Heat Pumps & Disinformation!
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- čas přidán 27. 04. 2023
- There's a lot of what is said to be incorrect and/or exaggerated when it comes to heat pumps.
This is true, or is it?
Website: www.ev-man.co.uk
Twitter: / evmanuk
Octopus Referral: share.octopus.energy/ore-cobr...
Tesla Referral: ts.la/andrew31112
#heating #heatpumps #heatpump - Věda a technologie
Totally agree that correct design, installation and commissioning is key. Our ASHP was installed last June by Octopus Energy. The survey took about three hours and seemed very thorough and we discussed various options for running the pipework etc. The design was for 50deg flow @ -2deg external and sized at 6.6kW so we had a 7kW Daikin installed. I had done some research beforehand and used the Heat Geek cheat sheet and got 6.5kW so was confident the Octopus calcs were about right. The room by room design required 11/14 radiators to be upsized although some the upstairs rads were marginal and personally I wouldn't have changed them but the grant is dependant on the MCS process so there was no choice. In hindsight the new radiators are much better than the old ones which were getting a bit long in the tooth anyway
The install took about four days and was chaos with four guys working at the same time. However it was a good chaos and we had a good laugh with the octopus installers with good banter and plenty of tea and biscuits. At commissioning the system was going to be set on a fixed flow temp but I insisted it be setup weather dependant. The settings were 50deg @-2ext/35deg @18ext. When we started off heating all went well and by December when it was below zero it became apparent that we needed to turn the setting down. We gradually tweaked the setting to 50deg @-15 / 30deg@18degs and this maintains around 20-21 deg internally downstairs and 18 degs upstairs. The temperature in the house is primarily controlled by the flow temps not the thermostat and we only get cycling now when the external temp is below zero . We have achieved a sCOP so far of 3.61 against a design figure of 3.4 for heating. Users need to be ready to fine tune the heating to their properties to get maximum performance.
I am now able to counter the misinformation out there with real data and really pleased I went for it. Keep the videos coming
I also had a heatpump installed by octopus, and their survey also matched my estimate. The installers set up weather compensation as standard with 50C flow at -7. I had already replaced my own radiators with ones significantly larger than octopus had suggested by the time they had arrived so I think the flow temperature can be a lot lower. The install was end of march so I have not had enough cold weather to fully optimise the settings yet. There was a long delay between the initial survey and the install due to needing planning permission and DNO approval for the electrical connection. They sent the surveyor back for a brief resurvey as they had added extra items to the survey to optimize the process further.
@@StephenBeynon I suspect the policy re weather compensation changed after the early installs. The guys that did ours had only just finished their training although the lead installer had a lot of experience. At the time they were instructed to leave the controller in basic mode as well. I changed that immediately 🤓
At the moment I think too much relies on customers being savvy like you. This needs to improve so anyone can have one installed and not need to baby it to get good results. Eg monitoring remotely to check flow temps/weather curve etc and possibly adjust automatically or come back to you and do regular check ins as the system beds in? Also we need to be wary generally - lots of CH is way oversized with boilers that can’t modulate down bevcause they need to heat water quickly, or they sell on heating your home fast. No regard for efficiency or saving you money. That absolutely won’t fly with HPs
@@MrKlawUK Yes totally agree. Think there is a case for machine learning to maximise comfort and efficiency. Guess we are at the abacus stage ATM 🤓
@@philipbroggio9315 machine learning would be a great bonus for optimising heat pumps. I ran my install on the octopus installer settings for a week which happened to be quite cold before I started to play with flow temperatures. Based on my results from that week I think the install would meet the promised scop with no further action so I don't think customers *have* to be savvy now. I do however think there is more to gain by either manual tweeking or an automatic optimisation on future systems.
I had my survey and ASHP installed October 22 through Heat Geeks and solar and battery install November 22. The ASHP has been performing beyond expectations both in terms of comfort during the winter and hot water which runs on constant. My parents who live with me (91 and 89 years old) need the heat on everyday and the house maintains a comfortable 20 deg C. and over the last 6 months the COP is 4.2. Then add to that the reduced energy costs of the ASHP and solar, I have no regrets in going fully electric. Keep up the good work and thanks for the spreading the word and putting facts out in the public domain to correct the misinformation being spouted by mainstream media about electric vehicles, ASHP etc.
