New research to improve heat pump experience for social housing residents
New research, led by experts in the Leeds Sustainability Institute (LSI) at Leeds Beckett University, aims to improve the experience of social housing residents and landlords who are installing heat pumps into homes, and empower them to get the full benefits of low-carbon heating.
The two-year OnTrack project has been funded by the MCS Foundation, and puts residents at the heart of improving the delivery of heat pumps, by addressing the gaps found between installation and their successful day-to-day use.
Dr Kate Morland, Research Fellow in the Leeds Sustainability Institute (LSI) at LBU and project leader, explained:
“The number of heat pumps installed across UK social homes is rapidly increasing as part of efforts to decarbonise home heating. However, social landlords must be better supported to work with both their tenants and installers to ensure that heat pump systems deliver the full benefits as intended.
“Existing research has largely focused on technical design and installation standards, while less attention has been paid to what happens when responsibility passes from installers to landlords and residents.
“The OnTrack project introduces the concept of the ‘heat pump handover gap’ in social housing – the critical transition between installation and successful day-to-day operation, where many performance and user experience issues arise. Alongside this, social landlords often lack the tools, confidence and technical capacity to assess whether heat pumps have been installed and commissioned correctly. Inconsistent communication and limited resident support can all affect heat pump performance, comfort for households, and running costs. By better understanding and improving these processes, we aim to ensure that heat pumps deliver the benefits expected by residents, landlords and policymakers.”
For residents, the project hopes to improve their comfort and the operating efficiency of their heat pumps; and for landlords, it aims to reduce the likelihood of problems being overlooked after installation and support them to oversee the quality of the installation by contractors.
Collaborating with a group of social housing landlords, the LSI team will combine social research, behaviour change, and real-world energy performance analysis, to review existing processes, analyse how effectively the heat pumps are currently performing, understand residents’ experiences, and identify areas of communication, commissioning, handover and support to improve processes in future.
The team will then put the improvements in place across a selection of homes and evaluate the impacts on residents’ understanding and confidence in using the heat pumps, alongside an analysis of energy and performance data.
The findings will be used to create a practical framework of guidance for heat pump handover, snagging and post-installation support for social landlords and residents.