Heatpumps For Everyone

c.£60-70k

That's including water filtration, cold water storage, water pressurisation and provides DHW, heating and cooling though.
It's not cheap but any means but for what's in it it's not expensive either.

I can't see the system performance graphs for the AC units but I'll have a proper look over lunch. It would really boil down to their efficiency at heating...

My immediate gut reaction would be that if you've got UFH in already then yes it would be worthwhile to swap to a HP for that and the DHW, it'll be a more pleasant heat than using the AC all the time which would make the place quite dry.

Here's our website if anyone fancies a peep by the way.

It’s @Dammit’s garage

You're probably right. Certainly the dry air would be a problem.

Main reason I want a HP is the boiler sounds like a jet engine and can be heard across the ground floor whenever it's on. Thankfully, it's only on for just over an hour a day really for HW and a little bit of underfloor heating.

New box on the wall

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Any advantages to fixing it above ground in a location which seems to make access and maintenance a little tricky and might be close to where folks are going to be sleeping? Assume it was easiest to plumb it in there?

It's got no footprint up there, and you don't have to look at it I guess, which wouldn't the case if it was positioned on the rear of your new extension.

Access for maintenance is very easy. The closest neighbour’s window is a stairwell, then bathroom and then ~6m away a bedroom.

Shorter flow and return to the cylinder in the loft was a factor, but it’s generally just out of the way up there. I don’t actually hate it looking from the garden either, which is a nice surprise. Might wrap it in vinyl to match the powdercoated windows.

Nice load of airflow around it there as well, if if was tucked away in a corner of the house you would worry it would just become a cold sink, which is what I would worry about, a neighbour has just installed one into his covered car port and I'm wondering if it's gonna be sub optimal.

I would have thought so. I was worried the flat roof would become a pool of cold air but it’s 300mm off the deck and rear wall so should be fine. Kitchen extractor comes up in front of it - DIY heat reclaim system 🙃

Access for maintenance is very easy

Climbing out of a window or going up a ladder? My experience of getting stuff serviced is that unless the situation is completely normal there's lots of teeth sucking and 'it's gonna cost ya' noises.

I have a lot of experience negotiating with lazy trades (and asking for non-standard complicated things tbf). Lucky in this case the installers will be servicing for five years.

Also from what I gather a HP service is mostly brushing the leaves out of the grill.

I think the only problem occurs with stuff like this is when it breaks down under warranty, and manufacturers dont wanna fix stuff that's like that.

Has anyone used heat punk for calculations? I'm using it but I feel it's overestimating the heat loss, 80w/m2, which actually sits well with the heat geek cheet sheet. Either we are about 9000, and 4000 more in attic. We have 22mm pipe and 15mm off to rads, all rads are bit and double/tripe, so really wouldn't need to change anything inside.

It seems the heat punk calculations don't work for my radiators. Çooking up the w/M2 for my radiators v what heat punk days at a certain temperature there is a discrepancy. This would make sense as running my boiler now at 50 C it's well above the room temperature actual than heat punk calculats.

The complication is I don't need to heat attic all the time, so getting a pump that runs everything would mean it's running at a lower % of overall capacity if the attic isn't being heated.

I had a heat geek round today to do a survey with a view to putting in a heat pump. I was very excited!

Full details to come in a week or so, but it looks like it's gonna need to be a large pump. The heat geek calculator was telling him it would need to be 12 KW, mainly on account of solid brick walls and a reasonably large home. We also want to be able in the future to build in 2 copper bath tubs in the garden. This I think is gonna be one of the big issues, as the units are huge, and there are very few places we could feasibly put it. I think most likely is wall mounted over our single storey rear extension. Apparently we'd need to brick or change to a non closing window there, though, as it is not allowed to be within a certain distance of an opening window. Apparently we'll need to get planning permission as it is a larger unit.

He also recommended a full re-pipe as some of the house is 200 years old and some of the ground floor radiators are using 10mm plastic pipes currently.

I suspect I might fall off my chair when we get the quote back. It'll be interesting to see what the estimated cost saving on energy per year will be and therefore how long to pay back the investment. With the current gas boiler the energy bills are really very frightening in the winter months.

My quote for a 15kw Vaillant setup with some piping was 24000 EUR. So sit down!

I had another quote for a cheaper brand machine at 16k but doesn't seem worth it. I get a big grant from government o difference is smaller.

Ouch! So presumably you've decided to stick with a gas boiler until things change significantly and the prices of heat pumps come down?

I wouldn’t expect much saving on running costs compared to gas if the building itself is leaky and badly insulated. To be honest it’ll probably cost more to heat with a HP than gas…

We have wood boiler, wood is free but requires work to get. I can get 50% grant at the moment on the HP.

If that's the case there's no way I'm going for it. I'll be interested to see their calculations and what they can guarantee me. Until it ends up making financial sense for the masses, adoption will remain low. I still can't believe that they're putting gas boilers in brand new build homes. Surely those are a no brainer for a mandatory heat pump install.

Spend some money now on insulation and bigger piping/rads which will save you gas now and for the next few years, then you will be ready for a heat pump.

I think right now it’s absolutely pointless even with the grant.

They are still miles from being a good alternative to gas rn sadly.

As of next year they are banned in new houses, right now a friend who builds care homes is saying they are costing about 300k extra to install HP in the homes and the running costs are a lot more than the alternatives they were installing previous.

They are still miles from being a good alternative to gas rn sadly.

Happily this is not true

Money for a start is a huge part why they aren't they aren't an alternative rn.