Consumers Want: Add2Rad - Making Homes Heat Pump Ready, Fast
A solution to heat pump rejection - that delivers what consumers want?
You may not have noticed but there's a subtle shift occurring in the energy sector. Even parliament is discussing it. Everyone is talking about customer led strategies, and if they aren't adopting them - they are being pushed. Why is this happening?
Transformation With People
No one likes being told what to do, nobody wants retrofit done to them, and everyone likes to feel like they are in control.
That's why sales and marketing campaigns designed to inform people fail - as soon as they sound like your bossy uncle telling you off (or the virtue signalling cousin who tuts when you fly out on your first holiday in 4 years.)
Heat pumps are a strategic tool in decarbonising our energy sector - they don't rely on a variable energy source like solar or wind energy. They offer impeccable economy and they utilise renewable power, from the air and the earth (and yes, we salute you 'ponders' from water too).
So even as we celebrate faster heat pump adoption, more successful installs - we aren't doing it quite fast enough. And a question has to be asked, why in 2025, are boilers still replacing boilers, as a rule, rather than the exception? Is it the marketing [of heat pumps], is it the price? Is it the Eco image? Does anyone care enough?
Here in lies a conundrum, homeowners, landlords and renters should be crying out for clean energy. They aren't. Or if they are - something is stopping them.
Data Matters - The Reason For A No
Add2Rad is not a new product, it is a new way of thinking. Designed from the bottom up based on raw data. And it might just work.
Ethan Wadsworth, the Director of Communications at Discrete Heat - who run Add2Rad - spoke exclusively to us;
"It's a myth that cost and the Eco image are preventing heat pump adoption. We have data for millions of no-sales. And they tell a completely different story."
That's right, with access to 15 years of sales operations, and a few other spicy data resources, Ethan and his team discovered that disruption, is one of the major obstacles facing the heat pump.
This is a key point of failure in many campaigns. Celebrate the wins. Sure. But much more importantly, discover the root cause of failure too. What happened in the no sale situation.
Let's unpick why the data revealed such an unusual obstacle and what that means.
What does disruption mean. As a narrative in the process of heat pump adoption. Let's look at three examples but before we do, remind yourself of the excellent Citizens advice report issued in 2025 looking at "Early Adopters" and relfected similar data;
Within that report was a key group, the 47% of people who weren't interested in getting a heat pump, and cited in the example case study was 'John' who the report said:
He has loft insulation and double glazing. He’s not interested in energy efficiency measures or a heat pump because he doesn’t feel he can afford to make the changes and thinks it would cause too much disruption. - Citizens Advice - Early Adopters - Jan 2025
So hold that thought and let's look at three examples of the target audience that Add2Rad is going to focus on;
1. The Middle Class Home
Doing all Right Crowd
This lot have a reasonable income, well above the £70K you need according to some reporting to live a good life.
In their homes they have some designer radiators, probably in keeping with the pricey period homes they are doing up. Outside of London, this could be a couple in the professions or two trades qualified partners (couple) buying big and living in the nice part of town or country with a 3-4 bed not period but basking in loads of space.
Already maximising the space they have these homeowners might have fitted floors, carpets and nice furnishings.
So with Add2Rad, capable of adding 60 (up to 90) watts of heating per metre they could have no impact - 2 hours according to the Add2Rad website or at most a whole day. Some skirting board will be removed, and replaced, but apart from joining onto existing radiator tails nothing. Done. Heat pump ready.
Kind of important. No space is lost, no bigger radiators, which is difficult to argue with.
2. Housing Associations
This crowd are going to love the savings. In many of the estates being retrofitted across the UK, buildings are already tight for space. So Add2Rad, which uses Thermaskirt skirting board to deliver the emitter heat they're onto a winner.
But it's the disruption element of time and cost, for something known in the business as 'decanting' get's peoples attention.
We did a straw poll at a recent Chartered Institute of Housing (CIoH) event about the real cost of not retrofitting properties and aside from one comment from a rep for Grainger (who said the cost of legal action was a burden - retrofit repairs not done in time) the feedback we encountered showed decant costs, were a huge concern.
