Heat pump installation in West Hill, designed room by room for larger detached homes
West Hill is a village of large detached homes, nearly all of them heated by oil, and on a house that size a guessed heat load shows itself in the first properly cold week. We are the MCS-certified specialist who measures every room before choosing any equipment, designs the system to your home’s real numbers, and deducts the grant 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
Illustration
What your West Hill installation includes
The majority of heat pump problems are design problems. Get the design right and the technology just works. The effort sits in the design, and that is what your money is actually buying. Every installation includes:
- A full heat loss survey worked out room by room, not estimated from your floor area or your postcode.
- A design that follows the survey, matched to the coldest day you will see and no larger, since an oversized unit wastes money.
- A clear radiator plan. You will be told precisely which of them, if any, must be upsized to run at lower temperatures.
- Supply and fit of the heat pump, a new cylinder built for heat pump use, and the pipework and controls throughout.
- Commissioning and optimisation before handover, so the system is set up correctly rather than left to settle itself.
- Weather compensation and smart controls where they are worth having, so the pump responds to conditions outside and demand inside.
- A thorough handover, so nothing about the system is a mystery, with aftercare there when you need it.
Underfloor heating is something we install too, and an existing system is ideal, built as it is for lower temperatures.
The problem with generic heat pump quotes in West Hill
West Hill grew up after the war as a village of large detached houses on wooded plots, most built between the 1960s and 1990s, and almost none of them connected to mains gas.
- Walk the lanes off West Hill Road and you will pass oil tank after oil tank tucked behind the hedges. These are generous properties: four bedrooms, big glazed areas, long pipe runs, rooms extended and reworked over the decades.
- Every one of them loses heat in its own particular way.
That is exactly where template quotes fall apart.
- A national installer pricing heat pump installation in West Hill from floor area and a postcode is guessing your heat load. Guess high and the unit short-cycles, wearing itself out and running up your electricity bill.
- Guess low and the house never quite warms through in January. On a house this size the margin for error is wide, and you find out which way they guessed during the first proper cold week.
Our air source heat pump installation starts from the opposite end.
- James Stalker, the owner, measures every room: fabric, glazing, air changes, emitter sizes. That calculation gives the true heat loss, which for most detached West Hill properties lands between 4 and 10 kW. We then fit an air-to-water heat pump matched to that figure, paired with a pre-plumbed cylinder, and set the flow temperature the design actually needs.
- Oil boiler replacement done properly is a design exercise first and a plumbing job second.
Why West Hill homeowners choose us
You are handing your house to someone for about a week and trusting them with a five-figure decision. We start on a Monday, commission on the Thursday or Friday, and run one or two jobs at a time, never a dozen, so the team on your drive stays until your system is finished.
You deal with the owner, start to finish.
- James Stalker answers the phone, carries out the home assessment and designs the system, then signs off the commissioning and the handover.
- Aftercare is his as well. A West Hill homeowner who rings with a question in year three gets the person who designed the system, not a sales team.
★★★★★
“James Stalker is the most reliable man I know.”
Stephen M. · Google review · five stars
Your installer audits other installers.
Your installer audits other installers.
- James is a freelance NAPIT assessor who audits other companies’ heat pump work for MCS compliance.
- He has seen every oversizing mistake and every shortcut in the trade, and he has been a heat pump engineer since 2010 with more than 100 heat pump installations behind him. Useful experience to have in your airing cupboard.
Designed room by room, not from a postcode.
- Large houses on generous plots are where proper heat loss calculation earns its keep.
- Two similar-looking houses on the same West Hill lane can need different systems once you account for extensions, conservatories and glazing. We design for yours, specifically.
Older and awkward homes welcome.
- If another installer has told you your property is not suitable, we would like to see it.
- Heat loss is a number, not a verdict, and we design to whatever the survey finds.
The grant handled and deducted upfront.
- As an MCS-accredited installer we apply for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme on your behalf and take it off your quote before you pay anything. You never front the money and claim it back.
- And afterwards you get local aftercare from our Exmouth base, about half an hour from West Hill, not a national helpline. New-town enquiries have their own page: the Cranbrook parish page.
What homeowners say on Google
Grants and costs for West Hill homes
The paperwork is ours, not yours. As your MCS installer we make the Boiler Upgrade Scheme application and deduct the grant from your quote upfront, so you never pay it and reclaim it.
