[billyruffian]

I hear this a lot. I've got quite a leaky 400+ year old Welsh farmhouse (long and thin, heat-sucking 4ft deep stone walls) and I'm one of those who installed last year with the grant.

It's bloody brilliant. Way, way more comfortable than the oil-fired system it replaced. The smart meter looked a bit scary during the cold patch in January but even then, it's coming in cheaper than the oil did and without the scary price variability.

I honestly love it. Getting the size of heat pump right for the property is probably the most critical thing.

[sgt101]

Super interesting - more info like this helps.

I have a 17th Century cottage and the folks came and just said that there was no point at all... maybe they were clueless!

[pjc50]

Oil-fired is now so expensive that it should be an easy sell to replace, not to mention the hassles of delivery.

[tialaramex]

Good point. A lot of the UK has piped gas, often built before natural gas was a thing (it would have been supplied with "town gas" which you can make with coal) and then retrofitted for methane last century, I remember as a kid seeing stuff marked as suitable for the "new" natural gas - the conversion had finished at about the time I was born.

But in rural areas it makes no sense. Running a single phase electricity conductor overhead for everything is affordable unless you live somewhere crazy like up a mountain or on your own island, but piped gas, sewage, etc. is just too expensive to justify. This is another reason to favour heat pumps, the heat pump runs off the same electricity as your household appliances, your PC, and your lighting, if you fit solar panels or add a private wind turbine (if you're a hilltop farm latter can make a lot of sense) that's all electricity and it Just Works™.