Heating With Your Air Conditioner: The European Air-to-Air Heat Pump Guide (2026)

A 10-chapter guide you read online or print, with a heating-cost spreadsheet, for households in Europe heating, or thinking of heating, with an air-to-air heat pump (a reversible air conditioner).

• 10chapters
• 22worksheets and tables
• 8checklist items
• 7official sources cited

Checked before every release

• 54automated testsrun at every release: prices, links, pages and data checked before publication.
• 7primary sourcesevery rule and number linked to the official text, for you to open.
• October 22, 2026editionrules and numbers checked on this date, updated when a text changes.

Built from the texts and data of EUR-Lex, Commission européenne (Eurostat), GOV.UK.

Most reversible air conditioners sold in Europe are air-to-air heat pumps. Whether they give you cheap heat depends on one thing the label cannot know: the price of electricity and gas where you live, which varies by a factor of three or more across Europe. This guide gives you the answer for your country, then everything that decides whether the heat pump keeps you warm on the coldest days.

Every figure is official and dated (Eurostat household electricity and gas prices for the second half of 2025, heating degree days, EU Regulations 626/2011, 206/2012 and 813/2013) so you can check it. We do not install, sell heat pumps or recommend installers: the guide is on your side.

NewClaude AC · Printable guideHeating guide10 chapters · 2026

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• 10 chapters (about 6,000 words): cost of heat by country, your own calculation, five households calculated, the label and the cold-weather figures, the hours that decide your bill, sizing for winter, one outdoor unit or several, installation, settings and defrost, subsidies and the decision
• 22 worksheets and reference tables, including the cost of a kWh of heat with gas, radiators and a heat pump in 29 countries (Eurostat) and a three-model comparison of cold-weather figures
• One spreadsheet (CSV: Excel, Numbers, Google Sheets): your heating-cost forecast

Instant access: right after payment your guide opens in your browser; print it or save it as a PDF. €24, paid once, no subscription.

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What you get

• The cost of a kWh of heat in 29 countries: gas boiler, electric radiators and heat pumps at SCOP 3.8 and 4.6, from Eurostat prices, with the one-line rule that tells you which is cheaper.
• Your own forecast from your bills, and five households calculated (Italy, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, and Romania, where it does not pay).
• The hours that decide your bill: the reference heating seasons of the EU label read hour by hour, and what they mean for COP and capacity.
• The label and the product fiche for heating: the three heating seasons, Tbiv, Tol, capacity at −7 °C, and a comparison sheet.
• Sizing for winter with the label’s own equivalent hours, and the rules of thumb that matter.
• Installation choices that decide winter performance: indoor unit type, defrost water, snow, noise at night, and the installer questions.
• Settings and what is normal in winter (defrost, steam, pauses), and the upkeep.
• Subsidies we verified (England and Wales, France) and a decision sheet.

In pictures

Illustrative photos, published by their authors under free licences.

Who it is for

• Households in Europe who already have a reversible air conditioner (an air-to-air heat pump) and want to know whether to heat with it, and how to do it well
• Households heating with gas, oil or electric radiators who are considering air-to-air heat pumps to cut heating costs
• Anyone comparing heat pump offers who wants to read the SCOP, the cold-weather capacity and the operating limit before signing

Contents

1. What a kilowatt-hour of heat costs in your country free below
2. Your own calculation, with your bills
3. Five households, calculated
4. Reading the label and the product fiche for heating
5. How cold is cold: the hours that decide your bill
6. Sizing for winter
7. One outdoor unit or several
8. Installation choices that decide winter performance
9. Running it for comfort and low bills
10. Subsidies, contracts and the decision

In the paid chapters: 8 checkpoints to tick, and 22 worksheets or tables across the guide, each based on the rule or data it cites.

Introduction

Most reversible air conditioners sold in Europe are air-to-air heat pumps. In heating mode they move heat from the outdoor air into the room, and on the EU label they are rated on a seasonal coefficient of performance (SCOP): a SCOP of 4 means four kilowatt-hours of heat for one kilowatt-hour of electricity over a standard heating season. Whether that is cheap or expensive heat depends on one thing the label cannot know: the price of electricity and gas where you live. That price varies by a factor of three or more across Europe, and so does the answer.

This guide gives you the answer for your country, with official prices, and the method to redo it with your own bills. It then covers what decides whether an air-to-air heat pump keeps you warm on the coldest days (sizing, the cold-weather figures on the product fiche, defrost, placement) and how to run it for comfort and low bills.

How to use it: start with chapter 1 to see where your country stands. Chapter 2 does the same with your own bills, and chapter 3 shows five households calculated. If you are buying, read chapters 4 to 8 before asking for quotes. If you already own a reversible split, go to chapters 5 and 9. Print it (Ctrl+P or Cmd+P, then "Save as PDF", or print on paper). The cost calculation is also on your access page as a spreadsheet.

