Heat pump installation Whimple, designed room by room for an orchard village
Whimple mixes older cottages at its centre with newer closes built on the old cider works land, two fabrics that lose heat at very different rates. Heat pump installation in Whimple starts with measuring your walls, not assuming them.
James and the team provided a first rate end to end service, our old oil boiler failed on Good Friday and within 3/4 weeks we were up and running with a new energy efficient air source heating system.
James Stalker, owner
NAPIT MCS assessor
Illustration
Everything that sits inside a Whimple quote
Design is what you are buying. Plumbing is the straightforward half; the arithmetic in front of it decides whether the system still suits the house in twenty winters’ time, and it is the half a cheap quote leaves out. The same list applies to a cottage by the square and to a house on one of the closes off the old works land. Here is what a Whimple quote covers.
- A heat loss survey taken room by room at your own property. Wall construction, glazing, orientation and how exposed each elevation is, all written down. Nothing inferred from a floor plan, nothing assumed from the postcode.
- The heat pump and a cylinder built for heat pump duty. An outdoor unit, often an Ideal, sized to hold the house on the coldest morning Whimple gets, and no larger than that.
- A radiator schedule naming each radiator individually. Which stay as they are, which grow, and by how much, so the house still gets its heat at the lower temperature a heat pump runs at.
- Pipework, cabling and the cylinder position, agreed before anything is ordered. In the older stock round the square, getting pipe runs through thick walls is part of the design rather than something discovered on site, and on the closes built on Whiteway’s own land, the airing cupboards were sized for a smaller 1990s cylinder, so where the new one goes gets settled up front too.
- Weather compensation and commissioning on site. The system is set to answer to the outside temperature rather than a dial someone set once, then tuned and commissioned so what we hand over runs to the design, not a factory default.
- The Boiler Upgrade Scheme application, where your property can qualify. Filed by us and taken off the invoice.
- Handover and aftercare. A run-through that leaves you able to run the system, and servicing from us when it comes round.
We install underfloor heating too, and where a property already has it downstairs, it starts the job with an advantage: a low flow temperature is exactly what underfloor was designed around.
Heat pump installation Whimple, where siting the unit is the easy half
Heat pump installation Whimple usually starts with a question the village has already answered: where does the outdoor unit go? Out here, rarely an argument.
- Plots run to a decent size, with outbuildings and orchard edges to work along, and nobody is threading a machine down a side passage.
- We work out of Firbank House on Exeter Road in Exmouth, south of the village, MCS certified and air to water only, and James does every free home assessment himself. Our page on air source heat pump installation sets out the method in full.
The harder half sits behind the render.
- Whiteway’s made cyder and perry here for the better part of a century; the works shut in the 1980s, the land went for housing in the 1990s, and the cider orchards still ring the parish.
- That left three kinds of property: cottages round the square, where a tributary of the Clyst runs past; farms out at Cobden, Hand and Pen and Marsh Green; and the closes on the old works site, barely three decades old.
Every 17 January the wassail still goes round one of the last Whimple Wonder trees, in a village nine miles east of Exeter where the housing round the square predates the mains gas network.
- That end of the village usually starts with a tank in the garden and a tiring boiler; which side of the gas grid you are on gets checked at the free home assessment, not guessed.
- Solid walls and modern cavities hold heat on different clocks, and a sum done off floor area short-cycles a unit in one while leaving the other cold in February.
Swapping oil for a heat pump in Devon covers what changes.
Five reasons to put the job our way
Five reasons to use us rather than a heat pump company Whimple homeowners only reach through a switchboard.
The owner runs your job.
- James assesses the property and designs the system, then oversees the install through commissioning and handover, so nobody stands between you and whoever did the sums.
- Aftercare calls come back to him rather than a sales department, and he knows the design. Our about page explains his route into the trade.
★★★★★
“James Stalker is the most reliable man I know.”
Stephen M. · Google review · five stars
He audits other installers for NAPIT.
- James works as a freelance MCS assessor, inspecting installations other companies have signed off.
