How Allan ditched oil heating for a heat pump in record time
From home survey to completed installation in just 5 days
Ormesby St Margaret is a village just a few miles north of Great Yarmouth, on the edge of the Norfolk Broads. Home to 2,500 people, it’s tucked between the Broads and the sea. But like 4.5 million homes in the UK, it's not connected to the gas grid.
Most homes in Britain heat themselves the same way: gas comes in through a pipe, a boiler burns it, and hey presto, it’s toasty. Simple, invisible and boring (in a good way). But homes off the gas grid, like the ones in Ormesby St Margaret, rely on oil, liquified petroleum gas, or electricity for heating.
In fact, around one in five homes across the East of England rely on oil or other off-grid fuels to keep them warm. Octopus customer Allan lived in one of those homes until very recently - but it all changed in the space of just 5 days, with the help of 4 friendly Octopus heat pump engineers.
Sound familiar? If your home runs on heating oil, now could be a great time to make the switch.
An Octopus Cosy heat pump, just like Allan's.
Life off the gas grid is no picnic
We know it’s not easy hulking an above-ground oil tank into your garden, or having a tanker rumbling up your drive every few months. Not to mention the floor-standing boiler taking up precious space inside your house.
And on top of all that you’ve got to put up with the temperamental oil markets. The price of oil changes daily in response to global markets, which means it’s tricky to budget for. This year, as a result of the conflict in the Middle East, the cost of heating oil for UK homes increased 93% from March 2nd to 16th.
Meet Allan
Allan had already clocked that there was a better way to do things. An EV in the drive. Solar panels on the roof. A home battery for good measure. In an area where oil heating is the norm, he’s been an early-adopter of all things green home tech.
The one thing he hadn't tackled was the heating itself — and the oil tank in his garden was his least favourite feature of the house since the day he moved in. So when his tank started running low, he wasn't planning to fill it again. It was time to look into a heat pump. With his home already having underfloor heating throughout, it made the property a perfect match for a heat pump.
What even is a heat pump?
Great question. A heat pump is a super-efficient, low-carbon upgrade to your old boiler. Think of it like a fridge working in reverse (stay with us). Instead of burning fuel to create heat, it cleverly draws warmth from the air outside and moves it into your home, running entirely on electricity.
They're up to 4x more efficient than a gas boiler, produce steady, consistent warmth rather than hot blasts that fade away, and for homes like Allan's that are already off the gas grid, they're a brilliant fit, as no new pipes are needed.
Enter: Octopus
With an oil boiler that needed replacing and oil prices on the rise, Allan went looking for a heat pump installer. Quite quickly, he found Octopus.
What happened next went at top speed:
- Tuesday evening: Allan got his quote online.
- Wednesday: Charlie, one of our heat pump specialists, called him to talk it through.
- Saturday: Graham, an Octopus surveyor, visited Allan's home to start the magic. He designed a heating system tailored to Allan's, to keep him warm and cosy all winter.
- Monday: Allan dotted the Is and crossed the Ts on the paperwork.
- Tuesday: Octopus install dream team of Danny, James, Hayden and Harry were on site.
- Thursday: Just 5 days after the surveyor called, Allan's home was running on clean, green electricity.
Allan told us the team were " polite, efficient and a pleasure to have working on my property",and "kept the disruption to a minimum, which was much appreciated." We’re blushing.
Allan the trendsetter
Here's our favourite bit. Allan's neighbour saw the whole thing happen. The survey van. The install team. The shiny new Cosy going in. And apparently, that was all the convincing they needed.
Next week, they're replacing their oil boiler with an Octopus heat pump too.
It's easy to think of the energy transition as something that happens to other people, in other places - cities and towns with easy access to the grid. Stories like Allan's are a reminder that it's happening everywhere: in villages of less than 3,000 people, one oil tank at a time.
Thinking about swapping your oil boiler for a heat pump? Get a quote in minutes today
Our claims explained
Around 4.5 million homes in Great Britain aren't connected to the gas grid at all:
According to the October 2024 House of Commons research briefing on households off the gas-grid and prices for alternative fuels. You can read the briefing on the House of Commons website.
Around 866,000 homes in England and Wales rely solely on oil for heating:
Figure from the 2021 Census. You can see the data from the 2021 census here.
Efficiency / A heat pump is up to 4x more efficient than a gas boiler:
Octopus Cosy heat pumps can deliver several units of heat for each unit of electricity. For every 1 kWh of electricity you put in, you could get an average of 3.3kWh heat out, which is an efficiency of 330%! All our heat pumps are tested independently by the Building Research Establishment (BRE) and their energy efficiency ratings, called Seasonal Coefficient of Performance (SCOP), are publicly available on the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) product database. When we design a system, we design to a 3.4 SCOP in-situ standard.
Heat pumps don't create heat, but move existing heat from nature into your home (like an air conditioner or refrigerator, but in reverse). When you burn stuff to generate heat (like gas, oil, or wood), you are instead creating heat by converting matter to energy — so you can never get more than one unit of heat for each unit of energy you burn. Gas boilers in UK homes are only around 85% efficient, so for every 1 kWh of gas you put in, you get around 0.85kWh of heat out, which is nearly 4x less efficient than a heat pump.
These are typical install efficiencies for gas boilers and low temperature heat pumps installed in real homes. See our heat pump saving blog for the full set of calculations and assumptions.
Published on 23rd January 2026 by:
Hey I'm Constantine, welcome to Octopus Energy!
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