and Lauren. As Viola (1 property) put it: ‘It's like having no tenant for a whole year’ However, larger portfolio landlords we spoke to, such as Rhoda and Ted, who would hypothetically face the highest upfront costs due to having several properties, were also challenged by the total costs of upgrading several properties at once. Participants who had recently replaced their heating systems with more efficient boilers were also reluctant to discard boilers in working order, like Rhoda, who said she would begrudge ‘ditching stuff that's relatively new in order to get something else’, suggesting that to landlords a more efficient boiler was already regarded as a big expense they were unwilling to discard before the end of its life. Ted, for example, was proud to mention that he had retrofitted one of his properties, an old Victorian house, with ‘the most energy efficient boiler I could purchase’.

Where participants knew about BUS, we heard a range of views about how much it alleviated the cost of heat pumps. For example, Dean explained that he ‘liked the idea of having the however many thousand pounds of support, but it’s the fact that there’s another double that that’s needed to actually do the work and get it.’ On the other hand, Hussein felt that BUS made the cost of a heat pump more approachable compared to other expenses he had previously experienced, explaining: ‘So let's say, for example, in my theory of it costing 10 grands, if you could get a seven and a half grand subsidy towards it, and if you could get together with a group of friends, and reduce that 10 grand, to say 9 and a half. Well, then, you're only investing 2 grand. It cost me substantially more than that on a kitchen or the bathroom, or the decorating and carpet.’

These interviews suggest that a lack of information about BUS may be holding back uptake, but should also be accompanied by work to reduce the upfront cost of heat pumps, potentially through enabling approaches to leverage economies of scale. As Hussein’s comment suggests, individuals’ abilities to draw on informal networks or membership groups could also give landlords access to reduce costs.

Scepticism of government

Some landlords we spoke to, such as Ted, Matthew, Dean and Hussein, also expressed scepticism towards the scenario due to their past experience with poor government implementation of decarbonisation policies, having previously experienced cases where a government had either withdrawn proposed legislation or pushed deadlines. For example, Ted stated:

‘There was this talk about requiring rental properties to be at an EPC C level by, was it 2025? And that came to nothing. So I would have some skepticism over whether this would be a hard and fast requirement or not because the reality is 2030 is only 5 years away, and I think it would be pretty impossible for landlords to do the required investment, to install an air source heat pump, but I think 5 years is just too short a time frame for me personally.’

Dean also highlighted the lack of consistency around sustainability from successive governments would also make him sceptical of such a policy, referring to his experience of working in aviation: ‘It feels like, you know, government makes an announcement, and then everyone shifts to do that. And then, a few years later, they, the next government, changed their mind, or the previous one changed their mind or whatever.’

Scepticism about the technology

Another area of concern was around heat pump technology itself. Levels of awareness and buy-in varied based on interviewees’ personal experiences, although more professionalised landlords or landlords working in the housing or energy sector (such as Matthew, Hussein, and Ted) were more likely to have some prior knowledge, while a few participants had done some research either due to their profession (like Matthew) or out of environmental concern. Only one (Viola) had not heard of heat pumps previously, but some of the landlords we spoke to had limited knowledge. Dean, who had some first-hand experience of seeing a heat pump in a friend’s property, felt the most positive about heat pumps.

By contrast, Valerie had the most negative image of heat pumps, explaining that she had previously discouraged her partner from installing one due to hearing negative stories. She also mentioned aesthetic concerns about heat pumps, describing them as ‘massive monstrosities’ which could put future buyers of her properties off. A number of landlords we spoke to expressed concerns about the heat pump’s external units, with Amy explaining she would be worried about the risks of vandalism to the technology. Hussein also expressed concerns about the efficiency of the technology, especially if used on its own and not in combination with a renewable energy source:

‘Gas boilers have been tried and tested. A lot of people that have got ground source heat pumps are [not] overly happy with the performance because the electric bills have rocketed. So unless you're doing a combination of solar panels and ground source heat pump. I don't think it's a viable solution.

