He is right I was thinking of putting in a heat pump - might get £5k for free now - or more likely the quote will balloon up by £5k.
You need a well insulated and air tight house - old homes need not apply.
I've seen it retrofitted to old homes and it work ok, girl at work has an old 1908 ex farm house, gutted it when she bought it, and put 6 inches of insulation on each external wall on the inside (house is grade 2). They managed to get triple glazing and it has 2 acres of land so they dug it up and laid ground source heating.
The house never had gas, and they got the heat pump with a green deal grant they were doing years ago.
Anyway it's a 4 bed detached house although quite large, and they pay £250 per month (average) for their electric bill.
When they have the heat pump serviced there is only a very few firms locally that do domestic air source pumps, and it costs them £400 per time, needless to say they've had the system for close to 10 years now and they've serviced it twice, both times only because it broke down.
They have to heat there hot water via immersion, and they have electric shower.
It cost them around 10k at the time to install it and they dig it all out and laid the pipes themselves.
I'm sure if they stuck to having an oil burner it would have been cheaper and easier, but they can sit there smugly and say they do their bit....
She says the house is always warm but in the winter the gshp is on virtually constantly.