The same warm tub,
using less energy.
Every Garden Hub tub ships with a quality electric heater built in. That's all you need to enjoy it from day one. A heat pump is an optional upgrade that uses roughly a quarter of the electricity for the same heat, and pairs neatly with the heater you already have.
Your tub's electric heater works beautifully on its own. A heat pump just lets it do the same job with far less energy , for years.
The electric heater fitted to every hot tub is honest, simple and reliable: one kilowatt-hour in, one kilowatt-hour of heat out. Tens of thousands of tubs run perfectly happily on theirs alone. It's the standard for a reason.
A heat pump is closer to four-to-one. It uses a small amount of electricity to move heat that already exists in the outside air into your water. Same warm tub, much less energy. The technology is the same as your fridge, run in reverse.
A quarter of the energy,
same warm tub.
Your tub uses energy whatever you do. Heat is heat. A pump just lets it use roughly a quarter as much. The bigger the tub and the more you use it, the more meaningful the difference.
Less electricity drawn from the grid for the same amount of heat in your water
Heat delivered per unit of electricity used (COP) at mild UK temperatures
How small the temperature drift is overnight when the pump trickle-heats vs cycles on/off
Working life of a quality inverter pump; savings keep compounding the whole time
- Built into every Garden Hub tub; nothing extra to install
- Reliable, well-proven hardware with a long service life
- Always there as a fast top-up, even after a pump is added
- Fine for moderate, year-round household use
- Roughly a quarter of the electricity for the same heat
- A much smaller carbon footprint over the tub's life
- Inverter pumps stay efficient down to UK winter temperatures
- Discounted bundle price when added with your hot tub
Figures show electricity drawn vs heat delivered, at mild ambient. Real-world ratio varies with weather and use.
A fridge,
run in reverse.
A heat pump doesn't generate heat. It moves heat that's already there. That distinction is the entire reason it's three or four times more efficient than a resistive electric element, and why the maths works out the way it does.
-
01
Pull air across the coil
A quiet fan draws outside air through a refrigerant-filled coil. Even at 0 °C, that air carries a remarkable amount of usable thermal energy.
-
02
Compress the refrigerant
An inverter compressor pressurises the refrigerant; the same step that happens inside a fridge, just running in the opposite direction. Pressure equals heat.
-
03
Hand the heat to the water
The hot refrigerant passes through a titanium heat exchanger. Your tub's water flows past it on the other side and warms by 3–5 °C per pass.
-
04
Send the cold air back out
The now-cooled refrigerant cycles back to the start, and slightly cooler air leaves the back of the unit. The cycle repeats until your set point is reached.
Efficiency is
only the start.
The energy maths is the obvious win, but six other things change the day a heat pump goes on the wall. Some of them, you'll notice on the first evening.
A fraction of the carbon footprint
With grid electricity getting cleaner every year, a heat pump's already-low carbon profile keeps falling. On a 100% renewable tariff, the running emissions are essentially zero.
Quieter than a kitchen extractor
Modern inverter pumps run between 36 and 48 dB at one metre, barely audible from the patio, and a long way from the on-off thump of older fixed-speed units.
Steadier water temperature
Inverter pumps trickle heat in continuously instead of cycling on and off, which means the water stays within a degree of your set point all day rather than drifting up and down.
Reverse-cycle cooling in summer
Most of our pumps run in reverse on the hottest days, pulling heat out of the water, so a 38 °C August tub becomes a 28 °C plunge. One unit, two seasons.
Less wear on the tub heater
When the heat pump does the heavy lifting, the tub's built-in element only kicks in occasionally as a top-up. That doubles the realistic life of the original heater.
Schedule it from your phone
Wi-Fi enabled units (5 kW and up) let you pre-warm the tub from the train home, dial back overnight, and track energy use in real time through the manufacturer app.
Half a morning,
same crew, same day.
The pump sits outside, next to the tub. It plugs into a standard 13 A outdoor socket, and a pair of flexible hoses connect it to your tub's existing pipework. So it doesn't need its own water supply or its own electrical circuit. We fit it alongside the tub on delivery day.
The pump sits outside the tub's equipment bay, hoses tucked behind. No trenching, no buried pipe.
- Power
- Standard 13 A outdoor socket, same as a garden lawnmower. No new circuit, no electrician callback.
- Footprint
- Roughly 80 × 35 cm of floor or paving, placed within 3 m of the tub for the supplied hose run.
- Airflow
- Clear 30 cm at the back, 60 cm at the front. Walls and fences are fine; tight corners aren't.
- Plumbing
- Two flexible hoses run from the pump into the tub's existing equipment bay; no permanent pipework.
- Drainage
- A small condensate drip in winter. We position the unit so it runs onto a flowerbed or gravel, not the patio.
Will it work
with my tub?
Heat pumps connect to the hot tub's existing pipework. They don't need their own water supply. Almost any modern 230 V tub is a candidate, and every Garden Hub tub is shipped pre-plumbed for one.
The questions we get
before every install.
/01 Does the heat pump replace the tub's built-in heater, or work alongside it?
/02 Does it have its own water supply?
/03 Does it have its own power supply?
/04 How loud is a hot tub heat pump?
/05 Will it still work in winter?
/06 Can I retrofit a heat pump to a hot tub I already own?
/07 Does a hot tub heat pump need servicing?
A heavy discount on the pump.
A long, quiet payoff after.
Add a heat pump at checkout for the bundle price. Installed alongside your hot tub on the same delivery; same crew, same morning.