Workforce and maintenance

The availability of workforce to install heat pumps was a concern among our interviewees, compounded by having to consider their tenants and opening themselves up to the risk of having to pay for compensation in the event of something going wrong, a concern expressed by Matthew.

Bea, who had bought a newbuild with a heat pump, explained she had found it difficult to find someone to service her heat pump and compared this experience with dealing with a boiler:’it took a long time for the agents to find someone in contrast to a problem that a plumber can just come and do’. Interviewees also raised the related questions of ongoing maintenance and compliance.

Impact on tenants

The landlords we interviewed frequently expressed anxieties around potential disruption to their rental property during and after installation, and were concerned about tenants having poor experiences as a result of the technology. Concerns included loss of space, tenants’ thermal comfort, potential difficulties with using the heat pump, and variations in performance due to seasons. Even an environmentally minded landlord like Rhoda expressed scepticism: ‘It's not something I'd want to do with tenants living in properties.’

Increased bills were a topic raised by a few of our interviewees, with opinions split between those who assumed heat pumps would result in higher bills for their tenants and those who thought the opposite. William, for example, expressed concern that bills could go up in the event that a tenant did not know how to use their heating system. In some interviews, landlords were prompted with information about offers such as time-of-use tariffs and heat-as-a-service offers, with responses oscillating between uncertainty and curiosity. Viola, for example, stated:

Feel like as a tenant... I wouldn't want to be told when to use things, but then, again, I have nothing to do with their electricity bills, water bills, they take care of it. So they currently they will choose what tariff they are on with Eon or Npower, or whatever they choose. So if it was a case where it's like.. they can still choose which tariff they're on, maybe that would be fine, but I wouldn't want them to be like right, you have to use this between this time and this time.

Bea was our only interviewee with first-hand experience of the heat pump in her property, which she had bought as a new build, but had not received negative feedback from her tenants, stating: ‘I'm just sort of wondering if that might have been annoying for them. But I don't. I never had any information about that.’

Market-wide implications

Another theme that surfaced in a number of interviews was the potential market impact of a mandate, with interviewees expressing concerns around finding installers to install and service heat pumps across the PRS, a lack of qualified workforce, but also a potential destabilising effect on the market. For example, Ted speculated: ‘not all landlords have mortgages. So for those without a mortgage, they might be able to swallow the cost because they're still making money on a monthly basis. But I think it'd be hugely disruptive to the rental market.’ Louis argued that such a scenario would likely have an impact on rental prices, as ‘landlords are going to try and offset that in some way, shape or form’, suggesting that a countermeasure would be to ensure that this measure would extend beyond the PRS and ‘be fairly distributed’. As a letting agent, Matthew took a broader view of the market and argued that there would be a risk that landlords would wait for additional grants and ‘prices would go up because there’ll be a lot more installers knowing that people have got to get this done’ and ‘charging more’ as a result.

Positive impact

When speculating about the hypothetical positive effects of the scenario for them, several participants pointed out potential economic benefits. For example, as an HMO landlord, Ted could foresee that the increased efficiency of the technology could lead to lower bills, which would benefit his income. Hussein similarly posited that lower bills could give some margin to increase the rent without increasing tenants’ overall living costs. As a letting agent, Matthew was in favour of upgrades that would increase the value of landlords’ assets, explaining:

I think it's well, both professionally on business level and personally on my level. I'm all for it. The majority of landlords don't mind spending a bit of money on their properties, and they should do because it's their asset at the end of the day, and it's a vehicle that they're profiting from.

Dean, who previously worked for an energy company, also anticipated that heat pumps might increase the value of a property and futureproof it against future regulations that would mandate low-carbon technologies across the housing market. Finally, landlords such as Louis and Lauren, who reported higher levels of environmental concern, also brought up the positive environmental impact of installing low-carbon technology.