Heatpumps For Everyone

Yes, of course.
To be honest, as I mentioned earlier, I don't think it's a realistic expectation for everyone to have a heat pump in their home. There area economies of scale and lack of resources that just make it unfeasible to think there will be individual heat pumps in every home.
The practical and sensible solution here is that there will be district heating networks installed in communities which will be powered by centralised heat pump plant rooms and will provide heating on a metered supply.
It's already becoming quite common in Europe with lots of projects being rolled out at the moment and lots of Eastern European cities have had district heating networks for decades.
Honestly the best thing is to petition your local politicians and look out for any community action that can be taken to spur this on because it will be the answer to getting fossil fuels out of homes.

It's maddening.

Our house was built in 2019. No solar, no battery, gas boiler, no EV charger etc. Even the rads are undersized for heat pumps. It's crazy.

We've installed solar, battery, two EV chargers and nearly a heatpump if Octopus weren't so shit.

Finally had ours commissioned. Been running 24/7 on a screed-drying programme, very quiet and discreet.

Would have liked to put it further out into the garden, but that would have compromised the roots of the neighbour’s nice bay tree.

Gonna get it vinyl-wrapped eventually.

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Just found an example of the same model, wrapped in the colour I’m after. Much more discreet.

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Noice. Flow and return buried in the ground?

I think they opted for the wireless version.

Mostly buried, yeah... I only decided to get ASHP after the ground floor footings & DPC were put in, so there are a couple of unsightly pipe penetrations at ground level, but I can live with that.

Gonna trim the front of the concrete base so it's a bit less obnoxious also; the builders decided to "add a bit on just to be safe" when pouring it lol.

Looks good. Place is looking great.

I got another quote the other day for 20,400 EUR for the big Vaillant which is a lot better. As I get 50% covered by government it's nice price.

Thankfully can put it further from the house hidden out the way.

If you're getting your CU upgraded it will more than likely have RCBO's, Heatpumps shouldn't be fed by an RCBO as the DC leakage current can cause issues. They require a Type B RCD, significant more expensive than a Type A.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzpZSTUCqTE&t=38s

You'll probably end up with a RCBO consumer unit and 2nd smaller Type B RCD board feeding the ASHP.

Or do what my installer did and slam an MCB into an RCBO board and provide a certificate stating a type B RCD had been installed. Returning to rectify once he was called out on it.

Other considerations/brain dump:
Location of ASHP from CU, as part of the wider work, would installing the cable now be an option
Location of EV charger from CU, same as above
What type of electrical supply do you have to your house, is it looped(in your meter cupboard, do you have 1 or 2(looped) black cables entering the property) if its looped the DNO will need to appove before an EV charger can be installed.
Size of DNO cut out circuit breaker, if my EV charger and ASHP are both running, I draw 54A, my cut out is 100A, but many houses are 63A

Thanks for the braindump, very helpful.

Are the Type B RCD requirements for ASHP documented somewhere? I’ve just had a 7kW Vaillant Arotherm Plus installed, and I’m pretty sure it’s wired via a RCBO in the main CU…

To protect people, type B universal-current-sensitive residual-current circuit breakers must be used if these are stipulated
for the installation site. Tripping must be short-time delayed and
suitable for the use of inverters (tripping characteristic > 1 kHz).

https://www.vaillant.co.uk/product-images/0020330791-03.pdf.pdf

Section 7.3 of the file grams has linked to.

BS 7671 531.3.3. is the paragraph in the regs that states a type b should be used.

Also some worthwhile reading:

https://www.voltimum.co.uk/articles/heat-pump-installation-18th-edition-rcds

https://electrical.theiet.org/wiring-matters/years/2022/91-july-2022/changes-to-rcd-testing-in-bs-76712018plusa22022/

@Tango130 @grams Thank you, appreciated. I’ll have a look at what’s been put in…

this is super useful, even if I don't understand it all. Will have a chat with my electrician...