A lot of installers are either new and unaware or stupid and don't care about doing the right job .... the mindset of efficiency lies in the full understanding of the fundamentals of knowing what it means to be efficient, full inspection, insulation, customer understanding, real world use etc etc .... sad times.
I have the exact same heat pump except my home needed a 7kW variant. We didn’t change a single radiator or any existing pipework thankfully. I used a heat geek elite installer. If anyone reading this is looking for an installer based in the north west of England then I cannot recommend Liam Knowles from The Heating People enough. He went above and beyond to make sure I got the best installs possible for my home. Proper heat loss calculations and extremely helpful when learning how to use the system. Glad you had a good experience too EVM. I took some stick from people saying I’ve wasted my money and why would I get rid of the gas boiler. 2nd to getting a home battery and solar it’s the best money I’ve spent on my home. House is 20 degrees all year round and there’s nothing to do, it just works.
Exactly the same issues in The Netherlands. Installers have worked with gas boilers for decades and many can't get their heads around heatpumps. The worst is the oversizing ("just to be sure"), because it kills efficiency. We also were offered 16 kW by many, now running on 7.5 kW just fine...
In MN, USA we had someone come out to give a quote for installing a mini split heat pump for our garage / workshop. They came back with a quote that included running a natural gas line from the opposite side of the house, all the way through the house, for the 100% electric appliance we wanted... Yea...
Coming from Canada I find this FUD really interesting. I live in Nova Scotia and air to air heatpumps are common retrofits. My little neighborhood has 11 out of 15 homes done, and mine have been installed for 6 years. Our neighborhood was built with oil fired boilers, and in my case the boiler is there for the quite literally 1 day a year that the heatpump cannot keep the house warm. That is when the temperature is below -23 Celsius. I’m exaggerating, it’s only been 4 days in the last 6 years.
For reference, the compressor units are rated at 12k btu and 24k btu and the house is about 200 m2
It’s only the larger unit that stops making heat, it’s never been too cold for the smaller unit, but it can’t carry the house on its own.
The lack of installer knowledge is a very real problem. Our 14kw Daikin Altherma High Temp was fitted by a company with a lot of jnstalls under their belts. They knew what they were talking about....and still cocked up.
The problem manifested as the Pump being unable to get to temperature when both heating corcuits were engaged (radiators and underfloor). It would work on Rads only, but not with both, and it was burning through over 70kwh/day trying to heat the house in cold weather.
After several further installer visits and no real progress, the man from Daikin was called out.
It took him 5 minutes.
The installer had attached the flow and return to the external unit the wrong way around. As soon as the pipes were switched everything worked. On the coldest day this last winter we used about 25kwh in heating. We're very happy with the Heat Pump.
You are absolutely spot-on in everything you say. I managed and partly engineered my heat pump installation myself. I got Rehau to do my calculations and design my underfloor solution and I’ve got SSE to install heat pump, solar thermal and solar electric and hot water system. The control system, I engineered myself along with the electrical system, using KNX technology.
I went for the Mitsubishi Ecodan 8.5 kW unit which has proved 100% reliable over its 12 years of service so far. It took me a year and a half to perfect and optimise the flow temperature controller settings and I experimented with both proportional and setpoint thermostat controls in each room.
What I learnt was proportional controls are not a good idea if you have a flow temperature controller, setpoint believe it or not works better if your flow temperature controller is set up and correctly calibrated along with a correctly designed underfloor system or in the case of radiators, correct sizing for each room.
Every other heat pump installation I’ve seen that people have asked me to comment on has been an absolute disaster with one exception and installation. I saw for a swim pool heater which was absolutely excellent.
Daily mail article 😂, says everything, but generally all newspapers lie to get hits on line or sales . Dad at 84 just realised the 40 pounds a month for his daily newspaper not required
Your comments was spot on, I had a heat pump installed Feb 2022 by a big company and what a shambles, took 4 months from the equipment arriving on site and it only works great due to my research on what is a right and wrong install and they wouldn't get paid till it was right, they was sending sub contractors that was cowboys, the industry isn't there to install them yet.
