Heat Pump vs Storage Heaters: UK Cost Comparison

TL;DR

A heat pump delivers around 3 to 4 units of heat for every unit of electricity, while a storage heater delivers 1 unit of heat per unit of electricity, so a heat pump typically cuts your heating energy use by 60 to 70% for the same warmth.
Storage heaters are far cheaper to install (a few hundred pounds per unit) but there are no grants for them, whereas a heat pump attracts the £7,500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant in England and Wales.
On an Economy 7 or heat pump tariff, both systems can charge or run during cheaper overnight hours, but the heat pump still wins on running cost because it moves so much more heat per kilowatt hour.
Storage heaters suit small flats, holiday homes and hard to treat properties with no outdoor space. Heat pumps suit homes with room for an outdoor unit and reasonable insulation.
Old brick storage heaters lose heat through the evening and often leave you cold by the time you get home, while a heat pump gives steady, controllable warmth all day.
Read our heat pump running costs guide for real numbers before you decide.

Heat pump vs storage heaters: which is cheaper to run in the UK?

A heat pump is almost always cheaper to run than a storage heater because it moves heat rather than making it directly. A modern air source heat pump produces roughly 3 to 4 kilowatt hours of heat for every 1 kilowatt hour of electricity it draws. A storage heater, like any direct electric heater, converts electricity to heat at close to 100% efficiency, which sounds impressive until you realise that means 1 kilowatt hour in for 1 kilowatt hour out. For the same amount of warmth in your home, the heat pump uses around a third of the electricity.

That single fact drives most of the difference in this comparison. If you are on old electric storage heaters right now, you already have some of the most expensive heating in the country, and a heat pump is one of the clearest upgrades available. This guide walks through how each system works, what they cost to buy and run, where storage heaters still make sense, and how to plan a switch. Our figures draw on published data from the Energy Saving Trust, Ofgem and the government Boiler Upgrade Scheme, and reflect real installation practice across the UK.

If you are weighing electric heating options more broadly, our comparison of a heat pump against an electric boiler covers the other main electric alternative in detail.

How storage heaters actually work

Storage heaters heat up overnight and release that warmth slowly through the day. Inside a traditional storage heater sits a stack of dense ceramic or brick blocks. During cheap overnight electricity hours, elements heat those blocks to a high temperature. The bricks then radiate warmth into the room over the following hours, without drawing much more electricity during the day.

This design was built around Economy 7, a tariff that gives you around seven hours of cheaper electricity overnight, usually somewhere between midnight and 7am, in exchange for a higher daytime rate. The idea made sense in the era when the grid had a lot of cheap overnight baseload and wanted to spread demand. Charge the bricks at night, coast through the day.

There are a few generations of the technology:

Manual storage heaters are the oldest. You set an input dial (how much charge to take overnight) and an output dial (how fast to release it). Get the balance wrong and you either run out of heat by teatime or waste money overheating an empty house.
Automatic and fan-assisted models add sensors and a fan to hold back more heat and push it out when you want it, which improves comfort a little.
High heat retention storage heaters (HHR) are the modern standard, sold since the 2018 Lot 20 efficiency rules. They insulate the core far better and use electronic controls, so they hold their charge longer and waste less.

Even the best modern storage heater, though, is still a direct electric heater at heart. It cannot beat the laws of physics: one unit of electricity gives you one unit of heat.

How a heat pump works by comparison

A heat pump extracts warmth from the outside air and concentrates it, which is why it delivers several units of heat per unit of electricity. Rather than turning electricity into heat, an air source heat pump uses a refrigerant cycle to absorb low grade warmth from the outdoor air, compress it to a useful temperature, and deliver it to your radiators, underfloor heating or hot water cylinder. Even at an outdoor temperature of 0C there is plenty of heat energy in the air for the system to gather.

The efficiency measure that matters is the Seasonal Coefficient of Performance (SCOP), the average heat output divided by electricity input across a full heating season. A well designed system typically lands between 3.0 and 4.0. A SCOP of 3.5 means 3.5 kilowatt hours of heat for every kilowatt hour of electricity, or put another way, the heat pump is around 350% efficient against a storage heater's 100%. Our explainer on what SCOP means and why it matters goes deeper on the numbers.

The trade off is that a heat pump is a whole home heating system. It needs an outdoor unit, pipework to your radiators or underfloor loops, usually a hot water cylinder, and a proper heat loss survey to size it correctly. Storage heaters, by contrast, are standalone boxes you can add room by room.

Running costs compared

For the same warmth, a heat pump usually costs less than half as much to run as storage heaters. To show why, take a typical three bedroom UK home with an annual space heating demand of around 12,000 kilowatt hours of heat.

