What does a heat pump cost to install in New Zealand?

Installed cost by heat pump type

A single split for a living area runs about $4,000 installed. A small bedroom unit is nearer $3,000, a large open plan room $5,500, and ducted for a standard home starts around $12,000. Every figure in the table includes the unit, the fitting, the electrical connection and commissioning.

The single split rows are in line with EECA's national average of $4,400, which is the one heat pump figure in this country published by somebody with nothing to sell.

The ducted and multi-split rows are weaker. No independent New Zealand source prices them: EECA publishes no ducted figure, Consumer NZ paywall their install article, and BRANZ does not price consumer HVAC at all. Those two rows are what installers publish themselves.

What you pay: the heat pump and the installation

Those are installed prices. Almost every cheap heat pump figure you will see advertised is a supply only price, the box on its own. An entry level high wall starts around $1,500 for the unit, and a straightforward back to back fitting adds roughly $1,000 on top. So the fitting is about a third of a typical $4,000 install, and closer to 40% of an entry-level one. Installers often quote half.

A cheap price is not automatically a bad one, but something is different, so ask what. Usually it is the unit. Sometimes it is the electrical work.

Is air conditioning installation the same job?

For most New Zealand households, yes. The wall-mounted units sold here are reverse-cycle: the same box heats in winter and cools in summer, and which word gets used is mostly a matter of what the buyer came in asking for. A quote for air conditioning in a house is usually a quote for the same hardware, the same installer and the same fitting as everything priced above.

Where the words do part company is commercial work. Cooling a server room or a shop floor is a different specification and a different price, and this guide does not cover it.

Who is actually allowed to install a heat pump

No single occupational licence covers a domestic heat pump installation in New Zealand. MBIE proposed one and the proposal is on hold.

Connecting the unit to mains power is prescribed electrical work, so whoever does it must be registered and hold a current practising licence. That is public, and you can check it in about a minute.

Your quote may instead mention a refrigerant licence. It is a real qualification. It is not the one this job needs. It belongs to the rules covering bulk hazardous substances, and WorkSafe says those do not reach a domestic heat pump or room air conditioner. Household units follow an appliance standard. Treat it as evidence of training. It does not tell you who is certifying your wiring.

The better reason to care is in the warranty. Mitsubishi Electric cover the equipment they supply and exclude the pipework, cabling, drainage and ducting, putting heat load calculation and installation on the contractor. The manufacturer stands behind the box. Nobody but your installer stands behind the install.

• Ask who does the electrical connection. It is not always the person who sells and mounts the unit. Get the name of whoever will do it.
• Check that name on the EWRB register. Registration and a current practising licence are both public and take a minute to confirm.
• Get the warranty terms in writing. Manufacturer cover excludes pipework, cabling, drainage and ducting, so the quality of the install is on the installer.

What a heat pump costs to run per hour

Power costs a different amount depending on which network you are on, and most running-cost figures ignore that.

The rates below are the representative figures EECA use to model each distribution region. They show the spread between networks. Your own rate depends on your retailer and plan too. Wellington is the cheapest of them at 21.0c a unit, Dunedin 36.6c, the West Coast 40.5c. That 74 per cent gap is the difference between running a heat pump at 36c an hour and 63c.

Heat pumps are still the cheapest way to heat a room. They move heat instead of generating it, which EECA put at about a quarter the running cost of a bar heater. The regional gap applies on top of that.

The table below is a 6kW unit, the sort that heats a living room. Efficiency is measured as COP, the ratio of heat out to power in, and a modern unit is between 3 and 4. At COP 3.5 that unit draws about 1.7kW, so an hour costs 1.7 times your unit rate.

Read across for the regional gap, down for the efficiency one. Neither swamps the other: the worst case is 81c an hour on the West Coast with a mediocre unit, the best 32c in Wellington with a good one.

What a heat pump adds to the yearly bill

Consumer NZ put a small unit under $200 a year to run and a large one at about $1,000. Where you fall inside that depends on the size of the unit and how much you actually use it.

Heat pump servicing and cleaning costs

Servicing is worth doing, and your power bill is the reason. A dirty filter or coil makes the unit work harder for the same heat, and that shows up quietly on every bill. Nothing breaks, so nothing tells you.

You will be told that skipping a service voids your warranty. Check your own paperwork first. Mitsubishi Electric run five years parts and labour and ask the owner to clean the filters, keep the condensate drain clear and leave both units unobstructed. All three are jobs you can do standing on a chair, and nowhere does the document require an annual professional service. Terms vary by brand, so check yours.

There is no regas price in the table because nobody publishes one. A heat pump is a sealed system: it does not use refrigerant up the way a car uses petrol, so if it is low it has a leak. Get the leak diagnosed and priced as its own job.

Does a heat pump cost more in Auckland than Christchurch?

Not in a way anyone can put a number on. What moves an installed price is the job: the wall you are drilling through, the pipe run, whether the switchboard is up to it, whether anyone needs scaffolding. Two quotes in the same suburb can differ by more than two quotes in different cities.

Running cost is the exception, and there the regional gap is real and large. The difference is in the power price.

• Get three quotes locally. The spread between installers in your own city is wider than any regional average would tell you.
• Give each one the same brief. Same room, same expectations, same pipe run. Otherwise you are comparing different jobs.
• Check the running cost for your own network. A national average hides a 74 per cent gap between the cheapest and dearest main centres.

What changes a heat pump quote

• Supplied and installed, or supply only. Two quotes can differ by thousands on this alone. Settle it before you compare anything else on them.
• Capacity and sizing. Consumer NZ put capacity ahead of every other specification. Undersize it and the unit struggles through a cold snap; oversize it and you pay more upfront for something that then runs less efficiently.
• Pipe run and siting. EECA suggest keeping the outdoor unit within about 15m of the indoor one, with clear airflow either side. Past that, you are paying for both the extra metres and the harder day.
• Retrofit versus new build. The same system costs more going into an existing house than into one still being built. The pipe run, the cabling and often the switchboard all have to work around what is already there, and ducted is where that gap is widest.
• Access, storey and head count. An upstairs room, a tight ceiling cavity, an outdoor unit that has to go somewhere awkward: all labour. On a multi-split the number of indoor heads is what moves the price.
• The electrical work behind the wall. An older switchboard may need upgrading before it can carry the unit. That is restricted work, priced separately, and it is a common reason a quote comes back higher than the neighbour's.

Work out your own heat pump running cost

EECA will model your actual running cost by postcode, across 18 NIWA climate zones and the rates of the four main retailers. The tariff figures on this page come from that same tool. Ours stop at your network's unit rate and a fixed efficiency, which is as far as a static page can honestly go. Your own number also depends on your climate zone, your plan and how many hours you run the thing.

Open EECA's running cost calculator