Can you name them so we can avoid please🤞🤞👍👍
Very practical and valid advice - we had an 7kW Vaillant ASHP fitted by B.Gas 2 months ago and is working fine.. the assessment took half a day and that was with me working out all the room dimensions beforehand. Had all new rads, 13, some of which I wouldnt have bothered with and new C/H pipes changed to 22mm with 15mm tap off to each rad. A new Mixergy water cylinder. A week of chaos but well worth it. I was expecting a big bill but it was £8.4k after the BUS grant. The clincher for me was a 5 yr interest free loan, so I pay £140 / mnth.
robbed the pumps opnly cost £3k. scheme is a total con. cheaper to buy yourself.
Your spot on with your comments. A customer asksed me about ASHP and they have heard they can be very expensive to run. I explained that the heat pump aren't the issue it's generally the installation and setting up of the heat pump. The best thing home owner can do before fitting a heat pump is insulat they house.
You hit the nail on the head. When I get to the point of getting one, it’s a lot of homework for me
When we bought a new house it came with two heat pumps, one for the first floor and one for the second floor. The work was done quickly and efficiently, but the design was all wrong. The house had a two story atrium and stairwell that connected the two floors and the builders never took that into consideration. When we moved in and tried to live there, the two heat pumps were constantly fighting each other. If we set the temperature to comfortable on the first floor, the second floor was boiling hot. If we set the temperature on the second floor to comfortable, the first floor was freezing cold. Worse still, if we set the temperature to comfortable on both floors, the first floor heat pump was constantly putting out heat and the second floor was constantly putting out cold. The builders gave us an estimate of our monthly utility bill when we bought the place, but after the first month the bill was more than three times what they said it would be! The builders came back and readjusted the settings, but it was never right. In the end all we could do was to constantly keep all the second floor doors closed and the vents for the second floor stairwells closed all the time. That way the first floor was pleasant, the second floor rooms were plesant, but the top of the stairwell was always way too hot, Summer or Winter.
I had an ASHP installed in January 2022 to replace an existing oil boiler. Had the proper heat loss survey and as it’s a large house we ended up with 2x 9kW LG heat pumps.
Definitely agree you have to trust the calcs and they are easier to mess up than a gas boiler. The heat loss calc proposed to replace our lounge double panel 1000mm rad with a double panel 2400mm rad. We didn’t want a rad that big and elected for a 1600mm. BAD MOVE on our part, the room never really got warm enough and as you are often sitting down stationary we noticed it more. Had the rad replaced with a 2400 in Feb this year and it’s now comfortably warm, and was too hot until we turned it down.
Second issue was flow rate. They installed two water pumps, one push, one pull and wall was good. But last year after the heating had been off for the summer, when we turned it on one of the pumps jammed. It took me months before I worked out the issue, months when the house wasn’t hot enough and the pump was running continuously and costing lots. Pump un-jammed and all back to normal. Suspect some of the daily mail issues could be down to insufficient flow rate
I'm on the verge of getting ours installed and what you say is all very accurate. First quote was good but the system was all wrong. Then got a heat loss calculation report done. The chap that did that was fab, but his quote was massive. Third quote... sorted! Hopefully as more people get the right system installed we can all help to level things up and lots more people can benefit from these amazing machines - they are the future of heating for most homes in the UK
Totally agree, mine is a nightmare. I am in the position of having a 4 day installation that is now in its 8 month, and still not completed.
I noticed the heatpump pricing issues in Canada too. Both federal and provincial governments in my are offer rebates and suddenly heat pump prices increased drastically.
My install was very simple, and other than a placement issue due to a misunderstanding of the fan swing my heatpumps work really well. I did insulation upgrades and a 15k and 12k BTU rated pumps for my main and basement floors and my main boiler only had to be turned on for 2 days this year.
The combination of upgrades quite literally cut my winter power bill on half.
Wow! A bit of sense about heat pump central heating for a change 👍
Congratulations my friend.
