‘You can walk around in a T-shirt’: how Norway brought heat pumps in from the cold

The Tromsø sorting office of the Norwegian postal service Posten Bring is heated by heat pumps. The city is located almost 140 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty

When Glen Peters bought a heat pump for his home in Oslo he wasn’t thinking about the carbon it would avoid. Convenience played a role; a fireplace was too much of a hassle – the effort of having to buy, prepare and store the wood – and the wall-mounted radiators are too dusty. “They’re a pain in the ass to clean,” said Peters (who is actually a climate scientist).

But the main factor, according to Peters, who had recently swapped to underfloor heating, was money.