York and the villages around it

Heat pumps sized to your house, not a price list

Before anyone mentions a unit, we work out how much heat each room of your house actually loses on a cold York night. The system is designed from that, so it keeps the whole house warm at a flow temperature it can run at cheaply.

Call 01904 911024 Check which grant I get

£7,500Boiler Upgrade Scheme, off your invoice

£9,000Oil or LPG homes, until 31 March 2027

0% VATOn qualifying installs

White Vaillant aroTHERM plus twin-fan air source heat pump raised on a concrete plinth in the corner between two brick walls.

Twin-fan Vaillant aroTHERM plus, raised on a concrete plinth with clear air all round.

Which grant would you get?

Three details decide it. Send them over and we’ll ring back with where you stand, and whether a heat pump is worth surveying for at all.

On mains gas?£7,500 off the installed price.
Oil or LPG, no gas main?£9,000, until 31 March 2027.
Either wayno VAT added on a qualifying install, and no claiming back. It comes off the invoice.

Start with whichever question is bothering you

Most people ring with one of these four. Each page answers it properly.

Black Vaillant air source heat pump against a white rendered wall, with cable runs clipped straight and lagged pipework leaving the wall at low level.

How they work

Heat out of cold air, and why flow temperature matters most.

Vaillant aroTHERM plus single-fan unit on a gravel base below a ground floor window, with the supply cable clipped vertically to the isolator.

Grants & costs

£7,500 off, or £9,000 off oil and LPG. How it reaches you.

Black Vaillant single-fan air source heat pump on a slab surrounded by slate chippings, with the isolator and lagged pipes on the wall behind.

Is my house suitable?

Terraces, semis, listed buildings and farmhouses.

UK Cylinders unvented hot water cylinder in an airing cupboard, with the Vaillant control unit, expansion vessels and lagged pipework beside it.

The install

Survey to handover, and what happens on each day.

Heat pump plant wall in a garage: Vaillant system control with display, heating expansion vessel, magnetic filter, lagged flow and return pipework and a dedicated consumer unit.

Most disappointing heat pumps were never sized properly

When a heat pump costs more to run than promised, it nearly always traces back to the same mistake: the system was picked from a rule of thumb rather than a heat loss calculation.

Heat loss measured room by roomWalls, windows, floors and ceilings, not a guess from the number of bedrooms.
Designed to run at a low flow temperatureThe lower the water temperature, the cheaper every hour of heating. That’s fixed at design stage.
Only the radiators that need changingThe calculation says which rooms are short. Usually that’s a few, not the whole house.
Hot water sized to your householdCylinder size and reheat time from how many of you there are and how you use it.
A straight answer if it isn’t right yetIf the loft or walls need work first, you hear it from us before spending a penny.

Is my house suitable?

What the Boiler Upgrade Scheme is worth

England and Wales, owner-occupiers and landlords, not means tested. It comes off your invoice, so you never have to find the money and claim it back.

£7,500

Standard rate

Air source heat pump replacing gas, electric or other fossil fuel heating. The figure for most homes in York.

£9,000

Off the gas grid

Homes with no mains gas currently heated by oil or LPG, until 31 March 2027. Common in the farms and outlying villages.

VAT

Qualifying domestic installs are zero rated until 31 March 2027, so nothing is added on top of the quote.

How the grant gets to you

The grant is paid through an MCS certified installer, who applies for the voucher and deducts it from your invoice. NorthStar surveys, designs and manages your job; the installation is carried out and MCS certified by our MCS registered installation partner, and the grant is claimed against their certification. Eligibility is confirmed by them when the application goes in.

Grants in full

Recent installs

Outdoor units, cylinders and the pipework in between. The tidy bits nobody sees are what decide how well it runs.

White Vaillant aroTHERM plus single-fan air source heat pump on anti-vibration feet over a gravel bed, with a yellow rotary isolator fixed to the brickwork above. — **aroTHERM plus on a gravel bed**Feet on the gravel so condensate drains away, isolator right above the unit.

Joule Cyclone Platinum 390 litre heat pump cylinder with press-fit copper distribution pipework and two Pneumatex expansion vessels fixed under the eaves. — **390 litre cylinder and copper**A big household’s hot water, with every circuit labelled and valved.

Black Vaillant heat pump with lagged flow and return risers, red-handled isolating valves and a rotary isolator on the wall beside the garden. — **Lagged risers into the wall**Flow and return insulated the full height, with valves to isolate the unit.

White Vaillant aroTHERM plus twin-fan unit on a concrete slab, with flow and return run in black trunking along the bottom of the wall. — **Pipework hidden in trunking**Flow and return run along the wall in black trunking rather than left exposed.

Mitsubishi Ecodan pre-plumbed cylinder, Vent-Axia MVHR unit, expansion vessels and underfloor heating manifolds arranged in a single plant cupboard. — **One cupboard, whole system**Ecodan cylinder, MVHR and underfloor manifolds laid out so everything can be reached.

Black Vaillant air source heat pump on rubber feet over a concrete slab, with the condensate drain led off the slab into the gravel. — **Condensate taken off the slab**So winter defrost water doesn’t sit and freeze where someone will walk.

