Ken Charman’s farmhouse in South Hams is a listed building, and like most listed properties, that status shapes what’s possible before the heating decision even gets made. Ken did his research properly before choosing an installer: he got quotes from several heat pump companies and came back with, in his own words, a wide range of specs and solutions on the table. Of all of them, he describes South West Heat Pumps as the best of the lot.
Why he chose to go ahead
Richard’s background working on English Heritage properties is directly relevant here, not a nice biographical detail. A listed farmhouse asks different questions of a heat pump installer than a standard retrofit does, and that experience is part of why Ken’s objections got properly addressed rather than brushed aside.
Ken didn’t take that reassurance purely on trust, either. A friend with a PhD in renewables from Cambridge University reviewed the proposed plan independently and confirmed it would work, a second, technically qualified opinion on top of the confidence Richard had already given him.
The system
The ground array runs to roughly a kilometre of pipework, laid under the paddock. The site also has a borehole. Between them, the plant room, kept outside the main house, sympathetic to the listed building rather than disrupting it, houses the heat pump itself, a substantial hot water tank, and the controls for a zonal system that manages heating across the whole house.
Solar panels are also installed on-site, alongside the heat pump system.
The installation went through a full inspection process, with a complete report and sign-off confirming the work met the standard required for a listed property.
Five years on
Ken and his family have been living with the system for five years. The detail he comes back to is how little it asks of them: the thermostat is never adjusted. The house, heated through modern radiators, holds a constant, even warmth throughout rather than needing to be managed room by room. All six bedrooms stay comfortably heated, and the hot water tank is large enough that a six-bedroom household has never run short, even with sustained demand.
Ken’s advice
Asked what he’d tell someone considering the same thing, Ken’s answer is straightforward: don’t be shy about spending more for a system that’s properly specified. By his own account, the investment has more than paid for itself, and then some, over the years since.