The figures are official and dated: household electricity prices (dataset nrg_pc_204) and household gas prices (nrg_pc_202) for the second half of 2025, and heating degree days for 2016 to 2025 (nrg_chdd_a), all from Eurostat, read on October 21, 2026; seasonal performance classes and heating seasons from Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 626/2011; minimum performance from Commission Regulation (EU) No 206/2012; the minimum seasonal efficiency of new gas boilers from Commission Regulation (EU) No 813/2013. The cost-per-kWh-of-heat columns are our calculation from those figures, with every assumption stated.

Chapter 1: What a kilowatt-hour of heat costs in your country

Comparing heating systems on the price of a kWh of electricity or gas is misleading: what you buy is heat. The fair comparison is the cost of one kilowatt-hour of heat delivered to the room:

• Gas boiler: gas price ÷ boiler efficiency.
• Electric radiators: electricity price ÷ 1 (every kWh of electricity becomes a kWh of heat).
• Air-to-air heat pump: electricity price ÷ SCOP.

The assumptions behind the table

• Gas boiler at 86 %: the minimum seasonal space-heating efficiency the EU has required of new gas boilers up to 70 kW since September 2015 (Regulation 813/2013, Annex II). Older boilers often do worse, which makes the heat pump look better; a well-tuned condensing boiler may do a little better.
• Heat pump at SCOP 3.8: the legal minimum SCOP (average heating season) for a split under 6 kW using a refrigerant with a global warming potential above 150, such as R-32 (Regulation 206/2012, Annex I). Every split on sale reaches it.
• Heat pump at SCOP 4.6: the threshold of class A++ in heating (Regulation 626/2011), a common level for good current models.
• Prices: Eurostat averages for households (electricity: 2,500 to 4,999 kWh a year; gas: 20 to 199 GJ a year), all taxes and levies included, second half of 2025. They include network charges spread over the kWh. Eurostat does not publish gas prices for every country.
• Heating degree days: Eurostat's 2016 to 2025 average; the higher the figure, the colder and longer the heating season (EU average 2,932).

Cost of one kWh of heat, second half of 2025

What the table says

• Against electric radiators, the heat pump wins everywhere, by a factor equal to its SCOP: at SCOP 3.8, a kWh of heat costs about a quarter of what a radiator costs. If you heat with radiators or electric storage heaters, this is the biggest saving in this guide.
• Against gas, it depends on the ratio between your electricity and gas prices. In almost every country with a published gas price, the heat pump at SCOP 3.8 already delivers cheaper heat than an 86 % gas boiler, often by a wide margin (Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Portugal, Germany). In Belgium the two are close (€0.092 against €0.104). Romania is the exception: there, gas heat is cheaper than a heat pump at SCOP 3.8 (€0.066 against €0.076) and only marginally dearer than one at SCOP 4.6 (€0.063).
• The rule of thumb behind it: the heat pump beats the gas boiler when the electricity price divided by the gas price is lower than SCOP ÷ 0.86. At SCOP 3.8 that ratio is about 4.4; at SCOP 4.6, about 5.3. Divide your own two prices and you know your answer.

The UK and Switzerland

Eurostat no longer publishes UK prices, and publishes no Swiss household prices in these datasets. Use the unit rates on your bills and the formula above (the UK's ten-year heating degree days average is 2,868 and Switzerland's 3,571, both from Eurostat).

Frequently asked questions

How do I receive the guide?

Right after payment you are taken to your guide page, with the spreadsheet to download. Bookmark it: the link stays valid and always shows the latest version. To keep a PDF, save it from your browser (Ctrl+P or Cmd+P, then "Save as PDF"): the layout is made for printing. Stripe emails you the receipt, and "Find my purchases" at the bottom of every page sends the link again.

Is VAT included? Is it a subscription?

€24 is the total you pay, VAT included, once. There is no subscription and nothing is charged later. Your card details go to Stripe and never reach us.

Is this about air-to-water heat pumps?

No. It covers air-to-air heat pumps, which is what a reversible split or multi-split air conditioner is: they heat the air of the rooms that have an indoor unit and do not make hot water. Air-to-water systems (radiators, underfloor heating, hot water cylinder) are a different purchase.

Does it work for the UK or Switzerland?

Yes for everything except the Eurostat price table, which does not cover them: you use the unit rates on your bills with the same formula. The UK grant for air-to-air heat pumps (Boiler Upgrade Scheme, England and Wales) is covered.

What is the guarantee?

The guide is guaranteed as described: if it does not open or contains an error, we fix it, and if we cannot, we refund you in full (refund policy in the terms of sale). Write to admin@tech-bharat.com. A duplicate payment is always refunded.

Free guides on the same topic

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• Heating with your air conditioner through a European winter
• Cooling with heat pumps: Europe’s accidental air conditioning
• Grants for air conditioning in Europe: what actually qualifies
• What air conditioning really costs to run in Europe

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