Heat pump installation in Ottery St Mary, designed for homes that run on oil
If checking the tank gauge before a cold snap and ringing round for the best price per litre have worn thin, this is the switch that settles it. We replace ageing oil boilers around Ottery St Mary with air-to-water heat pumps designed room by room, MCS certified, grants up to £9,000 handled and deducted upfront.
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
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What your Ottery St Mary installation includes
The majority of heat pump problems are design problems. Get the design right and the technology just works. Design is where our time actually goes, and it is the real value in what you buy. Every installation includes:
- Every room measured for heat loss in turn, instead of a number guessed from square metres or your address.
- A system drawn up from those readings, sized for the year’s coldest day without tipping into oversized and wasteful.
- A clear radiator plan. We say plainly which of them, if any, need to be bigger to perform at a lower temperature.
- Heat pump supplied and fitted, a new cylinder designed for heat pump duty, and all the pipework and controls between them.
- Commissioning and optimisation on site, so nothing is left on default settings when we go.
- Smart weather compensation where it genuinely helps, so output follows the outdoor temperature and what the house needs that day.
- A real handover so the controls make sense to you, and aftercare on call afterwards.
We fit underfloor heating as well, and if yours is already down, better still: it suits low-temperature running perfectly.
Air source heat pump installation for Ottery St Mary’s oil-heated homes
Ottery St Mary is oil country.
- The town’s cottages gather around a church so grand it is often called a miniature Exeter Cathedral, but follow the River Otter down to Tipton St John and Wiggaton, or out to Alfington, Fairmile and Metcombe, and mains gas quickly becomes the exception.
- Heating out here means a tank in the garden and deliveries ordered by the load, which is exactly why heat pump installation in Ottery St Mary has stopped being a curiosity and started being a plan.
You know the routine if you live it.
- Checking the gauge before a cold snap. Ringing round for the best price per litre.
- The £1,000-plus fill that lands just after Christmas. This is a town that carries flaming tar barrels through the streets every November, so it clearly doesn’t scare easily, yet that winter oil bill still stings. And underneath it all sits a boiler getting older each year, with a decision coming that you’d rather make on your own terms than mid-breakdown in January.
Oil boiler replacement is most of what we do.
- Our air source heat pump installation service was built for exactly the properties that surround Ottery St Mary: detached houses and bungalows from the 1960s to the 1990s, and the older stone and cob homes other installers turn down.
- Everything we fit is air-to-water. It heats your radiators and your hot water cylinder, replacing the oil boiler directly, and every system is sized from a room-by-room heat loss calculation rather than a template, with the heat pump and cylinder chosen to suit the property, usually 4 to 10 kW.
Why Ottery St Mary homeowners choose us
Choosing a heat pump installer in Ottery St Mary comes down to one question: who do you trust to get a five-figure decision right first time? Here’s our answer.
The owner does your job.
- James answers the phone, carries out the home assessment, designs the system and oversees the installation, and he is the one who commissions it and talks you through the handover.
- He has been a heat pump engineer since 2010, with more than 100 heat pump installations to his name. There is no sales team here, so aftercare questions go to the person who quoted your home and knows how it was designed; you can read more about James and how the company works.
★★★★★
“James Stalker is the most reliable man I know.”
Stephen M. · Google review · five stars
He audits other installers for a living.
- As a freelance NAPIT MCS assessor, James inspects other companies’ heat pump installations.
- Oversized units, lazy surveys and abandoned customers are precisely what he is paid to catch, so they don’t happen on his own jobs.
Room-by-room heat loss design.
- Every room, window and radiator is measured and calculated before anything is specified.
- That is how a system ends up quietly matching a house instead of fighting it.
Older homes welcome.
- Been told your cottage “isn’t suitable”? Heat pumps for older properties are a design job, not a gamble.
- Ottery’s solid-wall stone and cob houses need careful calculation, and we’ll give you a straight answer either way.
The grant is handled and deducted upfront.
- As an MCS-accredited installer we apply for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme on your behalf and take it off the price before you pay a penny of it. You never fund the grant and claim it back.
- And the aftercare is local and ongoing afterwards, not a promise from a distant head office. Nearby we cover heat pump installation in Whimple.
What homeowners say on Google
Grants and costs for Ottery St Mary homes
We make the application and deduct the grant from your quote upfront.
Check if your home qualifiesA word on running costs, because this is where some installers overpromise.
On a standard electricity tariff, savings against oil are usually modest.