See all 18 photos

What customers say about NorthStar

These come from customers of NorthStar Air Con Doncaster, part of the same group. Copied word for word.

★★★★★

Just had 6 indoor Mitsubishi AC units fitted by the guys at NorthStar Air Con Doncaster. Excellent work carried out by the team and really pleased with the installation and end result - very tidy! I was impressed with the attention to detail and how they considered different installation options to keep the pipe runs outside of the house to a minimum. Very professional company to deal with and really felt like they worked with you throughout. We mainly went for the system because of the heating efficiency and running costs compared to oil with the recent price changes, while also getting the benefit of air conditioning in the warmer weather 😄

Customer review, NorthStar group

★★★★★

We had a fantastic experience with NorthStar Air Con Doncaster recently having 5 AC units installed. Communication was really easy over WhatsApp beforehand and just as easy with the engineers during the installation. They worked around us, were very respectful and professional throughout. We got both a really high quality installation and great customer service which can be hard to find. Would definitely use them again.

Customer review, NorthStar group

★★★★★

So happy with NorthStar Air Con Doncaster, from our first enquiry through to the installation and handover everyone was really helpful and knowledgeable. The installation team were fantastic, the work was done to a great standard, no mess left behind and all rubbish was cleared from site. I would highly recommend NorthStar Air Con Doncaster to anyone thinking about having AC installed, very professional from start to finish.

Customer review, NorthStar group

York, and the villages around it

York has nearly every kind of house a heat pump has to deal with: solid-wall terraces, 1930s semis, newer estates on the edges, listed buildings inside the walls, and farmhouses where plenty of homes still run on oil and the case for switching is strongest.

Inside the walls
Bootham
Clifton
Clifton Moor
Rawcliffe
Skelton
Nether Poppleton
Upper Poppleton
Acomb
Holgate
Leeman Road
Dringhouses
Woodthorpe
South Bank
Clementhorpe
Fishergate
Fulford
Heslington
Badger Hill
Tang Hall
Heworth
The Groves
Osbaldwick
Murton
Huntington
New Earswick
Earswick
Haxby
Wigginton
Strensall
Stockton-on-the-Forest
Dunnington
Holtby
Stamford Bridge
Elvington
Wheldrake
Escrick
Deighton
Naburn
Bishopthorpe
Copmanthorpe
Askham Bryan
Askham Richard
Rufforth
Long Marston
Shipton by Beningbrough
Tollerton
Easingwold
Sheriff Hutton
Flaxton
Pocklington
Malton road villages

Not listed? Ring 01904 911024 and ask.

Questions people ask before booking

What will a heat pump cost me after the grant?

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme takes £7,500 off the installed price, deducted on the invoice rather than claimed back. What’s left depends on the size of system your house needs, how many radiators change and what happens with hot water. Anyone quoting a firm figure for a York house they haven’t surveyed is guessing, so we survey first and put the number in writing.

Do I qualify for £9,000 rather than £7,500?

Only if the property has no mains gas connection and is heated by oil or LPG at the moment. That higher rate runs until 31 March 2027. Inside York most homes are on mains gas, so it’s £7,500; out in the farms and smaller villages the £9,000 rate comes up far more often.

Are you MCS certified?

NorthStar itself is not. Installations are carried out and MCS certified by our MCS registered installation partner, and the grant is claimed against their certification. That’s how the grant reaches you, and we’d rather tell you up front than have you find it in the small print.

Will it work in an old York terrace?

Often, yes. Age matters less than heat loss. A solid-wall terrace in South Bank or Leeman Road loses more heat than a 1990s semi, so it may need a bigger unit, some larger radiators or a bit of insulation first. The survey tells you which, and we’ll say so before you spend anything.

I live in a listed building or a conservation area. Can I still have one?

Sometimes. Permitted development rules don’t cover listed buildings, and conservation areas carry extra limits on where an outdoor unit can sit. York has plenty of both. We check what applies to your address before anything is ordered and tell you plainly if an application is needed.

Are they noisy?

A modern monobloc at a few metres is roughly fridge-level. Where it goes matters more than the make: away from bedroom windows, clear air front and back, on proper anti-vibration feet rather than bolted straight to a slab.

Will I need a hot water cylinder?

Yes. A heat pump heats a stored cylinder rather than making hot water on demand like a combi. If you have an airing cupboard already, that usually solves it. Coming off a combi, finding the space is the biggest practical change, and we’ll look at the options with you at survey.

How long does the install take?

Most homes are two to four days on site, depending on radiator changes and cylinder work. The survey and design happen before that, and you get the timescale in writing with the quote.

Tell us about your house

A straight answer about a heat pump depends on the actual building: its heat loss, its radiators, and where hot water will live. Give us the basics and we’ll tell you where you stand.

01904 911024

Happy to talk it through on the phone before anybody books anything.

We installAir source heat pumps. That’s the whole business.
AreaYork, inside and outside the ring road, and the villages around it
Grant£7,500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme, or £9,000 for oil and LPG homes until 31 March 2027
CertificationInstalled and MCS certified by our MCS registered installation partner

Book a survey

No obligation. If a heat pump is the wrong answer, we’ll say so.