Gas boiler or heat pump? An honest Teesside comparison
A gas boiler replacement on Teesside costs £1,800 to £3,500 and an air source heat pump £8,000 to £14,000 before the government grant, which currently takes £7,500 off. Running costs are close, so the decision turns on your insulation, your radiator sizes and whether you have room for a cylinder.
Start with the house, not the appliance
The heat pump argument is usually had backwards. A heat pump delivers heat at a lower water temperature than a gas boiler, which means it works beautifully in a house that loses heat slowly and has generous radiators or underfloor pipework, and disappoints in a leaky house with 1970s microbore and small panel radiators. So the first questions are about fabric: is the loft at 270mm, are the cavities filled, are the windows sound, and how big are the radiators. Get those right and a heat pump is a good machine. Skip them and it will run at high flow temperatures, burn expensive electricity, and confirm every prejudice the neighbours have about them.
Running costs, plainly
A modern gas boiler turns roughly 90 percent of the gas it burns into useful heat, at a gas unit rate. A well-designed heat pump produces around three to three and a half units of heat for every unit of electricity, at an electricity unit rate that is currently around three and a half to four times the gas rate. Put those together and the two land close, with the heat pump ahead in a well-insulated house running low flow temperatures and behind in a poorly insulated one. Add the standing charge you save by dropping the gas connection entirely, and a specialist heat pump electricity tariff, and the balance tips further towards the heat pump. Anyone promising you half-price heating without asking about your insulation is guessing.
Where the money is
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme currently pays £7,500 towards an air source heat pump in England and Wales, applied for by an MCS certified installer and taken off your invoice rather than claimed back by you. That is what makes the comparison interesting: a £12,000 install becomes £4,500, which is inside touching distance of a system boiler and cylinder job. Grant rules and amounts do change, so check the current position before you commit, and get the grant figure written into the quote.
When gas is still the right answer
- The boiler has died in January and the house needs heat this week. A heat pump is a designed installation, not an emergency swap.
- Solid-wall terraces with no insulation plan, where the fabric work should come first and the gas boiler bridges the gap.
- No sensible space for a cylinder, a real constraint in small terraces and flats where the airing cupboard was lost to a combi conversion years ago.
- Nowhere for the outdoor unit, or a position that would sit under a bedroom window a metre from next door's.
- Short remaining ownership, where the payback horizon is longer than your plans for the house.
When a heat pump wins
- Post-2000 houses in Ingleby Barwick, Wynyard or the newer Stockton estates: decent fabric, room outside, radiators often already generous.
- Homes already insulated properly, where flow temperatures of 45 degrees will heat the house comfortably.
- Houses with solar panels, where self-generated electricity does a chunk of the pumping.
- Off-gas properties in the villages towards Guisborough and the moor edge, where the alternative is oil or LPG rather than mains gas.
- Anyone keeping the house 10 years or more and willing to have the design done properly.
The middle path most people actually take
There is a sensible sequence that neither camp advertises. Insulate first, because it makes both options cheaper to run. Replace the failing gas boiler now if it has failed, but keep or reinstate a cylinder and ask for radiators sized for lower flow temperatures where they are being changed anyway. Run the gas boiler at 55 degrees flow rather than 75, which costs nothing and saves fuel immediately. Then when this boiler reaches the end of its life in a dozen years, the house is already heat-pump ready and the switch is a straightforward job rather than a rebuild.
Getting a comparable quote
Ask for a room-by-room heat loss calculation either way, and for the flow temperature the design assumes: it is the single number that tells you whether the quote was engineered or estimated. For the gas route, the Teesside boiler cost guide sets out 2026 prices, and the replacement page lists what should be included. For either route, the same Gas Safe and MCS registered engineers do the work locally, so you can ask one person for an honest read on both.
| Gas combi or system boiler | Air source heat pump | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical install cost | £1,800–£6,500 | £8,000–£14,000 before grant |
| Grant available | n/a | £7,500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme |
| Space needed | Boiler only, or boiler plus cylinder | Outdoor unit plus indoor cylinder |
| Radiators | Existing usually fine | Some often need upsizing |
| Typical days on site | 1–3 | 2–4 |
| Efficiency | Around 90% of fuel energy | Roughly 300–380% of electricity used |
| Best suited to | Any house, especially poorly insulated | Insulated homes with space and larger radiators |