Heat pump installation in Woodbury, from the specialist ten minutes down the road
Much of Woodbury has no mains gas, so winter means watching the tank, ringing the supplier and paying whatever oil costs that month. We are the MCS-certified heat pump specialist ten minutes away on Exeter Road in Exmouth: every system designed room by room for the specific house, the grant deducted upfront, and aftercare that actually turns up.
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 Woodbury installation includes
The majority of heat pump problems are design problems. Get the design right and the technology just works. Which is why the design takes the work, and why it is the thing you are really paying us for. Every installation includes:
- A room-by-room heat loss survey covering the whole property, never a shortcut based on floor area or postcode.
- A system specified straight off that survey, able to hold the house on the coldest day without running oversized and wasting energy.
- A clear radiator plan. We will tell you exactly which of them, if any, want upsizing to work properly at lower temperatures.
- The heat pump supplied and installed, a hot water cylinder made specifically for heat pumps, and all associated pipework and controls.
- Commissioning and tuning, so efficiency is proven on site rather than assumed after we drive away.
- Smart weather-compensating controls where they pay off, so output moves with the weather and with how much heat the house wants.
- A proper walk through of how it all works, and aftercare available whenever you need it.
We install underfloor heating as well, and if it is already there, so much the better: it was made for low-temperature systems like this.
Oil heating in Woodbury: a routine you never chose
Woodbury sits on the B3179 about four miles north of Exmouth, and much of the village has no mains gas to fall back on.
- Around the centre near St Swithun’s church you’ll find cob and stone cottages that have kept people warm for centuries, on the edges there are detached houses and bungalows from the sixties through to the nineties, and out towards the Common the farmhouses run on tanks tucked behind the hedge.
- Different houses, same winter routine: check the gauge, ring the supplier, hope the delivery lands before the cold snap does.
That routine has a cost beyond the invoice.
- You are managing your own fuel supply. When the tank runs low in January you wait on a lorry.
- When oil prices jump, your heating bill jumps with them, and there is no price cap protecting an oil-heated home. Plenty of Woodbury homeowners have had a £1,000-plus winter fill land at exactly the wrong moment.
An air-to-water heat pump ends that arrangement. It runs on electricity, needs no tank, no deliveries and no fuel monitoring, and our air source heat pump installation service covers the whole job: survey, system design, installation, commissioning and the grant paperwork.
- The catch, and it is a real one, is that a heat pump only performs when it is sized and designed correctly for the specific house.
- A cob cottage by the church and a 1970s bungalow on the village edge lose heat completely differently, which is why every Eco Pro system starts with a room-by-room heat loss calculation done in person by James Stalker, the owner.
James has been a heat pump engineer since 2010 and has completed over 100 heat pump installations.
Why Woodbury homeowners choose us
You are handing your home to someone for a week and trusting them with a five-figure decision. Here is why Woodbury homeowners pick us for it.
The owner does your home assessment, and he’s ten minutes away.
- Eco Pro Renewables is based on Exeter Road in Exmouth, one junction of the B3179 from Woodbury. James answers the phone, visits your property and designs your system; he also commissions it, hands it over and takes the aftercare calls, so the person you ring later knows the job inside out.
- There is no regional rep working from a script. Find out more about James and how the business runs.
★★★★★
“James Stalker is the most reliable man I know.”
Stephen M. · Google review · five stars
He audits other installers’ work.
- As a NAPIT MCS assessor, James is the person sent to check whether other companies’ heat pump installations meet the standard.
- When he designs a system for a Woodbury home, he designs it to pass the inspection he would give it himself.
Room-by-room heat loss design.
- Every radiator, every wall, every window measured.
- Oversized heat pumps short-cycle and waste money; undersized ones leave you cold in February. Correct sizing is the whole game, and it starts with proper measurement, not a postcode calculator.
Older homes welcome.
- Cob, stone, solid walls, the lot.
- If you’ve been told your cottage “isn’t suitable” or watched a national installer quietly withdraw the quote, that is usually a company avoiding design work, not a verdict on your house. Since April 2026 you no longer even strictly need an EPC to apply for the grant, which has opened the door for many older properties.
The grant handled and deducted upfront.
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 price before you pay, so you never fund the grant amount and wait to claim it back.
- And because Woodbury is a short drive rather than a regional call-out, aftercare actually turns up. We cover Exton, in the same civil parish, too.
