Heat pump experiences

[Milzy]

We all thought more people would buy heat pumps. We have warehouses full of them ready to be sold. Maybe at the end of the financial year sales will pick up. Some people are predicting they’ll be a massive fail, government grants or not.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I was talking to the bloke over the road just before

The subject of heat pumps came up and apparently he knows several people who have had them installed

Not one of them has a good word to say about them

 

[presta]

Combi-like behaviour is not required to suit many times. After all, it didn't used to be an option before artificially cheap North Sea Gas.

Presumably the reason heat pumps need such an enormous hot water tank is that if a small one ran out the HP wouldn't produce enough power to reheat it in a sensible time?

 

[Milzy]

Presumably the reason heat pumps need such an enormous hot water tank is that if a small one ran out the HP wouldn't produce enough power to reheat it in a sensible time?

Sounds like it makes sense. Some companies visit manufactures & are not happy with the heat losses. There’s only a few inches of foam around the tank. They want a vacuum jacket over the stainless steel then the insulation foam over the top of that. Too complex for most factories to pull off at the moment.

 

[Gillstay]

https://www.hse.gov.uk/healthservices/legionella.htm

60°C is the safe minimum. If you heat to less, you need a weekly legionella cycle when it gets hot enough to kill any bacteria.

That's for a commercial property.

 

[Gillstay]

I was talking to the bloke over the road just before

The subject of heat pumps came up and apparently he knows several people who have had them installed

Not one of them has a good word to say about them

I am keeping an eye on a fiends newly installed system and its working brilliantly. he installed it as he was concerned over global warming.

 

[Tenkaykev]

The 1950s called and want that heat pump back. Many go hotter now, but few people want their hot water to be a scald danger at the tap and anything above 50 kills Legionella when the tank insulation means it stays that hot for hours. The heating loop is run cooler but that's a sealed system with additives, not something you should be inhaling anyway.

A common misunderstanding! The ASHP controller is left on 24x7, rather than the bad old timeswitches commonly used with overpowered fossil systems, but it will only run the pump continuously when it's below the design temperature (-3°c is common) for a prolonged time and that's rare. Even then, it is possible to boost heat if needed, it just costs more. It's not as quick to lift the temperature as an oversize combi but that's massively inefficient all the time anyway.


Our oil heating used to be on maybe 2 hours mornings and 3 or 4 evenings. The ASHP controller doing what it wants all day is cheaper and we almost never have to think about pressing buttons.

I was talking to the bloke over the road just before

The subject of heat pumps came up and apparently he knows several people who have had them installed

Not one of them has a good word to say about them

My second cousin twice removed was talking to a bloke in the pub who said he'd heard that heat pumps don't work. Evidently all the people in the Scandinavian countries who've had them for decades were only imagining that they worked and had actually frozen to death without realising it.

 

[Milzy]

My second cousin twice removed was talking to a bloke in the pub who said he'd heard that heat pumps don't work. Evidently all the people in the Scandinavian countries who've had them for decades were only imagining that they worked and had actually frozen to death without realising it.

There is hope then. Unemployment will go up along with the cost of living. How do we get the common people to buy heat pumps? The government have relaxed their plans to phase out gas/combi boilers. I fear the worst.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

My second cousin twice removed was talking to a bloke in the pub who said he'd heard that heat pumps don't work. Evidently all the people in the Scandinavian countries who've had them for decades were only imagining that they worked and had actually frozen to death without realising it.

They clearly work
If the house is suitable and the system is appropriate for the house

A lot in this country are not well enough insulated and a lot of system have been installed badly or were not the right ones for that house

or that is what I have read

 

[rogerzilla]

That's for a commercial property.

I'm sure the bacterium knows and respects the difference!

 

[dicko]

