Heat Pump Installation Totnes: Measured Houses, Not Average Ones
Totnes started the Transition Town movement back in 2006, and enthusiasm still does not size a heat pump. Heat pump installation Totnes starts with a room-by-room survey, grant deducted upfront.
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
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What your Totnes installation includes
Nothing on this list is optional and nothing on it is guesswork. Every Totnes installation covers:
- The heat loss survey and design. Wall build-up, glazing and how each room actually gets used, recorded one room at a time.
- The heat pump and a matched cylinder. The make that fits the property outside, a pre-plumbed heat-pump cylinder inside.
- Radiator changes where the numbers ask for them. An uninsulated stone cottage out at Harberton often means two or three larger emitters; a Bridgetown villa sometimes none.
- Pipework, electrics and the outdoor base. The MCS sound calculation decides the unit’s position, and a steep Totnes garden decides how the pipe gets to it.
- Commissioning and optimisation. Flow temperature set on the running system it will actually serve.
- The grant application. We lodge it and take the money off before you are invoiced.
- Handover and aftercare. Controls explained in plain English, then one number to ring for a service.
Underfloor heating belongs in the same scope, and it suits the gentle flow temperatures a heat pump runs at.
Heat pump installation Totnes: three kinds of wall, one set of numbers
Fore Street and High Street climb the hill under listed fronts, slate-hung timber frame on some, stucco and render on others.
- Over the Dart at Bridgetown there are large late Victorian villas among the later stock. Out at Harberton and Ashprington it is oil-fired cob and stone cottages.
- Heat pump installation Totnes has to answer for all three.
James has worked on heat pumps since 2010, past 100 installations behind him, and works as a freelance NAPIT MCS assessor auditing other installers.
- The design sequence, survey through to commissioning, is set out under an air source heat pump installation.
Totnes is about forty-five minutes from our Exmouth base, up and over the A381.
- Our Newton Abbot heat pump page covers the market town at the other end of that road, with the same town-and-parish fuel split.
Why Totnes homeowners choose us
A heat pump installer Totnes homeowners can still reach in three winters beats the cheapest quote. Five reasons that is us.
The owner runs your job from the survey visit to commissioning, handover and aftercare.
- Your call later goes to James, not to salespeople or a call centre.
- Where he learned the trade is on our about page.
Your designer audits other installers, as NAPIT’s freelance MCS assessor.
- A listed front on Fore Street and a cob cottage out at Harberton both get their design from the man doing those audits.
We size from measurement, not a postcode.
- A listed High Street front and a villa over the bridge lose heat at different rates.
Older and period properties welcome.
- Cob, stone and timber frame get designed for, not refused.
- See our guide to heat pumps in old houses.
Grant lodged, a week on site.
- We file the Boiler Upgrade Scheme application and take it off your invoice first, and aftercare is a run back down the A381 rather than a ticket in a queue. Ivybridge grew from 1,574 people in 1921 to 12,056 by 2001, so most of its houses are 20th-century, and those are the homes our Ivybridge estate-house page is written for.
What homeowners say on Google
Boiler Upgrade Scheme Totnes: which grant figure applies to your home
Our MCS certification lets us apply and deduct the grant at the start.
Check if your home qualifiesEligibility depends on the property and your circumstances, so not every Totnes home qualifies.
We confirm yours at the free home assessment before anything is promised.
- Against cheap oil the saving is usually modest, and what goes first is the tank, the deliveries and the January top-up.
- Our post on getting off oil in a Devon property works through it.
Grant figures correct as of September 2026. Eligibility criteria apply and are confirmed at your free home assessment.
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£7,500 is the standard figure towards an air-to-water heat pump for other eligible homes, including mains gas.
- Off the gas grid on oil or LPG, the grant can be £9,000 instead, on applications lodged up to 31 March 2027.
- The off-grid oil and LPG grant has a post of its own.
- 0% VAT applies to qualifying work through the same date.
Air source heat pump Totnes: the kit we fit, and why
Ideal’s units are UK-made, so spares move fast, and 4 to 10 kilowatts covers most Totnes properties.
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.
Ideal is a make we fit often, not the only one, so the outdoor unit is picked for each property, usually alongside a cylinder that turns up already plumbed, with filter, diverter valve, cylinder stat and overheat cut-out fitted.
None of that is loyalty to a badge: the survey decides, and something else gets specified when the numbers ask for it.
Air source heat pump installation Totnes, first visit to handover
Four steps, from the first visit to the handover.
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.
“James Stalker is the most reliable man I know. He always arrives on time with a smile on his face.”
Stephen M. · Google review · five stars
Your guarantees
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IWA workmanship warranty and deposit insurance.
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Ideal units get seven years of warranty on parts and labour, and another make gets its maker’s own cover. Once the heat pump is commissioned we register that warranty with its maker.
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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 Devon, including Totnes, Newton Abbot, Exmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Sidmouth, Ottery St Mary, Woodbury, Lympstone, Newton Poppleford, West Hill and Honiton. On Dartmoor’s southern edge, South Brent sits in the Avon valley with homes split between mains gas, oil and LPG, and we work through all three on the South Brent heat pump page.
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.
What Totnes callers ask before they book
It depends on the size of the property, the radiators and how it makes hot water, which is why we start with a free home assessment rather than a price list. The figure on your Totnes heat loss survey is the figure you pay.
Book my free home assessmentThe old Totnes streets, Fore Street and High Street among them, are generally on the mains network Wales and West Utilities maintains. Out at Harberton, Ashprington and the lanes past them, many properties run on oil instead. Which side of that line your address falls on is checked at the free home assessment.
Book my free home assessmentThe heat pump grant Totnes homeowners use is the Boiler Upgrade Scheme: £7,500 for other eligible homes, including mains gas. Off the gas grid on oil or LPG, a Totnes property can qualify for £9,000 instead, on applications lodged on or before 31 March 2027.
Book my free home assessmentUsually, and the heat loss survey proves it either way. Uninsulated stone loses more heat than a modern cavity, so the design allows for it. Where a listing or the Totnes conservation area affects where the outdoor unit sits, we flag it at the free home assessment so you know what to check with the council.
Book my free home assessmentRoughly a week for a typical Totnes job, usually starting Monday and commissioned Thursday or Friday, with the water off in short spells. Whoever starts your installation finishes it.
Book my free home assessmentSometimes. A heat pump runs at a gentler flow temperature than a boiler, so a few radiators in an older Totnes property may need to grow. The heat loss survey lists any that do, with the size each one has to be.
Book my free home assessmentBook your free home assessment in Totnes
James walks your Totnes property himself, room by room, and tells you plainly what he finds.
★★★★★
“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 over first? Ring 01395 202030 and you will not be passed to anyone else. If you would rather write, everything is on our contact page.
