Heat pump experiences

[tyred]

I have one in my new flat and I am very happy with it it. It is a Grant heat pump. I've set it to 18C which is warm enough for me and haven't really done anything else. I always have loads of hot water. It just does it's thing.

Even after a cold December I estimate it is costing about a third of what it cost to heat my previous flat in gas which was also a reasonably recent build with good insulation. (I don't know what gas costs any more but assume it has gone up by a similar factor to my electricity tariff.) it is also nice and quiet. My previous gas boiler was very noisy.

 

[gzoom]

Ive had ground source heat pump on our old house for 18 years worked fine-albeit noisy being an early design.

Our building works is literally about to start. The current quote included gas boiler+unvented cylinder.

We have the land needed for a ground sourced heat pump but I suspect it'll add £20k to the bill (already far too high).

I'm going to wait and see how the costing looks once we are at 1st fix. I presume there aren't many UK companies familiar with domestic installs for ground source heat pumps?

 

[Milzy]

I have one in my new flat and I am very happy with it it. It is a Grant heat pump. I've set it to 18C which is warm enough for me and haven't really done anything else. I always have loads of hot water. It just does it's thing.

Even after a cold December I estimate it is costing about a third of what it cost to heat my previous flat in gas which was also a reasonably recent build with good insulation. (I don't know what gas costs any more but assume it has gone up by a similar factor to my electricity tariff.) it is also nice and quiet. My previous gas boiler was very noisy.

Excellent, we make stuff for Grants.

 

[bikingdad90]

@gzoom, it might be worth looking at a thing called carbon offsetting which is where companies pay money towards offsetting their carbon emissions by decarbonising a property and get a tax credit in their books in return.

The other way to bring the install cost down, if you get a tariff it’s often signed over to the firm for 10 years and they pay for your install.

 

[CXRAndy]

Our building works is literally about to start. The current quote included gas boiler+unvented cylinder.

We have the land needed for a ground sourced heat pump but I suspect it'll add £20k to the bill (already far too high).

I'm going to wait and see how the costing looks once we are at 1st fix. I presume there aren't many UK companies familiar with domestic installs for ground source heat pumps?

There are many doing renewable installs. The issue is do your research on which systems work for you, dont be swayed by companies pushing only their products. If you have a newbuild I would go with airsource personally- just for convenience. A point to note you need to have the outside compressor unit away from the main house. Its not that they are noisy, but blow really cold air when running. I positioned mine behind the garage and had around a 20 metre run of insulated pipes back to the house. Also your plant room doesn't have to be massive probably the size of taking 2* 300 litres hot water tanks (1.5*1.5metres*2.4m high).

The COP-coefficient of performance between ground source and airsource isnt that great a difference. Also now you can get high output airsource units so can have radiators traditionally hot.


If you're building a newbuild, think about an MHVR system-(self installed, quite simple). This will distribute air to all rooms balancing out variations. I went around every room in my newbuild before it was occupied, each room was within 1 deg C in every part of the room, corners, near the floor or roof. The gentle movement of air kept everything even temperature. I even extracted the warm air from the water tank/buffer tank cupboard into the landing, then the air was taken up and used to warm the filtered incoming air on the MHVR I used this company for the MHVR BPC

 

[Jenkins]

Any more recent experiences with heat pumps that anyone can share?

For context I'm having solar panels & battery storage installed next week and wondering whether to move over to a heat pump next year to replace the gas central heating. As someone that doesn't need the house heated to t-shirt wearing temperature all day and has an electric shower so doesn't need masses of hot water would it make sense? Just had a quick look at Octopus (who I'm with anyway) and, given their quote and that I'll need a solar diverter (I think that's what was shown), a guestimated cost of around £1,500 with the grant taken into account is what I'm looking at.

 

[iandg]

Ours works fine. No mains gas here so had to choose between oil or bottled gas. Keeping house at 19 to 20C for less than £5/day. A cottage renovation so had the place insulated during the work

 

[tyred]

I'm still a satisfied user after three years. I understand the principles of how they work, but know very little else as I've never had any reason to mess around with it. A service cost a very reasonable €80.

I replaced the insulation on the external pipework as the two twits that were working on my balcony had damaged it. I took the opportunity to use better insulation, although it's impossible to really know if it will make any difference to bills as there are too many variables.

 

[mjr]

Someone local has had one installed , I shall maybe ask next time I see them . If I was building a brand new house now , I’d install one as the insulation would be n spec for it ! Think it needs partnered with UFH as well . However current gas CH will have to do for now. They might work well together with a gas boiler ? Some new builds have similar ? Key thing is insulation !!

Not exactly. Insulation helps all heating systems. The key things with a heat pump are to get the right size (as they will struggle if you get too small, but cycle and trash performance if you get too big) and to fit the best controls you can (not a dumb timeswitch and thermostat). We've had our Mitsubishi 3 years now and it beats the oil system it replaced hands down on all fronts: comfort, cost, air quality, noise...

 

[OldShep]

The success of any system, especially heat pump, is very much down to the installer. I recently discovered this site https://heatpumpmonitor.org/ which is a fascinating insight into the best installations. I’d be happy for any of those top installers to do my system and very wary of everyone else.

 

[cougie uk]

Apparently my new boiler was installed 22 years ago so not as new as I remember it to be.
I shall be keeping an eye on the ASHP news as I'm sure that's the way to go for the future.
Apparently the grant is here until 2028 anyway.

 

[Drago]

Had it in the old house, had no problem keeping warm. Had to have two radiators replaced with bigger ones but otherwise installation was painless. It worked well and was relatively economical, particularly with 5kW solar, but required a different approach to using it.

Conversely, the new Chez Drago is one of the last built here with gas heating (and it's a modern, very frugal system to use so no complaints s a consumer) and the later houses are heat pump equipped. Sadly the word is not good among residents about either reliability, efficiency or effectiveness. Whether that's poor installation,poor system design, or both, I couldn't say.

 

[Milzy]

Any more recent experiences with heat pumps that anyone can share?

For context I'm having solar panels & battery storage installed next week and wondering whether to move over to a heat pump next year to replace the gas central heating. As someone that doesn't need the house heated to t-shirt wearing temperature all day and has an electric shower so doesn't need masses of hot water would it make sense? Just had a quick look at Octopus (who I'm with anyway) and, given their quote and that I'll need a solar diverter (I think that's what was shown), a guestimated cost of around £1,500 with the grant taken into account is what I'm looking at.

Buy a Joule heat pump.

 

[Illaveago]

I have heard of someone who had their system taken out and replaced by an oil fired heating system as it was just too costly to run.

 

[deuxfois]

I have heard of someone who had their system taken out and replaced by an oil fired heating sys