Measure	Storage heaters	Air source heat pump
Efficiency	100% (SCOP 1.0)	350% (SCOP 3.5)
Electricity needed for 12,000 kWh heat	12,000 kWh	3,429 kWh
Cost at a flat 25p per kWh	£3,000	£857
Cost with cheap overnight rate blended	around £1,900 to £2,400	around £600 to £750

The exact figures shift with your tariff and how well your home holds heat, but the pattern holds in every scenario: the heat pump uses roughly a third of the electricity, so it costs roughly a third to a half as much to run.

Tariffs complicate the picture in an interesting way. Ofgem sets a price cap that governs the unit rate most households pay, and the standard electricity unit rate under the cap has hovered around 25p per kilowatt hour through 2026, with the exact figure updated every three months on the Ofgem energy price cap page. Storage heaters were built for Economy 7, so their overnight charging can use a cheaper night rate of around 10 to 15p. That helps, but it comes at the cost of a higher daytime rate, so any top up heating you use in the evening is expensive.

Heat pumps can play the same game and win it. A growing set of heat pump friendly smart tariffs offer off-peak rates in the region of 7 to 13p per kilowatt hour. Because the heat pump can preheat your home and hot water cylinder during those cheap windows and then coast, it captures the same overnight benefit that storage heaters rely on, while still using far less electricity overall. Our guide to heat pump smart tariffs explains how to set that up, and our electricity usage breakdown shows what a real heat pump home draws over a year.

Updated August 2026: unit rates change every quarter, so always check the current Ofgem cap and your own tariff before finalising a decision.

Upfront costs and grants

Storage heaters are cheap to buy but attract no grants, while heat pumps cost more upfront yet qualify for the £7,500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme. This is the one area where storage heaters clearly win on paper.

A single high heat retention storage heater typically costs somewhere between £400 and £900 fitted, depending on size and features. Kitting out a small two bedroom flat might therefore cost £1,500 to £3,000 in total, with no survey, no outdoor unit and minimal disruption. Because they plug into existing circuits (usually an Economy 7 meter with an off-peak feed), installation is straightforward for a qualified electrician.

A heat pump is a bigger investment. A typical air source heat pump installation runs from around £9,000 to £14,000 before any grant, covering the unit, hot water cylinder, radiator changes where needed, and commissioning. The decisive factor is the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, which pays a £7,500 grant towards an air source heat pump for eligible homes in England and Wales, applied by your MCS certified installer so you never handle the cash yourself. You can read the eligibility rules on the official GOV.UK Boiler Upgrade Scheme page, and our own Boiler Upgrade Scheme guide walks through applying step by step. Scotland runs its own grant and loan support through Home Energy Scotland, and Wales has the Nest scheme alongside the BUS.

After the grant, a heat pump net cost of £3,000 to £7,000 is common. That is more than a set of storage heaters, but the gap narrows quickly, and the running cost savings then work in your favour every year afterwards.

Payback: when the heat pump wins overall

For most homes replacing storage heaters, the heat pump pays back its extra cost within a handful of years. Say you would spend £2,500 on storage heaters or £5,000 net on a heat pump after the grant. The heat pump costs £2,500 more upfront. If the heat pump saves you £1,000 to £1,500 a year in running costs compared with storage heaters, which is realistic for a home with a 12,000 kilowatt hour heat demand, the extra spend pays for itself in roughly two to three years.

Everything after that is money in your pocket, for the 15 to 20 year working life of the heat pump. Storage heaters last a long time too, often 20 years or more, but they never stop being expensive to run. Our payback period explainer shows how to run these numbers for your own bills and tariff.

Two things can change the maths. First, if your electricity is on a poorly matched tariff, the heat pump savings shrink, so getting onto a suitable time-of-use tariff matters. Second, if your home is very small with a tiny heat demand, the absolute savings are smaller and payback stretches out, which is exactly the situation where storage heaters remain defensible.

Comfort and control

A heat pump gives steady, even warmth all day, while storage heaters tend to peak in the morning and fade by evening. This is one of the most common complaints from people living with older storage heaters: the bricks dump most of their heat in the first half of the day, so the house is warmest when you are out at work and coolest when you come home. Getting the input and output dials right on a manual model is a genuine art, and even then a cold snap can catch you out because you set the overnight charge the night before.

Modern high heat retention heaters with programmable controls fix a lot of this, holding back heat and releasing it on a schedule. They are much better than the old bricks. But they still cannot respond to a sudden change in the weather the way a thermostatically controlled heat pump can. A heat pump runs continuously at a low output, topping up gently to hold your target temperature, which most people find more comfortable than the rise and fall of stored heat.

On hot water, the two systems differ as well. Storage heaters only heat your rooms, so hot water usually comes from a separate immersion heater or Economy 7 cylinder, which is expensive. A heat pump heats your hot water cylinder as part of the same efficient system. Our guide on how a heat pump heats your hot water covers this in detail.

