Scotland Regional Winner, Heating Installer Awards 2026Highly Commended, Scottish Energy Efficiency Awards 2025
🎉 Scotland Regional Winner at the Heating Installer Awards 2026
Scotland Regional Winner, Heating Installer Awards 2026Highly Commended, Scottish Energy Efficiency Awards 2025
🎉 Scotland Regional Winner at the Heating Installer Awards 2026
Home / Blog / How to choose a heat pump installer in Scotland
Knowing how to choose a heat pump installer in Scotland comes down to a handful of checks you can make before you sign anything: an MCS number you can look up, a survey that measures every room, a design flow temperature written on the quote, and a workmanship guarantee that still pays out if the company stops trading. The installer you pick decides how warm the house feels in January and what you pay to keep it there, more than the brand on the outdoor unit does.
Sean Hogan · Heat Geek engineer · Updated October 2026 · 13 min read
Price still matters, and the cheaper of two quotes can carry the better design. Put the designs side by side first and read the totals after.
MCS, the Microgeneration Certification Scheme, certifies installers and products for small-scale renewable heat and power. Home Energy Scotland funds a heat pump when both the installer and the product carry MCS certification. A company without it can still fit a heat pump, and you give up the grant of up to £7,500 and the interest-free loan that sits beside it.
Home Energy Scotland’s heat pump installation checklist points homeowners to the same database.
Two further registrations sit alongside MCS. TrustMark is the Government Endorsed Quality Scheme for work in and around the home, and a TrustMark-registered business gives you a complaints route if a job goes wrong. MCS installers also belong to a consumer code, and Home Energy Scotland lists three: the Renewable Energy Consumer Code, the Home Insulation and Energy Systems Contractors Scheme and the Glass and Glazing Federation. The installer’s MCS profile shows which one applies. Each code sets rules on contracts, deposits and complaints, so read its deposit section before you pay anything up front.
Aventus Eco is MCS certified, certification number IAA-10212, covering air source heat pumps, battery storage and solar PV, and we are TrustMark registered. Look us up on the register before the survey, the same way you would check anyone else.
The survey is where installers start to differ. A heat pump runs on cooler water than a boiler, so the size of the unit and the output of each radiator have to match the heat each room loses on a cold day. MCS requires a room-by-room heat loss calculation to BS EN 12831-1:2017 under its heat pump design standard, MIS 3005-D, and an installer needs measurements from your house to produce one.
Expect the engineer to measure each heated room, record what the walls, floors, windows and roof are made of, note open chimneys and air bricks, and look at the radiators, pipework, cylinder space and the spot for the outdoor unit.
A price given over the phone, or worked out from floor area or the size of your old boiler, skips that work.
Our explainer on what happens in a heat pump survey goes through each measurement and the paperwork you should receive afterwards.
Ask one question before the visit ends: who turns these measurements into the design? In a small company it may be the engineer standing in your hall. In a larger one, a design team may work from the surveyor’s notes and photos. Either arrangement can produce a good system, and the answer tells you who to phone when the box room runs cold.
“After trying to find a suitable air source heat pump installer for a number of years, Sean filled us with confidence from the moment we met him. He was the first person who properly reassured us about the design, the suitability of the system and the long-term cost benefits.”
Stuart Campbell, ★★★★★ Google Review
The design flow temperature is the hottest water the heat pump sends round the system on the coldest day it is designed for. A lower figure means higher efficiency and a lower running cost, and it also sets how large each radiator needs to be. Radiator designs for heat pumps aim for 45°C or below, and underfloor heating can run cooler. On our own jobs, Penny and Monique’s 1920s sandstone end-terrace in Mount Florida heats through radiators at 45°C, and Gavin’s new build in Bathgate heats through underfloor pipes at 35°C.
A quote that names a heat pump model with no flow temperature beside it leaves out the figure your bills depend on. Ask the installer to put it in writing, along with the efficiency the design expects at that temperature. Home Energy Scotland’s checklist lists the system’s efficiency values among the things a quote should explain.
Sizing comes from the heat loss total. Too small a unit runs flat out in a hard frost and still falls short; too large a unit short-cycles through spring and autumn. Put two quotes for the same house next to each other: if the heat pump sizes sit several kilowatts apart, the heat loss figures behind them differ too, so ask each installer for their whole-house figure and how they reached it. Our air source heat pump sizing guide for Scotland gives typical kilowatt ranges by house type to check an offer against.
Heat Geek is a UK training company and installer network built around low flow temperature heating design. Its advanced course, Mastery, trains engineers in heat loss calculation, low temperature system design and emitter sizing.
MCS remains the certification the grant asks for.
Heat Geek training sits on top of it and covers the design decisions MCS sets minimum standards for.
The training belongs to a person, so ask which engineer on your job completed it and whether that engineer designs your system. A Heat Geek mention on a website counts for most when the trained engineer is the one sizing your radiators and setting your weather compensation curve. You can also ask to see an anonymised past design with its flow temperature, and the measured performance if that customer agreed to share it.
Our heat pump systems are designed by a Heat Geek Mastery trained engineer: room-by-room heat loss first, radiators sized to a low flow temperature, then controls set for the house at commissioning. The page on our Heat Geek heat pump installation sets out how that design work runs on a job.
“Changing from gas central heating to renewables isn’t simple but, having asked four companies to quote to convert our system, Sean stood out as someone who cared about getting the design right, optimising it for our house while clearly explaining how and why.”