At that meeting. Thermaksirt, the heated skirting board was well known, but Add2Rad hadn't even be worked out.
Add2Rad make an insulated home heat pump ready in 24hrs. They are so confident about it they added a decant calculator to their website.
In one council, with 700 decanted residents costing circa £500 per day, that could save them millions of pounds each year. No names no pack drill, but we heard you. We won't report your name. But Add2Rad could have save you days of install time, saved space in you customers homes, and for the crowd that need to hear it, they are a British company.
3. Private Landlords
The good Eggs
This final example is borne out of the idea that British landlords are Rachmenesque shysters. Those landlords (mostly) no longer exist. According to the National Residential Landlords Association most landlords, 93%, have one extra home, they rent.
That lot, can't be shy of their intent to keep the pension pot growing. As well as making sure their tenants are looked after. It's basic life saving skills, make sure you are not in danger before you look after anyone else.
As the Add2Rad method takes root, this audience I think , will be the fastest to grow. Look at this way.
You get a heat pump ready rental, no void costs, just some happy residents who leave the property in the morning and when they get back from work have a new skirting board, that happens to make their boiler more efficient, their home warmer quicker and is ready for a heat pump (steady heat all the time) - they're gonna be pretty happy.
Why Add2Rad Might Not Work
Don't send us your Press Release - If you want the truth
We are an independent magazine. So that means we can ignore what the press release says and go ask questions. So we did.
"I'm not sold." - Damon Blakemore - MD Blakemore Heating
"I don't understand it. If the problem is too small an emitter, adding Thermaskirt to underperforming homes is a lot more work than just swapping the rad." - Adam Chapman - MD Heat Geek
"Add2rad is a great concept - but I think the messaging has made the issue about radiators being the main problem more than what it is" - Nathan Gambling - Founder BetaTalk and Guild of Master Heat Engineers
"Yes. I get it. How do I make sure it's right for my customers?" - Sean Hogan - MD and Installer Aventus Eco
These are responses from four of the more influential heat engineering personalties - here in the UK.
And that's a major hump for Ethan at Add2Rad headquarters to ignore. Why? Because if Sean Hogan, the MD at Aventus Eco keeps getting customers saying they want their house heat pump ready with no floor boards up, carpets lifted or massive rads added - he's already got a solution.
If Damon Blakemore sees enough demand, he'll respond and the other two, they'll come around. All clean heat professionals want heat pumps in more homes - and this solution might do it, it's fast, it's zero disrupt (really more than other brands) but with one caveat. You can't ignore the pedants.
The Add2Rad Explainer
Energy Efficiency - Those Lot
There is one particular group I reckon will need to take a splash of reality. The efficiency nerds. We live in a nation that have outdoor hot tubs. Heater elements. Christmas lights. Halloween pumpkins - lit. BBQs with discos.
Most real people want to live their life. Not document or track it. So telling a heat pump prospect (sales term for "you should buy") that they will get optimum performance, right now, in a cost of living crisis - with energy bills on track to increase by 20% in 4 years, is a joyless sales message.
Don't get me wrong anything that weans us off the teat of international gas prices is going to be a winner. But efficiency doesn't seem to sell heat pumps. Disruption free living does.
So sell the idea that the already half way to perfect house they are making a home, can be heat pump ready really fast. And if they want upstairs at 18 degrees and downstairs at 21, that's their choice, just like Add2Rad could be.
They've Already Chosen
Quietly, behind the scenes a number of the heat pump manufacturers have cottoned on that introducing Add2Rad to their sales pitch could increase heat pump sales. Ethan wouldn't tell us who has bought in. And we know from external sources that energy suppliers, Landlords and even some housing associations have signed up to Add2Rad.
The tell tale sign that this method of making homes get heat pumps, was that the morning the Add2Rad website went live the first consumer signed up by the afternoon - with no paid ads, just organic interest.
If nothing else, the team at Discrete Heat who came up with the new methodology and marketing need a slap on the back. Let's see how this all does?