Heat pumps in Manchester: a region full of heat networks

The heat network zone opportunity report for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority covers all ten metropolitan boroughs. It records more than 800 existing heat networks, including the Manchester Energy Network, MediaCityUK and St Mary's in Oldham, and identifies 80 potential zones, ten of them strategic, including zones in Manchester city centre, Stockport, Trafford, Bolton and Oldham.

The central strategic zone takes in Manchester city centre, Trafford Park, Stockport town centre and parts of Salford. Heat sources considered include water source, sewer source and air source heat pumps, waste heat and deep geothermal. As with all pilot reports, the figures are provisional.

Source: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk

Compulsory connection, where zones introduce it, is proposed for new buildings, large non-domestic buildings and blocks already on communal heating. Manchester's city centre has seen a great deal of new flat building, which is exactly where connection is most likely. If you are buying or renting there, ask how the building is heated, whether it is on a network and what the heat supplier charges.

Owner-occupied houses with their own boilers, from Didsbury to Blackley, are not in those categories. For them, the Boiler Upgrade Scheme and an individual heat pump are the route, exactly as elsewhere in England.

Source: gov.uk · planningportal.co.uk

Much of Manchester's older housing is red-brick terraces with solid walls, while the interwar and postwar suburbs mostly have cavity walls. Solid-walled terraces lose more heat and often need larger radiators, and the outdoor unit usually has to go in a small back yard close to neighbours. Semis with side passages or gardens are easier.

In England, one outdoor unit on a terraced or semi-detached house is usually permitted development if it meets the size limit and the MCS 020a planning standard. In conservation areas, road-facing walls are excluded; listed buildings need consent.

Salford and Stockport have their own town centre zones in the report, so if you live in a flat there rather than in Manchester itself, the same questions about communal heating apply. For houses in Stockport, Trafford or Bury, nothing in the zoning work changes the choice of an individual heat pump.

• wall type: solid brick or cavity
• yard or garden space for the unit
• noise at the nearest neighbouring window
• cylinder location if the house has a combi
• insulation still worth doing first

Each of the ten Greater Manchester boroughs runs its own route into the Warm Homes: Local Grant, so check yours if your income is low; otherwise the Boiler Upgrade Scheme is the usual support. Our form goes anonymously to installers covering your borough, exactly one can buy it, and we tell you by email who it is before it sees who you are. Free for you.