I will be upgrading in next 5 years to heat pump. already watch the heat geeks channel, really informative. I'll only be getting quotes from the engineers who have done their course. they have a list and a map so really handy.
P.S. LOVE THE CHANNEL. don't know how you manage to keep so calm with all the guff that's spouted out there. cheers big chap👍
I am moving to a new house with UFH and an ASHP. Looking forward to it. Will look back over your videos before i move for any tips.
Great advice thank you!!
Octopus Energy installed mine and I can honestly say they did an excellent job. Like yourself I did some research and did some heat loss calcs as a reference. Octopus were spot on with their figures, was a reasonable price and the heatpump has been working extremely well... It's definitely down to a good install.
Very helpful advice, thank you.
As an engineer I can state categorically Heat Pumps work. People need to stop comparing the UK to Scandinavia though. For almost two decades I've been involved with heat pumps, some of my colleagues hate them I quite like them. The issues often come down to design and I've fallen foul of it myself where UK freezing rain has caused more than expected icing and sky rocketing bills in the winter (solution was a lean to roof to shelter from the rain and no issues since).
The biggest issue honestly is engineers now have to do a proper heat loss calculation and design (required for gas under new Part L anyway) and for years they have not had to, rule of thumb and relying on boilers self adjusting has been good enough to lower peoples consumption of gas. Gone are those days but that now means they have to take time out, and time is money so a survey they're already out for 3 hours or on average £180. So many a company does guestimates and pile on radiators and pipework to make up the short fall of not being able to charge for the initial survey.
Honestly that's the consumers fault as much as companies as everyone wants something for nothing and people have to cover costs some how. Plus now companies aren't just renewing gas qualifications every 5 years they have to add Air Conditioning gas qualifications if they want to maintain heat pumps. It is now getting to the point where companies are spending half a years salary every 5 years just on exams and certifications to be able to work but aren't able to actually charge what the knowledge is worth. Fundamentally the system is broken as we're seeing more people leaving the industry and retiring out currently than coming in, with the few that are coming in being youngsters that think they can do short courses and charge the earth.
Excellent great advice,thank you
tried twice to get a heat pump after the solar and battery was installed had very similar issues with getting quotes. The majority not bothering to do heat calcs just guestimating based on the current gas boiler or just not showing up thankfully I found the heatgeek channel!
My ASHP was fitted by a company I know and trust, that have been involved in fitting my solar PV 12 years ago. My detatched house had no cavity insulation and we used 3333kWh to heat to 18 Celcius. Now had cavity insulation fixed and I believe I am saving about 30% , so next year for similar weather should be 2200kWh of electric to continuously heat the home. I must also agree that the Heat Geek CZcams channel is amazing and they helped me to decided the startegy to run my ASHP and that is a fixed temperature of 18 and a drop to 16 overnight. Has worked really well and I was on LPG so still saved a lot of money in the running costs.
Heat pumps or reverse cycle air-conditioners as we call them are awesome for efficiency and running costs. In comparison to UK and Europe not many hot water radiators or under floor heating systems 'Downunder' dues to supply and demand they are very expensive and with our generally shorter/milder winter seasons
Similar with double glazing, very, very expensive here so 95% of domestic builds use single glazing.
Great Vid.
Right on the button. A friend had a cheap, although not overly large unit fitted by a plumber. I had one done by a 'proper fitter'. Mine is working well and I'm in the process of helping the friend organise a replacement, using accredited equipment and a properly qualified company. His machine was imperfect, but the main problem was inexperienced fitting and poorly selected ancillary equipment like the wrong heat store, wrong controller, wrong valves etc.
Can you provide details of who you used?
@@purpleotter10 Renewableheat falkirk
Now the outside temperature is rising in the daytime and when the grid price goes negative is it more economical to heat hot water in the day?
We have had a ASHP for a couple of years.
Works really well. Amazing company for their calculations- but their fitters let them down ! Lots of mess and damage. But we are really pleased with the heat pump
What is your flow temperature? Did Vito Energy themselves do the heat loss report?
