Do we need Lord Sugar to help retrofit Britain?

Like many of you, I expect, I recently watched the final of this year’s The Apprentice, where Lord Sugar chose to invest in the owner of an air-conditioning company rather than the Indian-Italian pizza business.

For those who didn’t tune in, Lord Sugar ultimately backed Dean ‘Daddy Cool’ and his growing air conditioning business, spotting an opportunity as UK summers become increasingly warmer due to climate change.

I’m sure most of us can relate to that desperate desire to install air conditioning during the height of a British heatwave. Even though it might only happen a few times a year, the sleepless nights that result mean that suddenly spending a couple of thousand pounds on an air-conditioning system doesn’t seem such a stretch for some. Indeed, as I write this, the temperature gauge has jumped significantly, and we’re not even out of April yet.

When watching the programme, I found myself wondering if there would be the same enthusiasm for a candidate pitching some form of retrofitting business.

We appear to be in a strange place where the idea of spending money on air-con seems more appealing to some than spending money on retrofitting measures - loft insulation, solar panels, or similar - in order to heat our homes more efficiently and cheaply all year round.

Heat pump hostility

Despite the clear, long-term benefits, retrofitting continues to carry a stigma that prevents it from gaining the same enthusiastic reception as measures such as air-conditioning. We still need to overcome the misconceptions attached to various retrofitting measures - particularly heat pumps.

Even though some modern heat pumps - similar to air-con - can also cool houses, they still don’t seem to be winning people over.

A recent blog from UK Finance’s Director for Sustainability Policy, Ian Bhullar, addressed some misconceptions around heat pumps and revealed some rather passionate responses to a recent consumer survey it carried out. One respondent when asked about heat pumps didn’t mince their words, saying: “F*** off, I will never have a heat pump. I’ll stick with my multi-fuel burner.”

As Bhullar noted, profanity isn’t typically found in their survey responses, but the topic of heat pumps clearly touched a nerve.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) recently recommended that, if we are to meet the UK’s net zero targets, half of all homes will need to be using heat pumps by 2040 – requiring annual installations to reach 450,000 by 2030 and 1.5 million by 2035.

Yet their image arguably still remains one of the hardest and biggest issues that needs tackling. UK Finance’s survey - conducted with YouGov in December - revealed only 13% of those without a heat pump would consider getting one if their boiler needed replacing within the next year. Respondents dismissed heat pumps as ‘unreliable’ or ‘another con’, with some saying they would wait for the technology to improve.

While I’m sure we’ve all read stories in the press about underperforming heat pumps - and there does seem to be an eagerness for newspapers to publish them -  this creates an almost instinctive dislike of the technology before people have even experienced it themselves.

Bhullar highlights the result of a 2023 survey which showed UK heat pump users were ‘highly satisfied’ with their heat pumps and considered them to be ‘safe, reliable’ and ‘quiet’ - with satisfaction rates comparable to those for traditional gas boilers.

The same image problem has also affected insulation - thanks to the spray foam scandal. However, this isn't representative of all insulation methods and companies. Insulation can be a sensible and highly cost-effective choice if installed correctly.

Changing minds

There is a clear and ongoing need for homeowners to be educated about the full range of retrofitting options available.

Organisations are trying to address this, with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) recently launching a free guide to retrofitting homes, following the introduction of its Residential Retrofit Standard. These are steps in the right direction, but we need more.

For retrofitting to succeed at scale, it needs to become as appealing as air-conditioning, and to be honest, I’m not sure how we will get there. While the immediate benefits - lower bills and warmer homes – seem clear and obvious, it still doesn’t seem enough to make retrofitting appealing en masse. More attractive financing and funding options would certainly help, along with more retrofit success stories that people can see and experience for themselves. 

Perhaps what the retrofit industry really needs is its own Lord Sugar moment - a high-profile business figure willing to put their name, reputation, and cash behind retrofitting. If Lord Sugar had been presented with the opportunity, and chosen to invest in heat pumps, his influence might have helped change public perception in a way that current campaigns have struggled to.