What homeowners say on Google
Grants and costs for Woodbury homes
Eligibility is confirmed case by case and not every property qualifies, so we check yours at the free assessment and tell you straight.
Check if your home qualifiesOn running costs, we will be straight with you because plenty of installers aren’t.
Against oil on a standard electricity tariff, the saving is usually modest.
- The real gains are different: your bills stop tracking the oil market, a dedicated heat-pump electricity tariff can cut running costs meaningfully, and you are done with deliveries, tank checks and the January scramble.
- We’ll show you honest projections for your own house at the survey, not a headline number 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 standard figure for eligible homeowner-occupiers in England and Wales is £7,500, and where a property qualifies for the higher amount we time the application to capture it.
- Off-gas-grid homes replacing oil or LPG heating can now qualify for a £9,000 Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant, and that uplift runs on applications made up to 31 March 2027.
- Over half of oil-heated Woodbury properties are exactly the kind of home the uplift was designed for.
- Since April 2026 a valid EPC is no longer strictly required to apply, which has opened the door for many older cottages.
- Installation is also charged at 0% VAT until 31 March 2027, and as your MCS installer we handle the whole application and deduct the grant from your price upfront.
The kit we fit, and why
Each design is drawn up from the survey figures.
For the everyday off-grid property those figures set the size of the heat pump before a single part is ordered.
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 James installs often and knows inside out.
Even so, we are not tied to it or to any other manufacturer, unlike big firms that keep to one or two makes. Heat pump and cylinder are selected by each property’s heat loss, where the cylinder can go and how much hot water is drawn, and 4 to 10 kW fits the majority of Devon houses.
The pre-plumbed cylinder James normally uses comes with filter, diverter valve, cylinder stat and overheat stat ready fitted, so the install is cleaner and finished sooner. We have installed that cylinder time and again with the same outcome.
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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Ideal units have seven years’ parts and labour behind them, and other makes sit under their maker’s own warranty; during commissioning we register the cover for the unit we have fitted.
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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. Cross the common going south and East Budleigh sits below it, thatch over cob almost the whole way up the High Street. Beyond the heathland the ground drops to the Otter valley, which our Colaton Raleigh page 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.
Common questions
Usually, yes, provided it is designed properly. Solid cob and stone walls lose heat differently from modern cavity construction, so the heat loss survey matters more in Woodbury’s older cottages, not less. We measure every room and design to the real numbers. Being told “it can’t be done” almost always means the installer didn’t want to do the design work.
Book my free home assessmentIt depends on the size of the property, the radiators and the hot water setup, which is why we start with a free home assessment rather than a price list. What we can say: the Boiler Upgrade Scheme takes £7,500 off for eligible homes now, rising to £9,000 for qualifying off-grid oil and LPG properties on applications made up to 31 March 2027, VAT is 0%, and your quote is fixed within 24 hours of the survey. No Woodbury homeowner gets a surprise on the final invoice.
Book my free home assessmentIf you own and live in the property and it’s off the mains gas grid with oil or LPG heating, it can qualify for the higher £9,000 grant on applications made up to 31 March 2027. Eligibility isn’t automatic, so we confirm it for each Woodbury property at the free assessment, then handle the whole application and deduct the money upfront.
Book my free home assessmentSometimes, and the survey tells us honestly. Heat pumps run at lower flow temperatures than oil boilers, so a few radiators may need upsizing to deliver the same warmth. In many Woodbury homes most existing radiators can stay. You’ll see exactly which is which in your system design before you commit to anything.
Book my free home assessmentAbout a week. We normally start on a Monday and commission on the Thursday or Friday, and because we only run one or two jobs at once, the team on your Woodbury property stays on your property. You’ll have heating and hot water back before the weekend.
Book my free home assessmentThat’s a sensible ask, and the honest answer about noise is that modern units are quiet, roughly comparable to a fridge from a few metres. Where a previous customer near Woodbury is willing, we can arrange for you to see and hear an installed system running before you commit. Every installation also includes the MCS sound assessment, so the unit’s position is calculated, not guessed.
Book my free home assessmentYes. The home visit is free with no obligation. The detailed heat loss survey comes to £250 plus VAT, wiped from the final bill once you go ahead with the install. That fee only stands if you choose not to proceed.
Book my free home assessmentBook your free home assessment in Woodbury
We will look at your Woodbury 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.
