Heat Pump Installation Silverton: Designed for Cob, Thatch and Oil
A leat of running water still passes Silverton’s cob and thatch cottages on Fore Street, some on burgage plots recorded since the 14th century. Heat pump installation in Silverton starts with a heat loss survey, not a guess from the street.
Despite parts of the farmhouse being 13th century the system is performing extremely well and keeps the house constantly warm throughout. The installation was carried out professionally with great attention to detail and a high standard of workmanship.
James Stalker, owner
NAPIT MCS assessor
Illustration
What your Silverton installation includes
A heat pump that disappoints its owner is nearly always one specified in a hurry. That holds equally on a cob cottage off Fore Street and a Victorian rebuild a few doors along, and this is what the work covers.
- The heat loss survey and the design it produces. Wall construction, glazing, floor build-up and how each room actually gets used, recorded one room at a time. Out of that comes a kilowatt figure belonging to your address and no other.
- The heat pump and a matched cylinder. A heat pump picked for your property out in the garden, a heat-pump-specific cylinder in the cupboard, sized around the hot water your household genuinely draws.
- Radiator changes where the numbers ask for them. On a solid cob or stone wall that can mean two or three emitters upsized. On a later brick rebuild, often fewer. The written schedule is in your hands before anything gets ordered.
- Pipework, electrics and the outdoor base. Routing flow and return through a cottage with cob walls and no cavity to hide anything in is settled on the survey visit. The electrics normally take a day, and the unit lands on a prepared base in a position fixed by the MCS sound calculation.
- Commissioning and optimisation. We fix the flow temperature to the design figure, configure weather compensation, and set hot water timing with you rather than leaving factory settings in place.
- The grant application. Filing the Boiler Upgrade Scheme claim is our job rather than yours, and the award is netted off well before an invoice is raised.
- Handover and aftercare. A run through the controls in plain English, then the same number to ring when the first service comes round.
Underfloor heating sits inside the same scope, already down in a Silverton kitchen extension or going in fresh with the rest of the system. It runs happily at the low flow temperatures a heat pump produces, which is more than a lot of old cast-iron radiators can say.
Air source heat pump installation Silverton: medieval plots, cob walls and later brick
Silverton is one of Devon’s oldest villages, a Saxon settlement and a Royal manor before the Norman Conquest.
- Fore Street still follows the medieval burgage plots first recorded here, narrow frontages with long gardens running back that still show in the property boundaries today, and that age is easiest to read where a leat runs through a wide square once host to the village’s two annual cattle fairs. The conservation area around it holds over 60 statutorily protected heritage assets, most of them dating from the late medieval period, and St Mary’s Church carries a fifteenth-century tower.
- Some of the cottages on those old plots are cob walled and thatched, genuinely centuries old, and they stand beside brick and stone that went up through the Georgian and Victorian periods as the village filled in around them. Two wall types on the same short street, neither one built with a heat pump in mind.
Silverton sits between the Exe and the Culm, about 8 miles north of Exeter, and the higher ground on its edge looks out over all three valleys, the Exe, the Burn and the Culm.
- No gas main reaches the village: a period property right on Fore Street runs on an oil boiler with an LPG tank as backup, and that fuel pattern holds on the cob cottages and the later brick and stone alike.
- A short run south on the same B3181, past Killerton, we also cover heat pump installation in Broadclyst.
We do not price a Silverton property from the street it sits on.
- We are the MCS-certified air-to-water specialist on Exeter Road in Exmouth, and James Stalker, the owner, carries out every assessment himself: on heat pumps since 2010, past 100 installations.
- The sizing comes off a room-by-room heat loss survey; floor-area guesswork does not come into it.
See how we design an air source heat pump installation.
Why Silverton homeowners choose us
A heat pump installer Silverton households can still reach two winters on beats the lowest number on a quote. Five reasons it tends to be us.
The owner runs your job.
- James sees the job through, from the first look at the property to design, the days on site, commissioning and handover.
- He keeps the aftercare, and a Silverton call reaches someone who knows your system, with no salesperson relaying messages. Our about page fills in the rest.
★★★★★
“James Stalker is the most reliable man I know.”
Stephen M. · Google review · five stars
Your designer inspects everybody else’s work too.
Your designer inspects everybody else’s work too.
- NAPIT contracts James as a freelance MCS assessor, so part of his month goes on judging other companies’ heat pump installations against the standard.
- Oversizing is not a theory to him.
Sizing comes from measurement.
- Every room, wall type and window recorded before a kilowatt is specified, on a cob cottage or a Victorian rebuild alike.
Cob, thatch and older homes are welcome.
- A solid wall with no cavity and an airing cupboard built for a very different era get the same attention as a modern semi.
- We do not walk away because a house is hard to measure.
The grant deducted upfront, about a week on site.
The grant deducted upfront, about a week on site.
- Where a Silverton property qualifies, we lodge the Boiler Upgrade Scheme application and take the award off your invoice before it is raised. It is never yours to pay out and reclaim.