Check if your home qualifiesOn running costs we will be straight with you.
Against oil on a standard electricity tariff, the savings are modest, and anyone promising a dramatic bill cut is selling you something.
- What genuinely changes: your heating price stops swinging with the oil market, a dedicated heat pump tariff improves the economics considerably, and you are done with tank watching, delivery timing and the risk of running dry in a cold snap.
- We will talk real numbers for your home at the assessment, not averages from a brochure.
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 gives eligible homeowner-occupiers in England and Wales £7,500 towards an air source heat pump today.
- We check yours at the free assessment.
- Replacing an oil boiler with a heat pump in West Hill is well supported right now. Off-gas-grid homes heated by oil or LPG can already qualify for £9,000 instead, with that uplift running on applications made up to 31 March 2027.
- Over half of West Hill heats with oil, so a large share of the village sits in the uplift category, though eligibility is property-specific and not automatic.
- Since April 2026 a valid EPC is no longer strictly required to apply, which has opened the scheme to older properties that previously got stuck.
- Installation is also zero-rated for VAT until 31 March 2027.
The kit we fit, and why
Your survey results shape the design from the start.
In most off-grid homes they settle how big the heat pump must be, and whether any of the existing radiators need to grow.
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.
We fit plenty of Ideal heat pumps and know them well, yet no single brand is written into our quotes. It is a deliberate choice.
Each house gets the unit and cylinder that suit its heat loss, the room in its airing cupboard and the hot water it needs, which is where we part company with big firms fixed on one or two makes.
Outputs of 4 to 10 kW cover most Devon homes, and our usual pre-plumbed cylinder ships with filter, diverter valve, cylinder stat and overheat stat installed, meaning less time on site. We have fitted that cylinder on job after job and it performs consistently.
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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Every heat pump we install has its warranty put through by us at commissioning. On an Ideal, seven years of manufacturer parts and labour is included; other makes bring the length of cover their maker gives.
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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 home’s heat loss, which is why we will not quote from a postcode. Larger detached West Hill properties typically need units towards the upper end of the 4 to 10 kW range plus a new hot water cylinder. You get a free estimate at the home assessment and a fixed quote within 24 hours of the heat loss survey, with the grant already deducted. The £250 + VAT survey fee is waived if you go ahead.
Book my free home assessmentYes, provided it is sized from a proper heat loss calculation rather than a rule of thumb. Heat pumps keep Norwegian homes warm at temperatures East Devon never sees. The horror stories are design failures: oversized units that short-cycle or undersized ones that cannot keep up. Every West Hill system we fit is designed to hold your chosen temperature on the coldest expected day.
Book my free home assessmentIf you own and occupy an oil or LPG heated home off the gas grid, you can qualify for the £9,000 Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant now, on applications made up to 31 March 2027. That describes much of West Hill, though eligibility is checked property by property and is not automatic. We confirm yours at the free assessment, apply as your MCS installer and deduct the grant upfront.
Book my free home assessmentSometimes, and the survey tells you honestly before you commit to anything. Heat pumps run at lower flow temperatures than oil boilers, around 45 to 50°C, so some rooms may need a larger radiator to deliver the same warmth. In plenty of West Hill houses the existing radiators were generously sized and most can stay. Anything that must change appears as a line in your fixed quote, never a surprise mid-install.
Book my free home assessmentAbout a week. We typically start on a Monday, commission on the Thursday or Friday, and keep the hot water off for as short a window as we can manage. Because we run one or two jobs at a time, the engineers at your West Hill home stay until the job is commissioned rather than vanishing to another site mid-week.
Book my free home assessmentModern units are quiet, roughly comparable to a fridge heard from a few metres away, and every installation includes an MCS sound assessment confirming compliance at your boundary. West Hill’s large plots make placement straightforward: there is nearly always a position that suits the house and keeps the unit out of sight and earshot. Want to hear one running first? Ask, and we will arrange it at a nearby installation.
Book my free home assessmentYes. The home visit is free with no obligation. The detailed heat loss survey is charged at £250 plus VAT, and that sum is deducted in full if the install goes ahead. The only time the survey is actually paid for is when you decide not to continue.
Book my free home assessmentBook your free home assessment in West Hill
We will look at your West Hill property, give you straight answers, and you will deal with James from first visit 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 it through first? Call 01395 202030 and you will get James, the owner, not a call centre.
