With households facing major financial decisions around replacing heating systems, EUA is urging policymakers, regulators and industry to put consumer protection at the heart of heating policy by ensuring any promoted technology can deliver genuine, sustained and verifiable annual savings over its full lifetime.

“Home heating systems are long‑term investments, often lasting 10 to 15 years or more,” said Mike Foster, Chief Executive of EUA. “Consumers are being asked to make decisions involving thousands of pounds in upfront costs. To protect household finances, any claims about savings must be realistic, durable and guaranteed over time - not dependent on best‑case assumptions or factors outside a consumer’s control.”

EUA stressed that this is not a debate about specific technologies, but about financial fairness and transparency. Different heating solutions will suit different homes, locations and households, but no consumer should be left worse off as a result of following official advice or accessing government‑backed schemes.

Protecting consumers from financial risk

EUA highlighted that annual running costs can be influenced by variables such as energy prices, system efficiency over time, servicing standards and tariff structures - many of which are unpredictable for individual households.

“Consumers cannot control future energy price differentials or how tariffs evolve over a decade or more,” Foster said. “That risk should not sit with households. If policy encourages or incentivises a particular choice, it should be because long‑term savings are robust and demonstrable under normal conditions, not optimistic scenarios.”

EUA is therefore calling for:

• Clear disclosure of realistic lifetime costs and savings, not headline figures based on short‑term conditions
• Stronger consumer safeguards to ensure publicly funded schemes do not inadvertently leave households financially worse off, including annual system efficiency checks
• Greater emphasis on long‑term outcomes, rather than upfront subsidies alone
• Ongoing performance assurance, so advertised efficiencies and savings are maintained throughout a system’s life

Information, not pressure

EUA stressed that consumers should feel supported, not pressured, when making heating decisions.

“Households deserve impartial, high‑quality information that allows them to compare options fairly and make choices that work for their finances, their property and their circumstances,” Foster added. “Successful decarbonisation depends on public trust. That trust will only be maintained if consumers can be confident that changing their heating system will not expose them to financial harm. Annual system efficiency checks build consumer confidence in new technologies.”

As heating policy continues to evolve, EUA is calling on government and industry alike to anchor all consumer guidance and support schemes in the principle of guaranteed long‑term value, ensuring that the transition to low‑carbon heating strengthens - rather than undermines - household financial resilience.

Heat pump v gas boiler. An investment appraisal of the decision.

In March 2022 we launched a short research paper “Domestic heating appliances: A critical investment appraisal”, which examined the decision of replacing a gas boiler with a heat pump strictly as a financial one. It used accepted capital investment appraisal techniques common in the accountancy profession. It concluded that replacing a gas boiler (on the gas network) with a heat pump was financially irrational.  Read the paper here