Electric combi boilers / solar panels / eco heating solutions

I think it’s a compressed tank that keeps constant pressure no matter how many taps / showers are using water. It’s noisy. Not unbearable outside basically right where my daughter sleeps.

Prices have not come down round here. Joju quoted so much they clearly don’t want the job. A local firm quoted for 6 panels plus powerwall at £15k. Octopus solar was cheapest (generic) quote so far at £11k for 8 panels and 9.5 battery. I know 8 won’t fit, and they don’t have a grid backup battery option yet. Still too much when savings are likely to be about £500/year.
This tool was v helpful, lots of tweaks available - https://www.photonik.solar/savings-calculator

Octopus solar was cheapest (generic) quote so far at £11k for 8 panels and 9.5 battery.

Sounds expensive. I paid that for 16 panels and a 7.2 kWh battery. Including pigeon proofing.

Had a play with the photonik website, says will cost £30k and pay back in 17 years......

Yeah all quotes feel expensive to me. I really want to get solar, battery would be nice (love the power cut backup aspect), but the numbers just don’t add up.

Not sure how accurate it is, but it feels about right. I’ve calculated the saving I could make previously and came up with the same as photonik did.

Very few systems actually truly solve blackouts. Most just have a single socket.

Yeah thanks, I’m aware that lots don’t do full backup. My dad’s got a Powerwall which does and the new Givenergy AIO 13.5kWh battery also does full backup. Can’t see the point without that personally. We might not have frequent power cuts, but the 1 or 2 a year we do have, with a battery that we couldn’t use would drive me crazy.

The point of a battery is to balance usable solar generation throughout the day to reduce return to grid.

Ideally lower cost batteries will someday have the output to deliver blackout backup but there’s very little point paying all that extra money today if you’re more interested in payback.

Solar ordered / deposit paid - potentially installed before Christmas but likely early Jan

Heat pump booked in for end of Feb

Exciting times. Looking forward to working out how best to measure / track performance and adapting all my usage to make the best of what we've gone for.

Pressed go for ASHP installation as part of house extension. Getting Vaillant unit. Very hyped.

Has anyone here got a MVHR system in their house? We’re considering getting one installed as part of the building works, it’s now or never as all the floors, ceilings and walls are open.

Don’t have it but would have if we had the cash and space. Get a heat recovery system for your shower water while you’re at it

Also who’s doing the ASHP design & install? Make sure they know their onions. Ours works but could have been more optimised had the installer cared & I had had six more months of research to become the ASHP expert I am today 🥴

A friend who runs a small eco heating company is doing it. He’s been in the game a while, and did the Grand Designs ‘healthy house’ MVHR/ASHP install, so I trust it’ll be done properly.

What are the shortcomings with your install?

That sounds ideal. One easy tip (which they’ll design for anyway but worth looking out for) is to spec the rads / UFH for a max temp of 45 maybe, rather than 50 like ours. Also have a look at Homely. I installed it myself and I like it, although I think the Vaillant controls are way better than our Samsung so might not be worth it. You’ll also have a pro to come back and tweak it.

Ours is fine but the installers (now bust) only set up to take advantage of the grant so weren’t invested in designing the best possible system. Rads could be bigger, pipe runs a bit more optimised, could almost certainly ditch the low loss header or buffer.

All that said it does work and seems to be surprisingly cheap to run. Doesn’t have to work too hard as there’s only two of us and the house is quite well insulated, but on Agile Octopus and the Homely optimised to use the cheapest electricity prices (we got paid a few pence to heat our house the other night) it’s only like £60 a month for heating, hot water and all other elec. We’ll see when a couple of weeks of sub zero comes along in Jan.

All that said it does work and seems to be surprisingly cheap to run. Doesn’t have to work too hard as there’s only two of us and the house is quite well insulated, but on Agile Octopus and the Homely optimised to use the cheapest electricity prices (we got paid a few pence to heat our house the other night) it’s only like £60 a month for heating, hot water and all other elec. We’ll see when a couple of weeks of sub zero comes along in Jan.

Not in a house, but in a flat that we lived in for 3 years. They're really fantastic, it makes drying laundry an absolute dream, without using a tumble dryer or a dehumidifier. The only downside we ever noticed is that house plants mostly tended to get quite unhappy as the air is so dry.

Very broad question, but what is the approx cost of ASHP installation? We'll be looking to deprecate a split system for the house, partly run on oil and another partly run on a gas powered Rayburn which somehow heats radiators, fuck knows how as we haven't moved in yet.

I have no idea how much any of the removal and installation may cost but any ball park guesses would be great!

Octopus have a good quotation service that gives rough estimates. Bear in mind the current £7.5k grant for heat pump installs on offer by the govt (boiler upgrade scheme) and any other grants you may be able to take advantage of to improve efficiency ratings depending where you’re buying (eg Scotland has done the England don’t).

Also worth checking if the house is suitable. AFAIK if it’s rated EPC B or lower, or has advisories for loft/cavity wall insulation then that limits some of the grants you can get for ASHP and you may be better upgrading the insulation first, then heating second.

Yep, I've paid to have an MVHR installed in a Passivhaus:
Zehnder ComfoAir Q 350, external designer, rigid ducting, non-radial.
Expensive, but works very well.

I'm now attempting a DIY MVHR in a Victorian restoration:
Zehnder ComfoAir 350, self-designed (to building regs), semi-rigid, radial.
Very cheap by comparison! Still a year off completion, but should work very well...

Thanks! This is great. The place is in Scotland and currently has a low EPC, but over time its "easily" fixed although time consuming and expensive through better insulation which we'll tackle in the spring no doubt. Sounds like fixing the immediate and then getting an update EPC might be the way to go...

IIRC you won’t get the grant if there’s any other heat source, ie split system with a backup boiler or something.

Ah ok thanks. I'll have a look into it - we're with Octopus now and would be in the new place so I can give them a call and see what the deal is. With/without grant its the direction we'd like to go in if possible, although without the grant it would take a lot longer to get there.

We’ve got an ASHP install booked for the end of Feb with Octopus.

In addition to the 8kw Daikin ASHP, we’ve got three replacement rads, a new cylinder (being placed in the garage, plus removal of the one in the house and the boiler, all pipework etc etc.

£2,700 all in.

Been looking at alternatives lately as our boiler is on its way out. I just don't think we have space anywhere big enough outside and inside for the tank for ASHP without having to do some structural works.

Wild how it can be done that cheap.