I'm less worried about installing things like ASHP cables ahead of time because I have reasonably (80cm+) underfloor access throughout the house so no need to lift floorboards.

CU is at the front, very close to where EV charger would go. ASHP will be at the back, when it comes.

Anyone gone down the rabbit hole of OpenEnergyMonitor for their ASHP?

Nah, just get Homely

Eeep, I mentioned a couple of months and pages back about getting a HeatGeek round to do a survey, come up with a design, and give me a quote for a heat pump install. As a reminder, 200 year old detached home with some more modern extensions. Single storey extension at the rear from the 1970s, loft conversion from 2017. Approximately 155 sq m, or 17 "rooms" and 13.74 kW of heat loss in Heat Geek terms.

I'm in fairly rural Derbyshire, so really not LFGSS golf club territory, thank you very much.

Quote after BUS grant is pretty much 20 grand. Estimated saving of £8 a month of my bills, so it'll only take 209 years to pay back the investment. Yeah, there's no way I'm doing this. I thought I might get a nasty surprise at the cost, but I didn't think I'd be this surprised!

Heat pump would be a Vaillant aroTHERM plus 12kW / hydraulic station, and cylinder would be a Joule Cyclone 250L. In fairness, they've specified 15 new radiators, which is a new one in every room and landing, and were this even close to be feasible, I'd pushing on whether it is really necessary.

Full details in the attachment if anyone is interested to see the breakdown.

I really want to do the right thing, but I'm not spending 20 grand on this. I think I'd be much better off just replacing the existing gas boiler when it breaks and if I want to sink 20 grand into making the house more green, spend that on solar panels, battery, EV charger, EV. Hopefully then one day heat pumps will be more economical and the payoff will be better if I'm generating a lot of my own electricity.

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That's a really high heat loss for M2. You need to insulated etc as I'm sure you've been told. But yeah that's mad.

Our quote is 20k eur for a Vaillant aerotherm 15k. We have heat loss around 13kw but also have 250m2. And our place has very little insulation.

I'll be doing it as I should get 50% grant.

Yeah, the loft conversion is well insulated to modern standards. The rear extension is a cavity wall with insulation, but also massive bifold doors and a lantern skylight. Everything else is solid brick wall.

I'm adverse to rendering, as I've heard that's likely going to cause huge damp problems on such an old house. As such our only other option is internal insulation, which means we'd lose some floor space and need to completely redecorate everything. I think fairly understandably we're not keen to do that.

250 square metres is dreamy! Maybe I should get working on my wife about a move to rural Spain! ;-)

This doesn't seem to be compatible with the two most popular types of ASHP in the UK (Vaillant and Mitsubishi)...

What does Homely offer over and above, for example, Vaillant's own 'smart' controller with weather forecast and temp sensor based weather compensation?

yes I'm adverse to internal insulation too, because I don't want to loose space. I don't see why you'd move away from gas in your instance and if you want to be more green then go about it by reducing your gas needs via insulation and radiators etc.

The Samsung controller is shit so it mainly just brings it up to Vaillant standards.

App control hot water boost, scheduled holiday mode etc is handy. We’re also on a time of use tariff so it designs a daily heating schedule based on half hourly prices + weather / thermal model of our hoos

17 rooms, we have 7 (or 8 if you count the utility in the lean to). I guess that bumps up the cost.....

Note the quote marks around "rooms" in my original post. In reality many of them are not distinct rooms, but the heating engineer needed to put them into his calculator as separate rooms to get an accurate heat loss estimate. For example, hallways, landings, and storage spaces were all counted as separate rooms. Also, our open plan living/dining room had to be split into 2 "rooms" as some of it is in the extension, but the rest is in the old house. Same story in our kitchen.

Don't worry, we're not talking a mansion!

Ah, sorry, should have noticed the quotation marks. I guess if you add up all the "rooms" in my 1930's money pit there's about the same.

Like you, the cost versus return isn't on my side, at 64 my priority is thinking about how to pay the mortgage off.!!