I went to a fab presentation last year by the architect Gokay Devici. He's based in Aberdeen and developed the zero heat house. I'm sure he said something along the lines that basically 1 foot of insulation means that you dont need to turn the heating on until its -1 deg C outside.
Good info on the zero heat house can be found herein the
techy doc from insulation co and here on
page 15
Good luck with your project. We looked at GSHP - you're talking £11-14K to fit and you may want a back up. We ended up going for oil

and a really efficient boiler for now for our underfloor heating downstairs - we'll put a woodburner upstairs when we get round to it.