Mitsubishi Electric, manufacturer of the UK’s award-winning Ecodan heat pumps, has published a new white paper revealing that air source heat pumps can now be integrated with microbore pipework, commonly found in new homes built from the 1970s and 1980s. This will reduce the retrofit cost of installing a heat pump and make it more attractive for homeowners to move away from fossil fuel burning boilers.

As the UK pushes towards its legally binding net zero target by 2050, one of the greatest challenges is to decarbonise home heating by moving away from gas boilers. Currently, more than 80% of UK households rely on gas, making the shift to renewable heating technologies, such as heat pumps, a critical part of the solution to reach net zero. However, concerns about retrofitting costs and misinformation about heat pump technology have slowed progress towards the government’s target of installing 600,000 heat pumps annually.

The white paper, ‘The Mitsubishi Electric Guide to Residential Air Source Heat Pumps and Microbore Pipework‘, challenges the long-held belief that microbore pipework is incompatible with a heat pump. The papers proves that the transition to renewable heating can be more accessible for homeowners by reducing disruptive and costly retrofits.