Your new heat pump has been installed. It should be quieter, efficient, and keeping your home comfortable. Instead, you've got cold rooms, high electricity bills, fault codes, strange noises, or a system that simply doesn't seem to work properly.

So you contact the installer. "The heat pump is working speak to the manufacturer." You contact the manufacturer. "There's nothing wrong with the heat pump speak to your installer." The electrician says it's a plumbing problem. The plumber says it's the controls. And you're left in the middle with a heating system that still isn't working properly.

We see this far too often. The first thing you need isn't necessarily another engineer changing parts you need to establish what is actually wrong with the system, and whether you're dealing with a genuine heat pump fault or a wider heating system problem. If this cycle sounds familiar, it's exactly the situation our Fix My Heat Pump review was built to cut through.

Heat pump fault, or heating system problem?

One of the biggest misconceptions with heat pumps is that when something isn't working properly, the heat pump itself must be faulty. Often, it isn't. The heat pump is only one component of a much larger system, and problems after installation can trace back to incorrect sizing, inaccurate heat loss calculations, undersized radiators, poor pipe sizing, insufficient flow, incorrect pump or control settings, poor system balancing, weather compensation setup, zone valve problems, electrical faults, poor hot water configuration, installation or commissioning errors or, sometimes, an actual heat pump fault. Often it's a combination of several smaller issues rather than one obvious cause, which is exactly why simply reading a fault code or replacing a component isn't always enough.

Who is responsible if your heat pump doesn't work properly?

That depends entirely on what's causing the problem. If the heat pump itself has a genuine manufacturing fault, the manufacturer or warranty provider may need to get involved. If the problem is with how the system was designed, installed, or commissioned, responsibility may sit with the installer instead. If an electrical component or supply is at fault, an electrician may be required. The difficulty for the homeowner is knowing which one it actually is and until somebody establishes that, it's very easy to get passed backwards and forwards between everyone involved. We saw exactly this pattern play out with a homeowner who'd already had three separate companies decline the job before the actual cause was ever identified.

This is where an independent technical review helps. At UK Heat Pump Help, we don't start with the assumption that your installer is wrong, and we don't start with the assumption the manufacturer is wrong either. We start with your heating system, work through the evidence, and identify the most likely cause a very different starting point from anyone with a commercial stake in the answer.

What do we actually look at?

Depending on the problem, we investigate the original heat loss calculations, heat pump and radiator sizing, required versus actual operating flow temperatures, weather compensation, heating controls, system pressure and flow, pipe sizing and layout, buffer or volumiser arrangements, zone valves, circulation pumps, hot water configuration, electrical information, controller settings, fault codes and operating history, and photographs or video of the installation itself. Sometimes the problem becomes obvious quickly. Other times we need to work through the system methodically but the objective is always the same: find the cause before throwing money at the solution.

High electricity bills don't automatically mean the heat pump is faulty

If your electricity consumption is much higher than expected, it's natural to assume something's wrong with the heat pump. But high running costs can just as easily come from how the whole system has been designed or configured. If your radiators are too small, your heat pump may need to run at higher flow temperatures than necessary. If weather compensation is poorly configured, it may produce hotter water than the conditions actually call for. If the system isn't balanced correctly, some areas may overheat while others struggle, and if controls are constantly switching the heat pump on and off, it may not be operating as intended at all. The heat pump could technically be doing exactly what it's being told to do the problem is that it's being asked to do the wrong thing.

What if some rooms don't get warm?

Don't automatically turn the heat pump temperature up. If most of the property is comfortable but one or two rooms struggle, increasing the flow temperature means increasing it for the entire heating system just to fix one room. The real problem could simply be inadequate radiator output in those specific rooms. A room-by-room heat loss assessment helps establish exactly how much heat each room needs and whether the installed emitters can deliver it at sensible heat pump temperatures sometimes one straightforward change makes far more sense than adjusting the whole system's settings. This is a similar pattern to what we found in a case where a zoning design issue was quietly increasing running costs the heat pump wasn't broken, the design around it was.

What about fault codes?

A fault code is useful information, but it's not always the complete diagnosis. The code tells us what the heat pump detected the next question is why it detected it. A flow-related fault, for example, doesn't necessarily mean the heat pump itself has failed; we may need to understand what's happening elsewhere in the hydraulic system first. That's why blindly replacing components based purely on a fault code can become expensive very quickly.

Before paying for more work, understand the problem

This is one of the biggest reasons homeowners contact us. If you've already spent thousands installing a heat pump, the last thing you want is to start paying different tradespeople to try different things without a clear diagnosis. Before replacing radiators, pumps, controls, valves, or even the heat pump itself, it makes sense to understand why the system isn't performing properly first which is exactly what our Fix My Heat Pump technical review is designed to do. If your problems trace back further, to how the system was originally sized or specified, our Pre-Installation Design Review is worth reading about too, since it's built to catch exactly these design and sizing issues.

How Fix My Heat Pump works

You don't need to wait weeks for someone to travel across the country before we start investigating we begin remotely. We'll gather information about your system and the problems you're experiencing, which may include photos, videos, controller settings, fault codes, electricity consumption, heat loss information, installation details, and heating and hot water settings. One of our heat pump experts then works through the system with you, aiming to establish what's wrong, what needs changing, and what you should do next.

Once we've identified the problem, we explain our findings in plain English. If it's something you can safely resolve through settings or controls, we'll guide you through it directly. If physical work is genuinely required, we'll explain exactly what needs doing and you're free to take that information back to your original installer, the manufacturer, your electrician, your plumber, or another local heat pump engineer. You're not tied into using us for any physical work. What matters is that you're no longer calling people saying "my heat pump doesn't work" you're able to approach them with a clear understanding of what the actual problem appears to be, which can completely change the conversation.

What if your installer says everything is fine?

Sometimes everything is technically working, but that doesn't necessarily mean the system is performing well. If you're uncomfortable, spending significantly more on electricity than expected, constantly adjusting controls, or repeatedly running into problems, there's usually a reason. An independent review gives you another set of experienced eyes on the system. We aren't interested in blaming your installer if the installation is fundamentally good, we'll tell you that too. And if we identify something that could be improved, we'll explain exactly what we found and why it matters.

Stop getting passed from one person to another

Heat pump problems become genuinely frustrating when nobody takes ownership of the whole system. The manufacturer understands the heat pump. The electrician understands the electrical installation. The plumber understands the pipework. The installer understands what they installed. But what you actually need is someone to look at how all of those pieces work together and that's exactly what we do.

If your heat pump isn't performing as you expected, don't immediately start replacing parts or turning up the temperature. Let's work out why first.

Book Your Fix My Heat Pump Technical Review →