- Yours is designed to come through that inspection clean.
Heat loss designed room by room, never estimated off the floor area.
- An oversized unit short-cycles and wastes money doing so, and an undersized one leaves a Whimple farmhouse cold in the week that matters most.
Older and period properties welcome.
- Cottages, solid stone, cob under render, thatch.
- A company that calls the place unsuitable usually just does not want to do the calculations.
The grant handled at our end, and about a week on site.
- Where a property is eligible we file the Boiler Upgrade Scheme paperwork and take the award off the invoice, so nothing needs reclaiming, and aftercare comes from people close enough to come back.
- Two jobs at a time is our ceiling, and Whimple sits squarely inside the areas we cover. We cover heat pump installation at West Hill as well.
What homeowners say on Google
Grants, 0% VAT, and the honest version of running costs
Our MCS certification is what lets us handle the paperwork. We apply, and the award comes off the price at the outset, so there is nothing to reclaim later.
Check if your home qualifiesOn running costs, the straight answer: set beside oil, most of what you gain is subtraction.
No deliveries to book, no gauge to read before a cold snap.
- Stability rather than a dramatic saving, and we say so at the heat loss survey rather than quote a figure we cannot stand behind.
Grant figures correct as of August 2026. Eligibility criteria apply and are confirmed at your free home assessment.
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Eligible properties not on oil or LPG can qualify for £7,500.
- Not every home meets the conditions, and we find out at the free assessment before a price is put to anything.
- Off the gas grid on oil or LPG today? A Whimple property off the gas grid and heated by oil or LPG can qualify for the £9,000 heat pump grant, on any application lodged by 31 March 2027.
- VAT on a qualifying installation sits at 0% until 31 March 2027. The scheme itself carries on beyond that date; it is only the higher off-grid rate that closes then.
Ideal units, and the unglamorous reasons we fit them often
For the typical off-grid home the measured heat loss gives the size of unit, and the room figures show which radiators can stay as they are.
We choose the cylinder for your home, as we do the heat pump, and it usually arrives pre-plumbed with its valves and stats fitted.
We fit weather-compensating controls where they add value, and set them up at commissioning.
On a Whimple property we often fit an Ideal unit paired with a pre-plumbed cylinder, though we are not tied to one manufacturer the way the big companies are.
Ideal’s units cover 4 to 10 kW, which is where a measured heat loss usually lands on the three and four bedroom houses on the closes, the bungalows and the older cottages that have not changed size since Whiteway’s was still bottling; where the survey, the airing cupboard or the hot water demand points elsewhere, the survey wins and he picks another make.
Ideal build in the UK, so a spare part is a courier job rather than a customs question, and the cylinder arrives with its diverter valve, cylinder stat, overheat stat and filter fitted and tested before it leaves the factory, which means fewer connections made inside your house. That consistency counts twice here: a cottage by the square leaves no room to invent a cylinder arrangement on the day, and a 1990s close leaves a cupboard drawn around something smaller. We fit as an Ideal Heating partner, and James still chooses by the numbers rather than the badge. The pairing is practical, not promotional. Where a Whimple property genuinely needs something different, the heat loss survey shows it, and the design follows the building.
Heat pump installation Whimple in four steps, and the first one is free
Four steps, and the first one is free.
Free home visit
We come out, look at your property, answer your questions, and tell you honestly whether a heat pump is right for your home.
Book my free home assessmentYour heat loss survey and design
A full room-by-room heat loss survey and a designed system, with a fixed written scope and price. The survey is £250 plus VAT, and that fee is wiped from the final bill when you go ahead with the install.
Installation and commissioning
A clean MCS install, usually about a week start to finish, one or two jobs at a time, with the system properly commissioned and dialled in.
Handover and aftercare
We show you how it runs, and we are here afterwards, with servicing when it is due.
“After comparing several quotes and gathering details I decided to go with Eco Pro after speaking with James and couldn’t be happier. Their design was really detailed, explained clearly and the heat pump works perfectly.”
DJ G. · Google review · five stars
Your guarantees
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IWA workmanship warranty and deposit insurance.