Where storage heaters still make sense

Storage heaters remain a sensible choice for small, low demand properties where a heat pump would be hard or costly to fit. There are genuine cases where they are the pragmatic answer:

Flats and apartments with no outdoor wall space, no permission for an external unit, or shared ownership rules that block heat pump installation.
Holiday homes and rarely used second properties where low upfront cost matters more than annual running cost, because the heating runs for only a few weeks a year.
Listed buildings and conservation areas where planning restrictions make an outdoor heat pump unit difficult, although this is changing as permitted development rights expand.
Very small studios where the total heat demand is so low that the running cost gap is measured in a few hundred pounds a year rather than a thousand or more.
Stopgap replacements when a single old storage heater fails and you are not ready to commit to a whole home system yet.

If you are in a flat and unsure whether a heat pump is even feasible, our guide on heat pumps in flats and apartments explains the options, including shared and communal systems.

Carbon and future proofing

A heat pump cuts your heating carbon footprint far more than storage heaters, and it aligns with where the grid is heading. Both systems run on electricity, so as the grid decarbonises they both get cleaner over time. But because the heat pump uses roughly a third of the electricity for the same heat, its carbon emissions are a fraction of a storage heater's from day one.

There is a policy angle too. The government's heat decarbonisation strategy is built around heat pumps, not direct electric heating, and the grant support reflects that. Storage heaters receive no equivalent incentive because they do not deliver the same efficiency or carbon reduction. If you expect to sell your home in the coming years, a heat pump also tends to support a better EPC rating and can appeal to buyers, a point we cover in selling a house with a heat pump.

How to switch from storage heaters to a heat pump

Switching means treating your whole home as one heating system rather than a set of separate boxes. The rough sequence looks like this:

Book a heat loss survey. An MCS certified installer measures how much heat your home loses and sizes the heat pump correctly. This is the single most important step for good running costs. Our sizing guide explains what they are calculating.
Plan the wet system. Storage heaters have no pipework, so you will need radiators or underfloor heating installed and connected to the heat pump. Many homes need larger radiators to run at the lower flow temperatures a heat pump likes.
Add a hot water cylinder. If you currently heat water with an immersion, the installer will usually fit a cylinder heated by the heat pump.
Check insulation. Storage heater homes are often older and less insulated. Improving loft and cavity insulation first lowers your heat demand and shrinks the heat pump you need.
Apply for the grant and get on the right tariff. Your installer handles the Boiler Upgrade Scheme paperwork. Once installed, move to a heat pump friendly time-of-use tariff to capture the cheapest running costs.

Because you are removing several storage heaters and adding a wet central heating system, this is more involved than a like for like boiler swap. A good installer will stage the work to keep disruption manageable. To compare quotes fairly, see our guide on how to compare heat pump quotes.

Frequently asked questions

Are storage heaters cheaper to run than a heat pump?

No. Storage heaters convert electricity to heat at roughly 100% efficiency, while a heat pump delivers around 350%, so for the same warmth the heat pump uses about a third of the electricity. Even accounting for Economy 7 overnight rates, a heat pump is usually less than half the running cost. Storage heaters are only cheaper on the upfront purchase, not on the ongoing bills.

Can I get a grant to replace storage heaters with a heat pump?

Yes, in England and Wales the £7,500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant applies to air source heat pumps installed by an MCS certified installer, and it is available whether you are replacing storage heaters, a gas boiler or oil heating. Scotland and Wales also run their own support schemes. There are no grants available for buying storage heaters themselves.

Do I need to remove my storage heaters to fit a heat pump?

Yes. A heat pump is a wet central heating system that warms radiators or underfloor pipes, so the standalone storage heaters come out and are replaced by that connected system. This is a bigger job than a boiler swap because there is usually no existing pipework to reuse, but it is standard work for a heat pump installer.

Will a heat pump keep my home as warm as storage heaters?

A heat pump generally keeps your home more evenly warm because it runs continuously at a low output and holds a steady temperature, rather than releasing a burst of stored heat that fades through the day. Sized and installed correctly, it maintains comfortable temperatures even in cold weather, which our winter performance guide explains in more detail.

What about hot water if I switch?

A heat pump heats a hot water cylinder as part of the same efficient system, so you no longer rely on a separate immersion heater. This is usually far cheaper than heating water directly with electricity on an Economy 7 cylinder, and it means your heating and hot water come from one low running cost source.

Are modern high heat retention storage heaters worth considering?

They are a real improvement on old brick storage heaters, holding their charge longer and offering programmable control, and they can be the right choice for small flats or properties where a heat pump is not feasible. But they are still direct electric heaters running at 100% efficiency, so they cannot match a heat pump on running cost. Choose them when upfront cost and simplicity outweigh long term savings.

This guide is for general information and does not replace a professional heat loss survey. Running costs depend on your tariff, home and usage. Always get quotes from MCS certified installers before deciding.