As usual a great video full of wisdom. I’ve been fighting off door to door salesmen trying to tell me I can have solar panels and batteries installed for free………… if they took the time to look at my the back of my roof from the main road they would easily see that I already have a roof covered in panels that have been there for >10 years……….. many of these guys are chancers! Big problem is I live on a small developement of 14 bungalows mostly occupied by widowed ladies in the later stage of life and they are being told c**p about they must have a battery bank to make solar panels work to their full potential…………. well 5 out of 14 properties already have solar, some installed last autumn, but not one of us could justify the cost of battery banks - in the summer fine but in Central Scotland where we can go ages without any solar generation in winter it’s just not worth the expense especially as apart from me and 2 others most have forgone their White Meter off peak rate when they took their old “nightstore” heaters out - I no longer have nightstores having replaced them with German made Ceramic block type panel heaters that are much more efficient whereas neighbours went for bulk LPG as we are not on a gas main. One property alone has an air source heat pump installed last December - we haven’t heard from the neighbour yet how he got on with it………….
Fair points especially regarding the grant cowboys.
Geat video EV Man, but one question. I that a solar panel in front of your soil pipe or are you happy to see me!
Hi EVM. Great video. I responded to one of the daily mail articles which was saying heat pumps are rubbish and don't work in old houses. I told them that mine works great and our house is 200 sq metres and 220 years old . No surprise I didn't get a reply. I am convinced the fossil fuel lobbyists are paying them
I would love to know how much kwh yours used for Jan Feb and March as I have never found anyone who wants to tell me. Ours has a generation meter to it so logs the actual use and it used 2000 kwh for those 3 months and as we were lucky and got a fixed deal for 20p kwh we are well chuffed as we were on oil. I have given up telling people that they work as most just poo poo them and now take the view of telling them well don't fit one!
We also have solar and it's very hard to mitigate gas or oil cost so win win for me and let the non believers carry on paying too much. Although some say they now sit in the house in their coats while our house is 20 degrees all the time
Keep up the good work
I had my heat pump fitted 2 years ago. I am all electric now . My total cost this year up to end of April was £952.00. Before having a heat pump get the insulation done before thinking of a heat pump.
Our house is 128m2 and 30 years old and rated EPC is B. If it helps our usage for heating was Nov 257(981) Dec 630(2044) Jan 555(1913) Feb428(1520) Mar389(1524) . The figures in brackets are the heat produced.
@Philip Broggio hi Phillip thanks for that will have a work out tomorrow on kw per sq metre
@Philip Broggio by the way our epc is rated D
@Philip Broggio so quick calculation works that both our properties have used 10kwh per 1 square metre for the 3 month period. That sounds good to considering my house is lower epc and has solid stone walls without any modern insulation and the fact we have kept the house at 20 or there abouts.
I'm having mine in on Tuesday from Octopus Energy. Fingers crossed.
Nail on the head again. Our system is a 9kW Samsung for a mid terrace house. Very similar prices and estimates on pump size, which up to now has worked well. Promise Vs reality was different at the installation ... 28mm pipes added and utter turmoil that week, as they tried to work out how it would all fit in our space.
However, though I cannot recommend the fitters, I do NOT regret the move to air source heat pump. We were affordably warm over winter. Solar PV has been in for 8 years. EV arrived last week. 12kWh battery arrives next week. 👍😉👍
All what you have said is absolutely correct its the installations what cause the issue with how heat pumps perform
It’s also been the the same issue when we started fitting condensing boiler to replace the old non condensing boilers
Which is why most of the gas condensing boilers haven’t been condensing Hanse efficiency not as good
Not the boilers or heat pumps the problem installation is the problem and customers not wanting to have the correct job done
My parents bought solar and heatpump about 4 years ago during a government scheme. It is fantastic! I recently convinced them to get 15.5kw batteries too, which are fab. They bought from a small local green energy specialist. My dad is a builder and has since used the same company for houses he has built for clients.
I am hoping to get solar, batteries, and heatpump for my house to replace the gas boiler, but finding space in my tiny house is a problem.
Good question to ask an installer, is when they set up the system to heat the warm water. The correct answer would be that it depends on what tariff you are on, but generally speaking you want this done during the day when the temperatures are higher. My COPS for DHW and heating are almost identical (around 3.6), because my cylinder recharges in the afternoon (got solar as well, so using own electricity as well), whereas most of my heating is between 0500&0700, the coldest time of the day.
