Agenda & script for hosting your visit

We’ve prepared this guide to help you through every step of your Visit A Heat Pump event. Visits usually take about an hour, so we’ve prepared a suggested agenda to guide you through from start to finish.

A heat pump owner standing next to their heat pump in London

Organising your show home

We’ve prepared this guide to help you through every step of your Visit A Heat Pump event. Visits usually take about an hour, so we’ve prepared a suggested agenda to guide you through from start to finish.

Introduction

10 minutes

Group introduction

Gather all the visitors together in one place, and ask them to introduce themselves to each other, explain where they’ve come from, a little bit about their current heat pump situation and what they’re hoping to get out of the visit. 

Introduce yourself

Explain who you are, why you’re running these visits and what you will share with people today. 

The visitors will have a copy of the suggested agenda, but you might want to remind them of what you plan to show them on the visit. 

Introduce the heat pump

Introduce a bit about when you got the heat pump, how it’s been working out for you, and anything else to say about improvements you might have made to the house.

Tour of the home and heating system

30 minutes

Hosts find that most people are interested in:  Understanding the size of the installation (any units indoors or outdoors), getting a sense of the noise, seeing other parts of the system like controls, heat exchanger and tank. Hearing about the experience of living with a heat pump and which changes to the home that were made.

Show the heat pump and turn it on if possible
  • Show the size of the unit
  • Explain why it’s located where it is
  • Make sure people hear the noise of the fan
  • Get people to feel the air coming out of the unit and any effect it has on the space around it
  • Whether you needed to get planning permission
Show the heat pump exchanger (if separate)
  • Show the size of the unit
  • People will want to understand typical noise levels
  • Any issues you had around the installation
Show the water storage and hot water
  • Share if you had an existing tank or whether you had to make space for this one
  • Explain if it’s sufficient for your hot water needs and how you control and use it e.g. schedules
  • Show any other water storage or buffer tanks
  • Turn on the hot water tap and let people feel how warm the water is
Show the heating controls
  • Share if you had an existing tank or whether you had to make space for this one
  • Explain if it’s sufficient for your hot water needs and how you control and use it e.g. schedules
  • Show any other water storage or buffer tanks
  • Turn on the hot water tap and let people feel how warm the water is
Show a radiator or underfloor heating
  • Explain to people about the lower flow temperatures of the heat pump compared to gas heating
  • If you can show a radiator in a living space, and explain whether you had to make changes to these as part of the works
Show any fabric changes
  • Show any other energy upgrades made to your home e.g. insulation or glazing
Share the experience of living with a heat pump
  • Share if you had an existing tank or whether you had to make space for this one
  • Explain if it’s sufficient for your hot water needs and how you control and use it e.g. schedules
  • Show any other water storage or buffer tanks
  • Turn on the hot water tap and let people feel how warm the water is

Q&A

10 minutes

We can’t predict exactly what questions people will ask, and we don’t expect all hosts to be experts, but to give you some idea here are some of the most common questions that visitors have shared.
If you don’t know the answers to visitor questions - that’s completely fine! You can refer people to Nesta’s Get A Heat Pump consumer information website, that covers many of these topics.

Cost
  • How much does it cost to get a heat pump installed?
  • How do the running costs compare to your previous heating system?
  • How much electricity is required for a heat pump?
  • What are the annual servicing requirements/costs?
Installation and process
  • How well insulated does my house need to be?
  • Is it noisy? And what was the experience of getting planning permission (if relevant)?
  • Does the position of the heat pump matter for its performance?
  • What size pipework do I need / are my microbore pipes suitable for a heat pump?
Running the heat pump
  • What temperature will the hot water get to?
  • Is it more efficient to run the heat pump 24/7 than letting the home cool down overnight?
  • Do heat pumps work in cold weather?
  • What should I look for in a good installer?

End of visit

5 minutes

We’ll handle all the follow up communications with the visitors. If they have any questions, just let them know to expect an email from us.