- The stronger case is different: a dedicated heat pump tariff can bring running costs down meaningfully, your bills stop swinging with the oil market, and you are done with deliveries, tank checks and the risk of running dry in the coldest week of the year.
- At the survey we’ll talk through realistic numbers for your home, not a best-case brochure figure.
Grant figures correct as of August 2026. Eligibility criteria apply and are confirmed at your free home assessment.
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The Boiler Upgrade Scheme currently offers eligible owner-occupiers in England and Wales £7,500 towards an air source heat pump.
- Eligibility always depends on your property and circumstances.
- Off-gas-grid homes heated by oil or LPG can qualify for £9,000 instead, and that uplift is live now on applications made up to 31 March 2027. Given how much of the parish around Ottery St Mary heats with oil, plenty of local homes sit squarely in the higher band, and we get the application in well ahead of that deadline.
- Installation is also zero-rated for VAT until 31 March 2027, and since April 2026 a valid EPC is no longer strictly required to apply, which removes a real hurdle for older properties.
The kit we fit, and why
Nothing gets specified until the survey has measured the property.
For a standard off-grid house the numbers set the output, the cylinder size and any radiator changes before we quote.
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.
Each home gets the heat pump and cylinder that suit it, because we are not tied to one manufacturer. That keeps us apart from big firms that fit one or two makes.
Ideal is a make we fit often: 4 to 10 kW covers most Devon properties, Ideal’s UK manufacturing keeps spares flowing, and the pre-plumbed cylinder we tend to use turns up with filter, diverter valve, cylinder stat and overheat stat fitted. That adds up to a neater, faster fit and less to fail in the years after. It is kit we have installed many times over, and the results do not vary.
Our process, from free visit to handover
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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At commissioning we register the maker’s warranty on every unit we put in, which on an Ideal is seven-year parts and labour cover; other makes stay under their own manufacturer warranty.
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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 Exmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Sidmouth, Ottery St Mary, Woodbury, Lympstone, Newton Poppleford, West Hill and Honiton.
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.
Common questions
It depends on your property’s heat loss, the radiators already in place and the cylinder needed, which is why we won’t invent a number before seeing the house. What we can promise: a free estimate on the spot at the first visit, a fixed quote within 24 hours of the heat loss survey, and the Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant (£7,500, or £9,000 for eligible oil and LPG households) deducted before you pay. Most homes we assess around Ottery St Mary fall within the 4 to 10 kW range our systems are designed around.
Book my free home assessmentIf you own and live in a home that is off the gas grid and heated by oil or LPG, your application can qualify for £9,000 rather than £7,500 today, with the uplift available on applications made up to 31 March 2027. That covers a good portion of the countryside around Ottery St Mary, particularly the villages and farms beyond the town. Eligibility rules still apply, so we check your circumstances at the free assessment and then handle the application for you. A few miles out, West Hill, Feniton and Payhembury are covered as well.
Book my free home assessmentUsually yes, provided it is designed from a proper room-by-room heat loss survey rather than a rule of thumb. Solid-wall cottages around Ottery St Mary lose heat differently from modern builds, so the survey tells us honestly what size system the house needs and whether any radiators want upsizing. Since April 2026 an EPC is no longer strictly required for the grant, which has opened the scheme up to many older homes.
Book my free home assessmentIf the boiler is on its last legs, this is the moment to weigh it up properly. Another oil boiler keeps your Ottery home on the delivery treadmill for another 15 years; a heat pump ends it, and both the £9,000 oil and LPG grant and the 0% VAT are time-limited. We’ll give you an honest comparison for your house rather than pushing either answer.
Book my free home assessmentAbout a week. We typically start on a Monday and commission on the Thursday or Friday, keeping the time without heating and hot water as short as possible. Because we run one or two installations at a time, the team on your Ottery St Mary job stays on it until it is finished instead of disappearing to another site.
Book my free home assessmentModern units are quiet, closer to a fridge hum than machinery, and every installation includes an MCS sound assessment confirming the position meets noise limits for neighbouring properties. On most Ottery homes the unit sits against an outside wall, often near where the oil tank used to earn its keep. If you would like to hear one running before deciding, ask and we will arrange it.
Book my free home assessmentYes. The home visit is free with no obligation. The detailed heat loss survey is £250 plus VAT, and the fee is cancelled the moment you book the install. You are only billed for it if you decide against the work.
Book my free home assessmentBook your free home assessment in Ottery St Mary
We will look at your Ottery St Mary property, give you straight answers, and James will call you back personally to arrange the free assessment.
★★★★★
“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 it through first? Call 01395 202030 and you will get James, the owner, not a call centre.