I am (with hindsight) disappointed that the standard commissioning process didn't involve discussing this at all, but had a standard 0200 recharge...
Any thoughts on the Octopus heat pump Andrew? They’ve just quoted me £3850 on line and they don’t know I’ve got solid walls. Seems suspicious 🤨
"Unaware of the intricacies"... classic! Euphamism of the week.
Next week it's "unexpected consequences"!
Another great explanation.
You've hit the nail on the head, the installation is where the problem lies; similar to the IT Industry I'm in with Networking, if you get WiFi deadspots did the engineer check the placement of the Antenna or the materials being used in the walls when they designed in the installation?
The equipment needing such experienced fitters could be construed as a problem with the equipment being beyond the people who actually are available to fit it. I would say that is a fault with the technology not the people. If your average plumber has not got the where with all or scientific nouse to get this stuff up and running then probably the practical solution is to produce systems where he can. This whole net zero is being forced with neither men nor equipment being ready for the ambitious grand plans. Again the government preaches the message and forces action in tight timelines but with little sign of understanding, action or spending on its own part.
On the nose as always great content succinctly put.
Getting a proper heat calculation followed by a competent installer is the key. I've just had an install a couple of weeks ago by Octopus and the whole process was very professional. I already did a heat loss calculation by using an excellent 'cheat' tip from www.youtube.com/@michaeldepodesta001 and it was almost exactly the same as the Octopus calc that took several hours to do. So 2 weeks in and its running well on weather comp. The only tweaks we have had to make are on the hot water side since a secondary pump kept cooling the water but now thats adjusted everything has settled down. I would say that the controls of heat pumps really will have to become more user friendly before mass adoption in my view otherwise I can see a lot of folk getting confused, especially if they move to a property that already gas one and they have no previous knowledge.
You are exactly right,very well explained for us none experts, Although not sure about the position of that solar panel to your right 😂😂
We opted for the heat geeks 'assured' package where heat geeks themselves help with the calculations and the sub contract one of their contractors that they have trained themselves for the install.
We are getting a heat pump and install6underfloor heating at the same tome so the extra cost for the 'assured' service is worth it considering the cost of the whole job.
I agree. I live in continental Croatia. Had in 03/2023 Ariston heat pump installed. The guys who commissioned it have no clue! I've noticed that my buffer was turned off in the settings. So I enabled it. There was en error message "aux. pump configuration mismatch". So I checked the error message logs and saw that on the day they were here, same error message appeared. Meaning, they turned buffer on, saw the error message, didn't know how to fix it, so they just turned the buffer off. So I had to do my own research what setting needs to be changed. And I did, aux. pump setting had to be changed to buffer pump. They also left in the settings buffer type in series, but it was parallel. Simply, they have no clue what they are doing. I was/am very disappointed with that.
A friend has one and if i,m there i get dry eyes and throat, the fan make noise and i don't like the warmth blowing right in my face. Home i only use firewood for more than 30 years.
That’s an air to air heat pump. Mines air to water.
ASHP fitted (before we moved in) by a major UK company, MCS accredited (Greener Energy). The amount of shortcuts they have taken during installation is unbelievable. From using old electric shower cables and breakers to external conduit shortened and full of water to non existent external insulation of pipes. Settings on ASHP are basically the default ones... They are not answering my emails anymore because their installation warranty apparently goes with who ordered the ASHP, not the new owner. Very bad experience in my case.
Interesting my charge point, several quotes, from 750-1250. Chose one for 895, hypervolt unit, and was 50 less as the consumer unit had the correct space and a great job done!
I think there will be a learning curve - perhaps the industry could do more to highlight examples like yours where the quotes were out of line with the necessary installation.
There will be a lot initially.
And the industry should get the guys who quoted too much to come back and discuss the differences. Their reputation won’t suffer if they learned something and apply it to new quotes.
If they don’t accept an invitation. To comeback and seem to keep making the same mistakes there ought to be a way to label their quotation work as substandard. A community portal might be good.
