By Wayne Hughes, HQN asset management associate

The UK government’s relentless push for air source heat pumps (ASHPs) as part of decarbonisation plans sounds noble on paper. Decarbonisation! Energy efficiency! Net Zero by 2050! Who could argue with such lofty goals?

Yet, beneath the shiny veneer of this green crusade lies a potential disaster for social landlords and their tenants that’s being conveniently ignored by the usual vested interests.

Simply parroting the mantra that ASHPs are the silver bullet risks turning a well-intentioned policy into a ticking time bomb of tenant discontent, spiralling costs, and logistical nightmares. Here’s why social landlords should pause, take a deep breath, and think twice before diving headfirst into this rat’s nest.

The blunt truth

Let’s start with a blunt truth: nobody else is fitting air source heat pumps at scale in rented accommodation. Not private landlords, not housing associations outside of government-funded schemes, not anyone. Why? Because tenants hate them, and they’re eye-wateringly expensive without taxpayer support.

Unlike gas boilers, which are cheap to install, straightforward to operate, and reliably churn out heat, ASHPs are a different beast. They’re finicky, and often require significant retrofitting including insulation upgrades and larger radiators to work effectively in older, draughty homes.

For social housing, where budgets are tight and many properties predate modern energy standards, this isn’t just a minor inconvenience, it’s a financial and practical mountain to climb.

Successive governments have dangled a carrot of substantial funding to install low-carbon heating like ASHPs. Sounds great, right? Except that the money doesn’t cover the full cost in many cases, especially for ‘unsuitable’ homes—solid-walled terraces or high-rise flats with limited space for equipment. Social landlords are left footing the bill for the rest.

Meanwhile, the installation process disrupts tenants’ lives, and the end result is often a heating system they haven’t asked for and that often leaves them colder, grumpier, and reaching for the phone to complain.

Tenant refusals: The elephant in the room

Previous waves of government funding (SHDF) have already exposed the cracks in this plan. Tenant refusals have been a persistent headache, derailing projects and leaving landlords scrambling.

Why do tenants say no? For one, ASHPs can be less intuitive than a trusty old boiler—think complex controls and a reliance on increasingly expensive electricity that spikes bills if the home isn’t perfectly insulated. In poorly performing properties, they struggle to deliver the cosy warmth tenants expect, especially during a British winter.

Add in the noise (those outdoor units aren’t exactly silent), their reliability and the much-needed space they gobble up, and it’s no wonder some tenants flat-out refuse to have their homes turned into a science lab.

Some social landlords have quietly started removing ASHPs after tenants kicked up a fuss. Yes, you read that right. After all the effort, funding, and green fanfare, providers are beginning to backtrack, swapping them out for gas boilers when complaints hit fever pitch.

This isn’t widely advertised (I wonder why that would be?) but it’s a whispered reality in the sector.  Projects funded by waves 1 and 2 of the Social Housing Development Fund showed delivery rates hampered by refusals, with reports suggesting tenant engagement was often an afterthought, limited to leaflets and cold calls. Wave 3 promises more flexibility but without addressing the root cause – namely the tenant experience – it’s just lipstick on a pig.

The cost conundrum

Then there’s the money. ASHPs don’t come cheap. Installation costs can easily top £10,000 to £15,000 per home, even before factoring in the retrofits and the ‘making good’ needed to make them viable.

The government’s eco sweetener is a drop in the ocean when you consider the scale and condition of our social housing stock – over four million homes with an average age of 60 years. Most will need substantial and expensive insulation upgrades.

Private landlords aren’t touching them without similar subsidies, and even then, they’d rather pass costs onto tenants than take the hit themselves. Social landlords, meanwhile, are stuck between a rock and a hard place: rely on taxpayer cash that may dry up or stick their corporate heads above the ‘it’s all for the greater good’ parapet by not risking their own finances and reputation with their tenants on a technology that’s proving divisive.

Contrast this with gas boilers—cheaper to install, familiar to tenants, and easier and quicker to repair and maintain. The government’s push for ASHPs assumes a future where electricity prices drop and heat pump efficiency soars, but that’s a gamble which is already looking like its lost.

Despite the fantastic efforts of the sector to eradicate fuel poverty, today’s reality is that tenants face higher energy bills while landlords are left holding the baby when the reality strikes that ASHPs are not the answer.

A corner worth avoiding

Social landlords should think long and hard before painting themselves into this corner. Committing to ASHPs at scale in unsuitable homes, those lacking space, insulation, or tenant buy-in could lock them into a cycle of even more complaints, costly fixes, and even reversals.

The flexibility of Wave 3 is a chance to pivot, not double down. Thankfully, the more enlightened landlords are prioritising fabric-first upgrades and not being caught out by the salespeople and installers that will blame ASHP problems on tenants fiddling with systems and be long gone before the sector-wide alarm bell is pressed.

The government’s decarbonisation targets are real but, by slavishly following the ASHP gospel, we risk alienating the very people that it’s meant to help. Landlords who rush in could find themselves with a stock of half-baked retrofits, a PR disaster, and a bill they can’t pay. There’s still time to chart a smarter course—one that listens to tenants, not just the vested interests.

 The survey that never was

And here’s a parting shot: why, oh why, has there never been a proper survey of tenants’ views on ASHPs? You would think, given the billions being poured into this experiment, someone would have bothered to ask the people living with these systems what they actually think. Too scared of the answers, perhaps? Or just too busy chanting the decarbonisation mantra to notice the grumbling from the ground? It’s a glaring omission that sums up the disconnect—and a missed chance to avoid this slow-motion train crash.

So, in summary, social landlords, take note: the clock’s ticking, but it’s not too late to dodge the bomb.