Before considering a heat pump the insulation must be up to scratch and hor the majority of British housing there’s much to do. Triple glazing, that’s going to be very expensive £15,000. Loft insulation £2,000. Cavity wall insulation, if you have a cavity, £2500, and if no cavity £25,000 for external cladding insulation. Now you are ready for the heat pump but if like most people with a Combination Boiler your going to need proper heat retaining insulated storage which is going to be very expensive plus the heat pump itself. This is possibly why the heat pumps aren’t disappearing off the shelves.
On a happier note Lincolnshire is sitting on a huge Natural Gas field it would make sense to utilise this bringing wealth, prosperity and employment to a needy area of Britain. I rest my case.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Before considering a heat pump the insulation must be up to scratch and hor the majority of British housing there’s much to do. Triple glazing, that’s going to be very expensive £15,000. Loft insulation £2,000. Cavity wall insulation, if you have a cavity, £2500, and if no cavity £25,000 for external cladding insulation. Now you are ready for the heat pump but if like most people with a Combination Boiler your going to need proper heat retaining insulated storage which is going to be very expensive plus the heat pump itself. This is possibly why the heat pumps aren’t disappearing off the shelves.
On a happier note Lincolnshire is sitting on a huge Natural Gas field it would make sense to utilise this bringing wealth, prosperity and employment to a needy area of Britain. I rest my case.

It is not only the insulation
It is also checking the insulation

Our house was built with cavity wall insulation in the 1980s (or so)

but the standard was not that good
They use small polystyrene balls - and apparently they were supposed to include a light glue so when the balls settled they stuck together
but a lot of builder saved money and effort by not using the glue
when a house round here has a hole of any size drilling in the wall it looks like a Christmas card - snow all over the place

and many years ago, when people first replaced the windows for double glazing - then every time the whole area around the house was covered in the stuff

so a lot of the insulation has just come out

so before it can be relied on you really need some kind of assessment of what is remaining and how good it is

and I can find no reliable company locally that offers to do it
apparently some counsels have a scheme where you can hire an IR camera and you can use it to see the heat radiating from you house
but I have also read that it really needs some training to do it properly

which is another cost - plus fixing the results

it is all a bag of worms - and the adverts and stuff on the telly make it seem all so simple
which makes me suspicious

I wouldn;t spend a significant amount of money on it without a proper written guarantee backed up by something solid

 

[dicko]

It is not only the insulation
It is also checking the insulation

Our house was built with cavity wall insulation in the 1980s (or so)

but the standard was not that good
They use small polystyrene balls - and apparently they were supposed to include a light glue so when the balls settled they stuck together
but a lot of builder saved money and effort by not using the glue
when a house round here has a hole of any size drilling in the wall it looks like a Christmas card - snow all over the place

and many years ago, when people first replaced the windows for double glazing - then every time the whole area around the house was covered in the stuff

so a lot of the insulation has just come out

so before it can be relied on you really need some kind of assessment of what is remaining and how good it is

and I can find no reliable company locally that offers to do it
apparently some counsels have a scheme where you can hire an IR camera and you can use it to see the heat radiating from you house
but I have also read that it really needs some training to do it properly

which is another cost - plus fixing the results

it is all a bag of worms - and the adverts and stuff on the telly make it seem all so simple
which makes me suspicious

I wouldn;t spend a significant amount of money on it without a proper written guarantee backed up by something solid

Our cavity wall insulation (installed 2017) on our home built mid 80s is a feather type insulation installed by a private recommended installer not one of these nation wide companies. He charged me £1k and also did my loft too exceeding the recommended depth (we never open our loft).

 

[Drago]

Before considering a heat pump the insulation must be up to scratch and hor the majority of British housing there’s much to do. Triple glazing, that’s going to be very expensive £15,000. Loft insulation £2,000. Cavity wall insulation, if you have a cavity, £2500, and if no cavity £25,000 for external cladding insulation. Now you are ready for the heat pump but if like most people with a Combination Boiler your going to need proper heat retaining insulated storage which is going to be very expensive plus the heat pump itself. This is possibly why the heat pumps aren’t disappearing off the shelves.
On a happier note Lincolnshire is sitting on a huge Natural Gas field it would make sense to utilise this bringing wealth, prosperity and employment to a needy area of Britain. I rest my case.

When we had ours fitted at the olde gaff I did the loft insulation myself.

It wasn't expensive or difficult, less than £200, and being a bungalow had a larger loft footprint than a house with the same number of bedrooms.

Anyone paying 2 large for loft insulation is gullible, owns Wembley stadium, or a very heavy tipper.

 

[Tenkaykev]

They clearly work
If the house is suitable and the system is appropriate for the house

A lot in this country are not well enough insulated and a lot of system have been installed badly or were not the right ones for that house

or that is what I have read

Octopus are now offering a " turbo " install " option which is basically just swapping the gas boiler for a heat pump and leaving all the existing pipe work and radiators as is. Runs at 55 degrees so not quite as efficient as running at a lower temperature through larger radiators but still vastly more efficient than a gas boiler.