Heat Pump Prices in Cambridge — Four Worked Examples for 2026
Last reviewed: 2 October 2026
Rather than one national average, this guide prices four real Cambridge house types from survey to invoice, shows where the £7,500 grant lands, and explains why the city's cold, dry winters and chalk water nudge the specification.
Headline numbers first
Nationally, the median price of an air source heat pump fitted under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme in 2025/26 was £13,041, and most jobs fall between £8,000 and £14,000. Every eligible Cambridge homeowner can take £7,500 off that through the grant, which the installer claims for you. That leaves most households paying between £500 and £6,500.
Averages hide a lot in a city like Cambridge, where a gault-brick artisan terrace off Mill Road and a 1960s bungalow in a South Cambridgeshire village need very different systems. So below are four worked examples built from typical survey findings for each house type. The figures are illustrative budgets, not quotes.
Example 1: two-up two-down terrace in Romsey
The house. Built around 1900, solid walls of pale gault brick, about 75 m² of floor space, a combi boiler in the kitchen, no cylinder. Front door straight onto the pavement, a narrow back yard.
What the survey finds. Heat loss of about 5 kW at the design temperature. Two radiators — front room and back bedroom — are too small to heat their rooms at 50°C flow. The yard is tight but fits a compact 5 kW monobloc against the rear wall. A 150-litre cylinder can go where the airing cupboard used to be.
| Item | Budget |
|---|---|
| 5 kW monobloc heat pump, controls, commissioning | £5,500 |
| 150 litre heat pump cylinder and fitting | £1,800 |
| Two radiator upgrades | £800 |
| Pipework, electrics, base, labour | £2,400 |
| Gross | £10,500 |
| Less Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant | −£7,500 |
| You pay | £3,000 |
Cambridge detail. Romsey sits inside the Mill Road and St Matthew’s Conservation Area extension. Permitted development still covers a rear-yard unit, but not one on a wall facing the street.
Example 2: large Victorian villa in De Freville
The house. Three storeys, around 180 m², solid walls, original sash windows, an old gravity-fed cylinder. Inside the De Freville Conservation Area.
What the survey finds. Heat loss of about 12 kW. Five rooms need larger radiators. The existing cylinder is too small and not designed for a heat pump. The best siting is the side return, out of view from the road. Because the property is large and draughty, the installer also recommends draught-proofing the sashes before sizing the heat pump, which lets them specify an 11 kW unit rather than 14 kW.
| Item | Budget |
|---|---|
| 11 kW monobloc heat pump (R290 for higher flow temperatures) | £8,000 |
| 250 litre cylinder | £2,300 |
| Five radiator upgrades | £2,300 |
| Pipework, electrics, base, labour | £3,400 |
| Gross | £16,000 |
| Less grant | −£7,500 |
| You pay | £8,500 |
This is above the national range, which is normal for Cambridge’s biggest period houses. Larger houses cost more mainly because of radiators and pipework, not the heat pump.
Example 3: 1930s semi in Chesterton
The house. Cavity walls (filled in the 2010s), loft insulation topped up, about 95 m², a regular boiler with an existing cylinder.
What the survey finds. Heat loss around 6.5 kW. One radiator upgrade. The old cylinder must be replaced with one designed for a heat pump, but the cupboard is already there. The unit goes in the back garden on a simple slab.
| Item | Budget |
|---|---|
| 7 kW monobloc heat pump | £5,800 |
| 200 litre cylinder | £2,000 |
| One radiator upgrade | £400 |
| Pipework, electrics, base, labour | £1,900 |
| Gross | £10,100 |
| Less grant | −£7,500 |
| You pay | £2,600 |
Homes like this are where heat pumps are cheapest to install, and they are common across north Cambridge and the inner villages.
Example 4: oil-heated bungalow on the edge of Great Shelford
The house. A 1960s detached bungalow, cavity walls, about 100 m², heated by an oil boiler because the lane was never connected to mains gas.
What the survey finds. Heat loss about 7 kW. Two radiator upgrades. The oil tank has to be drained and removed. Plenty of space for the unit and cylinder.
| Item | Budget |
|---|---|
| 8 kW monobloc heat pump | £6,000 |
| 200 litre cylinder | £2,000 |
| Two radiator upgrades | £800 |
| Oil tank removal | £600 |
| Pipework, electrics, base, labour | £2,100 |
| Gross | £11,500 |
| Less the higher off-gas grant | −£9,000 |
| You pay | £2,500 |
Since 21 July 2026, homes switching from oil or LPG get £9,000 rather than £7,500, until 31 March 2027. Heating oil is usually expensive to run, so these homes often see the largest running-cost savings too.
Why Cambridge specifications run slightly bigger
Cambridge has one of the driest and frostiest climates of any English city. The Met Office station at NIAB, on the north-west edge of the city, records around 52 days of air frost a year, against about 33 at Filton near Bristol, with an average January overnight low just under 2°C.
That matters in two ways. Installers size the heat pump for the coldest days they expect, so a Cambridge house may need a slightly larger unit than an identical house in the South West. And on frosty, damp mornings the outdoor coil ices up and the heat pump briefly runs a defrost cycle, so siting needs to leave room for meltwater to drain away rather than freeze on a path.
Neither is a reason not to fit one: heat pumps run reliably across Scandinavia in far colder weather. They are reasons to insist on a proper room-by-room heat loss calculation instead of a size picked from floor area.
Chalk water and your cylinder
More than 90% of Cambridge Water’s supply comes from the chalk aquifer, and the city’s zones run at roughly 286–295 mg/l of calcium carbonate — firmly hard to very hard. The heating coil inside a hot water cylinder scales up quickly in water like that, which slowly reduces how fast the heat pump can reheat your water.
Ask for a cylinder with a large, heat pump-rated coil, and consider a scale reducer on the incoming main if your kettle and taps already show heavy limescale. It adds a small amount to the quote and protects the efficiency of the system for years.
Other costs to ask about
- Electrics. Most homes need a new circuit and possibly a consumer unit upgrade. Your installer notifies UK Power Networks, the electricity network operator for the East of England. A supply upgrade is rare.
- Planning. Cambridge City Council has 18 conservation areas, and planning applications for the city and South Cambridgeshire go through Greater Cambridge Shared Planning. Rear and side siting is normally permitted development; front-facing walls in a conservation area and any listed building need consent.
- Running costs. At the October 2026 price cap, electricity is about 26p per kWh and gas about 8p. Any heat pump with a seasonal efficiency above about 3 produces heat more cheaply than a 90% efficient gas boiler, and a heat pump tariff improves that further. The running cost guide works through it in detail.
Free upgrades for lower-income households
Cambridge City Council leads the Cambridgeshire Energy Retrofit Partnership, which was awarded £8.5 million through the Warm Homes: Local Grant to fund insulation, solar panels and heat pumps for low-income households living in privately owned homes with an EPC rating of D to G. Details are published through Action on Energy Cambridgeshire. If you might qualify, check before paying for a heat pump yourself.
For a line-by-line checklist of what a quote should include, read hidden costs in a heat pump quote.
See what a heat pump would look like in your Cambridge home
The mechanism is the same in every UK home; the design is specific to yours. Our team carries out a free in-home survey including a full room-by-room heat-loss calculation, identifies the system size and configuration that fits your property, and provides a written quote with the £7,500 BUS grant already deducted.
You'll see the actual figure you'd pay — not an estimate — and the projected efficiency for your specific install.