15/02/2026
As a heat pump installer, we absolutely loved watching Guy Martin: The World’s First House Without Bills 👏
Seeing Guy Martin dive head-first into the reality of building a genuinely low-energy home was refreshing. The programme didn’t sugarcoat the challenges — it showed the planning, the problem-solving, the costs, and most importantly, the long-term thinking behind creating a home that dramatically reduces running bills.
From a heat pump installer’s perspective, it was fantastic to see renewable technology showcased properly — not as a gimmick, but as part of a carefully designed, well-insulated, airtight system. Because that’s the key. Heat pumps perform at their best when the whole house is designed to work with them.
Too often we’re called in after the fact, when insulation or system design hasn’t been fully considered. This programme helped show the bigger picture — fabric first, smart design, then efficient heating. That’s how you get close to “no bills.”
Massive respect to Guy and the team for bringing this conversation to prime-time TV. The more people understand how these systems really work, the better decisions they can make for their homes and the planet. 🌍
More programmes like this, please.
Lots of folk have been asking for more info after watching the House Without Bills programme link in comments to watch on demand, so the team behind the show put together some useful links and got a word from Guy about it all.
1) Help with actually paying energy bills:
“First port of call should be Citizens Advice, they’re helping people every day of the week.” https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/energy/energy-supply/problems-with-your-energy-bill/energy-bill-too-high/
“Apparently this lot are useful too: National Energy Action.” https://www.nea.org.uk/get-help/
2) Stuff you can do to your house:
“Sort your insulation, sort your draught-proofing, make sure you keep an eye on ventilation, then you can think about upgrading windows and doors. Passive House standards are the ultimate, but you don’t have to go that far, just use them as guidance. We had amazing success with cheap methods like old fashioned draught excluders and heavy, thermal curtains, and the German thing of Stoßlüften – basically opening your windows for a bit is a regular thing round our house now.”
Energy Savings Trust is a trusted source of upgrade info who have payback/savings info too: https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/top-energy-saving-ideas-for-your-home-improvement-project/
Citizens Advice have some thoughts as well, a bit more slanted towards how you live rather than what you fit: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/energy/energy-supply/save-energy-at-home/make-sure-your-home-is-energy-efficient/
3) Passive House
“Gold standard, no question. I had a massive chat to the inventor, Dr Feist over in Germany. He’s like the Einstein of energy efficient homes and I love that the bloke behind the system is a physicist, not a builder. I could bore you to tears about what we chatted about – Arctic ships, nuclear fusion, Chinese caves, apparently it was all too long to fit in the programme. Anyway, Passive House retrofit can be bloody expensive but you can always look at doing one room at a time, or one thing at a time, like insulation one year and windows the next. But to be honest, any sort of retrofit can be expensive, Passive House or not.” https://www.passivhaustrust.org.uk/ - “they helped us loads” and are a good source of info.
https://www.progressinpractice.co.uk/ - Hannah the architect of the Stretford project, “dead, dead knowledgeable, learnt a load talking to her behind the scenes”.
https://passivhaus.uk/directory/myzsa-group/ - Josh was the builder at Stretford, “…sound lad. Learnt his trade from his dad, who in the 80s went to find work in Germany, like in Auf
Wiedersehen, Pet. He saw that German standards were a million years ahead of British standards and brought some of that mentality back with him”.
https://retrofitwindows.co.uk/ - “I worked with these boys to fit some triple glazing at Stretford. Black Country precision engineers, brilliant.”
https://pycgroup.co.uk/ - “Blink and you miss ‘em in the programme but really impressive recycled newspaper insulation outfit. Think they do timber-framed buildings as well.”
4) Hardware
“A house can’t make its own gas, but it can make its own electric with solar and batteries, and a few of us who work on the telly stuff have gone down that route and are well into it. There’s more schemes coming to make them affordable so that’s good news.”
Heat pumps – the programme showed how it’s critical you get them designed and fitted correctly. “I helped out Phil and his son Keaton from https://pclnetzero.com/ to install a Vaillant pump at Stretford. Brilliant tradesmen and very confidence inspiring, Phil said more pumps are fitted badly than fitted well so be careful.”
Everybody’s house is different so it’s hard to say with confidence if a heat pump will save you money – do your research at places like the get a heat pump website, or go and talk to an owner who is actually using one at Visit a Heat Pump.
That’s it, a bit of public service broadcasting for us all, hope it helps. Ta for watching.