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We register a manufacturer warranty at commissioning for every heat pump we put in. Ideal’s warranty gives seven years of parts and labour on its units; other makes carry the cover their manufacturer sets.
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MCS certified, RECC and APHC member, NAPIT assessor, Ideal Heating partner.
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The grant paperwork handled for you, start to finish.
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Ongoing servicing when you need it, including years down the line. Heat pump servicing →
More recent projects
Exmouth
A 1930s six-bedroom home with 34 windows
The owners doubted a heat pump could heat an older, larger property. A detailed design running at a low 47 degrees, with seven radiators upgraded and the rest kept, proved it could, comfortably.
West Hill · Ottery St Mary
The job three installers said could not be done
The owners wanted their hot water cylinder relocated to the garage. Three previous companies refused. We redesigned the pipework and did it, on a 311m² home with uninsulated floors.
Newton Abbot
A period home others had written off
We redesigned and re-piped the entire heating system for low-temperature running, and added radiators to rooms that never had them. “Too old” is usually a design problem, not a dead end.
We install across East Devon, including Whimple, Exmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Sidmouth, Ottery St Mary, Woodbury, Lympstone, Newton Poppleford, West Hill and Honiton. For the mill town further north, our Tiverton heat pump installation page has the detail. Aylesbeare lies a few miles south, where the largest house on Sidmouth Road is several times the size of a bungalow on it. Old farms and newer closes sit together on the far side of the A30, which is the ground heat pump installation in Rockbeare covers.
Street, Somerset: three installers, three different answers. We designed it correctly.
Before calling us, this homeowner had already had two national installers and another company out, and been handed completely conflicting advice, one proposing an oversized 16kW system, another saying the property was not suitable for a heat pump at all. Our room-by-room heat loss survey showed the home was suitable, but nowhere near the 16kW that had been quoted. We sized it correctly, upgraded only the radiators that genuinely needed it, and fitted an Ideal Logic Air matched to the actual heat loss rather than the quote sheet.
Heat pump installation Whimple: common questions
Price follows the size of the building, the state of the radiators and how hot water is made now, so the first visit ends with a fixed estimate, not a brochure figure. Any heat pump installer Whimple homeowners speak to should put a firm number in writing once the property is measured.
Book my free home assessmentIt can, provided you own the house, it sits beyond the mains gas network, oil or LPG heats it now, and the application goes in no later than 31 March 2027. Where a Whimple property is eligible on other grounds, it can qualify for £7,500 instead. Which of the two applies to yours is settled at the free home assessment.
Book my free home assessmentUsually somewhere obvious: plots here tend to have space and outbuildings to work with. We agree the position at the free home assessment, and MCS rules require a sound calculation wherever it ends up. In Whimple that is a shorter conversation than on a terraced street.
Book my free home assessmentNormally yes, provided the design follows the construction. Thick cob and stone take up and release heat far more slowly than a modern cavity, so a room-by-room heat loss survey counts for more in Whimple’s older properties, not less. Three miles down the road we cover heat pump installation in Ottery St Mary as well.
Book my free home assessmentAbout a week. We generally start on a Monday and commission before that same week is out, with water off in short spells rather than for whole days. We run no more than two jobs at once, so your Whimple installation keeps one pair of hands.
Book my free home assessmentSometimes, and only where the numbers demand it. A heat pump works cooler than an oil boiler, so one or two radiators may need upsizing to give out the same heat. The heat loss survey names them individually, and any change is priced into your fixed Whimple quote before work starts.
Book my free home assessmentGet James out to your Whimple property, at no cost
James walks your Whimple property, gives a straight account of what he finds, and stays your contact through to handover.
★★★★★
“We had an excellent 10/10 experience with James and would highly recommend him. … Communication was outstanding throughout, he responded quickly and always provided clear explanations whenever we had questions.”
Georgie S. · Google review · five stars
Prefer to talk first? Ring 01395 202030 and it rings through to James, who owns the company, not a call centre. Our contact page lists the rest.