- One or two jobs running at a time, a Monday start and a Thursday or Friday commission, and Silverton is a straightforward run from our Exmouth base. The rest of our coverage is on our areas we cover page.
What homeowners say on Google
Grants and costs for Silverton homes
Which of the two figures your own Silverton property qualifies for is something the free home assessment settles, on the house in front of us rather than a postcode guess.
Check if your home qualifiesOn running costs we give it to you straight.
We will not put a percentage or an annual figure in front of you, because the honest answer depends on your tariff, your fabric and what is being replaced.
- For a Silverton household on oil, what changes first is the machinery around the bill: no delivery to schedule, no tank to check in January.
- More on getting off oil in a Devon property.
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 pays towards an air-to-water heat pump replacing a fossil fuel system, and an eligible owner-occupier in England or Wales can claim £7,500 towards it.
- Where a Silverton property is off the gas grid and burns oil or LPG, which describes most of the village, it can instead qualify for the £9,000 heat pump grant, on any application lodged on or before 31 March 2027.
- Not every property qualifies, and eligibility turns on your circumstances as much as the building. Our MCS certification lets us file that application and deduct the award from your invoice at the outset, rather than leaving you to fund it and reclaim it later.
- Qualifying work also carries 0% VAT until 31 March 2027.
The kit we fit in Silverton, and why
Four to ten kilowatts covers the overwhelming majority of what stands on Fore Street and in the newer streets around it.
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.
Big firms tend to fit one or two makes; we aren’t tied to any single manufacturer, so the outdoor unit is matched to each property and usually paired with a cylinder that arrives already plumbed.
Ideal, a make we fit often, builds its units in the UK, so parts move quickly when something needs replacing, and the cylinder turns up with its filter, diverter valve, cylinder stat and overheat cut-out fitted and wired at the factory. In a cob cottage where the airing cupboard was built into a wall three feet thick, or a Victorian rebuild with a narrow understairs cupboard, lifting in a finished cylinder saves the best part of a day and removes a string of joints that could otherwise weep.
None of that is loyalty to a badge. Where a Silverton property genuinely needs something else, the heat loss survey shows it, and the design follows the building rather than the catalogue.
Heat pump installation Silverton, 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.
“He went above and beyond to help update the heating system in our current housing project. Communication was outstanding throughout, he responded quickly and always provided clear explanations whenever we had questions.”
Georgie S. · Google review · five stars
Your guarantees
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IWA workmanship warranty and deposit insurance.
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Where we fit an Ideal, seven years of parts and labour are included, and other makes come with their own manufacturer warranty. We put each warranty on record with its manufacturer at commissioning.
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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 Mid and East Devon, including Silverton, Exmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Sidmouth, Ottery St Mary, Woodbury, Lympstone, Newton Poppleford, West Hill, Honiton and neighbouring Bradninch. A short run further, our Thorverton heat pump installation page covers the villages along the Exe valley.
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 Silverton: common questions
It follows the system size the heat loss survey calls for, the cylinder, and how many radiators change, on a cob cottage or a later rebuild alike. Rather than a misleading “from” price, every Silverton enquiry gets a free home assessment with a fixed estimate on the visit, and the grant comes off the invoice.
Book my free home assessmentThe Boiler Upgrade Scheme. An eligible owner-occupier in England or Wales can qualify for £7,500 once a fossil fuel system comes out, or for £9,000 where the home sits off the gas grid and burns oil or LPG, on any application lodged on or before 31 March 2027. What a given Silverton address clears comes down to the building and to you, which the free visit resolves.
Book my free home assessmentRoughly a week on a typical Silverton property. Most installs start on a Monday and are commissioning by the Thursday or Friday. Water goes off in short spells, not whole days, and we run one or two jobs at a time, so whoever starts on your Silverton house is the one who finishes it.
Book my free home assessmentNo, and nothing is owed anywhere in Silverton. Just one stage costs anything, the £250 plus VAT room-by-room heat loss survey, and booking the install wipes that charge off entirely.
Book my free home assessmentUsually yes, provided the design works with the wall instead of fighting it. A cob wall three feet thick loses heat differently to a Victorian rebuild or a newer cavity house, so a handful of radiators in an older Silverton property may need to grow to hold the room at a heat pump’s lower flow temperature. You get the schedule in writing before anything is ordered.
Book my free home assessmentYes: most of the village runs on oil or LPG rather than mains gas, which under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme is exactly the situation that can qualify for the £9,000 off-gas-grid rate, on applications lodged on or before 31 March 2027. We confirm your own Silverton property’s fuel situation and eligibility at the free home assessment rather than assuming it from the postcode.
Book my free home assessmentBook your free home assessment in Silverton
James walks your Silverton property, tells you plainly what he finds, and stays your point of contact all the way to handover.
Would rather talk first? Ring 01395 202030, and James answers, not a call centre. Our contact page has the other ways to reach us.