Alison Hyde, ★★★★★ Google Review
Home Energy Scotland recommends quotes from at least three installers, and a funded application needs an itemised quote from the one you choose. Lay your quotes out together and work down the same rows on each.
| Check | What a strong quote shows | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Heat loss | A whole-house figure in kW, with the room-by-room figures behind it | Sets the size of the heat pump |
| Heat pump | Make, model and rated output in kW | Lets you compare like with like |
| Design flow temperature | A stated figure, such as 45°C | Drives efficiency and radiator sizes |
| Efficiency | The expected efficiency at that flow temperature | Home Energy Scotland lists efficiency values among quote contents |
| Radiators | Which stay, which are replaced, any added | A common source of price gaps between quotes |
| Hot water cylinder | Size in litres and where it goes | Combi homes need space found for one |
| What the price covers | Removing the old boiler or tank, connection, commissioning, electrical work | Home Energy Scotland’s checklist asks about removal and commissioning |
| Guarantees and warranties | Workmanship guarantee length and who insures it, manufacturer warranty years and conditions | Shows who pays if something fails in year three |
| Payment terms | Deposit amount, how it is protected, stage payments | Your consumer code sets the deposit rules |
A blank row is a question to send back. A heat loss total with no room figures behind it, or a heat pump size with no flow temperature, means the design work is unfinished.
Price gaps tend to sit in the radiators, the cylinder and the pipework. A cheaper quote that keeps every existing radiator may rely on a hotter flow temperature, and you would pay for that in running costs for as long as the system runs. For a quote laid out this way for your own home, our heat pump installation service across Scotland starts from the same measured survey.
Any one of these is a reason to slow down, and two together are a reason to walk away:
Reviews help with the last point. Look for homeowners whose heat pump has been through a winter, and read what happened when something went wrong after handover, since a tidy install day says little about the second January.
“Our heat pump had been incorrectly installed by another company that has since gone into liquidation, leaving us with nearly three years of no heating, ongoing faults, and constant leaks. Aventus Eco truly saved the day. Sean quickly identified the issues that had caused continuous problems for years and resolved them properly.”
Alison McLean, ★★★★★ Google Review
In Scotland, heat pump funding comes from Home Energy Scotland: a grant of up to £7,500, or £9,000 in remote rural, island and off-gas accessible rural areas, plus an optional interest-free loan of up to £7,500. The heat pump has to provide all of your heating and hot water, and a heat pump that replaces an existing heat pump gets loan funding only.
You make the application.
It starts with a call to Home Energy Scotland on 0808 808 2282, after which you register on its customer portal, upload an itemised quote from your chosen MCS installer, then wait for a written funding offer and sign the funding agreement before any work starts.
Home Energy Scotland aims to process complete applications within 10 working days.
Once the heat pump is in, you submit the final claim within nine months of signing the funding agreement, and you pay the installer yourself.
Your installer supplies the documents your application rests on: the itemised quote, then the MCS certificate and the invoice for your claim. The claim also needs a post-installation EPC from a registered Domestic Energy Assessor. Aventus Eco supplies the quote and MCS paperwork for each funded job. Eligibility and loan terms are set out in more depth in our guide to heat pump grants in Scotland.
Three separate promises protect a heat pump, and a good quote names all of them.
The workmanship guarantee covers the installation itself: pipework, wiring, controls and the way the system was put together.
The manufacturer warranty covers the heat pump and its parts, with conditions such as registering the unit or keeping to a service schedule, so ask what applies to the model you are offered.
The insurance or protection product behind the workmanship guarantee keeps that guarantee alive if the installer stops trading.
MCS requires certified installers to guarantee their workmanship on domestic jobs for at least two years and to insure that guarantee, so it is honoured if the company closes. Ask every installer, us included, who provides that cover and for how long, and keep the policy document with your handover pack. Home Energy Scotland’s checklist sets a lower floor of one year for an installer warranty, so hold MCS installers to the MCS figure.
Aftercare shows itself in the first winter. At handover, expect the installer to walk you through the controls and the app, explain the weather compensation settings and leave you the commissioning records. Ask how fast they respond to a fault call and whether they service heat pumps themselves.
Aventus Eco gives a 5-year workmanship guarantee on every installation, and the Vaillant and Panasonic heat pumps we fit carry manufacturer warranties of up to 7 years with registration.
Our installs take 3 to 5 days.
At handover we set up the controls and show you how to run them, and you keep a private WhatsApp group with us during and after the install.
A £0 survey gives you room-by-room heat loss figures, a design flow temperature and a written quote you can lay beside any other installer’s. Use it as the benchmark for the rest of your shortlist.
Search the company on the MCS installer database, confirm air source heat pumps are among the technologies it is certified for, and match the certification number to the one on your quote. In Scotland, Home Energy Scotland funds a heat pump only when the installer and the product are both MCS certified.
Home Energy Scotland recommends quotes from at least three installers. Compare the heat loss figures, design flow temperatures and heat pump sizes first, then the prices, because a total means little until you know what design sits behind it.
No. The Home Energy Scotland grant requires an MCS-certified installer and product. Heat Geek training is extra design training in low flow temperature systems, and you judge it by asking which engineer holds it and whether that engineer designs your system.
You do. The homeowner contacts Home Energy Scotland, applies through its customer portal and submits the final claim. The installer supplies the itemised quote, the MCS certificate and the invoice those steps need.
MCS requires a workmanship guarantee of at least two years on a home, insured in case the installer stops trading; Home Energy Scotland’s checklist asks for at least one year. Aventus Eco gives a 5-year workmanship guarantee on every installation in Scotland, separate from the manufacturer warranty on the heat pump.
Yes. Home Energy Scotland’s checklist confirms your right to cancel within 14 days of signing a contract. If you are applying for its funding, make sure no work starts before the written funding offer arrives, because Home Energy Scotland does not fund work that has already begun.
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