A lot of people may be exiting the heating installs industry as it now requires more design sophistication.
We need a system to protect customers from the heating guys who seem to be making a mess of it from quotes to installs..
I am fairly convinced that a heat pump is the right way to go for us. We have a few neighbours with experience and they seem mostly to be happy.
The first bought a ground storage heat pump that apparently uses heat from the house in summer and stores it in a bubble of heat during the summer and then uses that heat plus the natural warmth of the ground in winter. I've no idea how they feel about that system but I've not heard complaints but it cost around 50K Euros (we are in the Netherlands) which included the installation of the pipes deep underground plus some kind of ceiling mounted radiators.
The second is my immediate neighbour and he is a bit of a DIY fanatic and installed several air to air pumps. These can be used for cooling in the summer (a bit of a luxury here to be honest, a fan is generally all you really need, bit airco is nice) and obviously for heating in the colder months. His complaint is only that the heads are blowing heated or cooled air at them and they had not thought about that before installation and find that annoying. However in my mind one benefit they have is that they can easily isolate unused rooms and so save on the bills simply by turning those rooms' units off.
The third is a near neighbour and is an air to water unit as discussed in your video. The only bizarre thing about this is that someone recommended they install it on the side of the chimney near the top. The reason was that sound levels would be reduced but the downside is that getting to the unit for repair would now mean erecting scaffolding or at the very least securing ladders to the roof. However they also told me the same as you, that the rating of their 4.5KW system is the output power. He told me how he came to that figure based on the gas usage (multiply the daily cubic metres usage by some constant and then smooth that out over the day).
This last one kind of opened my eyes a little. It never really sunk in what others had said and that is that with the flow temperature being lower, you will need to run the system at that lower (than gas) level for longer. Right now (well actually in mid winter) my boiler for heating really only runs in the morning so the house is comfortable when we get up until we leave, and then in the evening before we go to bed. The neighbour is essentially saying that the heat pump aims to run 24 hours a day to deliver the optimal COP, if you make it work harder then you reduce the COP.
My intention was to use the heat pump when the whole house needs heating and then rely on something like infrared heaters for rooms such as my office outside those times. But if the heat pump is always on then I guess the infrared heater won't be essential.
Ah, I have so many questions such as about battery storage to run the heat pump from solar, and about the fact that currently we are keeping the house quite cool (maximum 19C) so I'd prefer to over rate the heat pump slightly and run it less, however this post has gone on endlessly. But another great video, thanks.
We have a 500w Hershel IR panel for use in our living room. It only uses about 1kWh for an evening when we aren't using the Heat Pump but temp dips a bit. I also have another one 220w for my study. As you say if the heat pump is on then no need but at this time of year we are transitioning and the IR panal is great.
How much do heat pumps cost ?
Your variable experience of heat-pump installers/providers is very similar to my recent experience with rooftop PV with battery.
Unfortunately I have to agree with you. The situation in my country (the Netherlands) is exactly the same. Most of the installers don’t have a clue at all about heat pump system design.
So i live in Sweden and have had a heatpump for years and it works great. But we did also get som crappy installs in the early days.
I have an EV, Solar panels,home battery,but still not persuaded yet for a heat pump.
At the moment electricity per Kwh is about 3 times the price of gas, so the heat pump would need a COP of about 3, which some ASHP can just about reach, to break even on running costs, yes I know gas boiler efficiency is not 100%, but there is little if any scope for running cost savings. Have I got this wrong? Yes I know Octopus have some smart tariffs.
My house is very old 23 inch solid walls, and would probably need re plumbing, it would be a nightmare.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Remember that 1kW of heat from Gas requires about 1.1kW of gas, so it's more like a scop of 2.7 to break even. With a properly installed setup a scop of 3 should be easy, I would say even a bare minimum of what you'd expect.
we have achieved a sCOP of 3.61 with our heat pump since last June when it was installed. Using Current capped prices the cost of "Heat" is Gas 10.3/0.9=11.4p/kWh and electric 34.3/3.61 = 9.5p/kWh. We need about 11200kWh of heat/annum so savings around 11200(11.4-9.5)/100=£213 plus further saving with hot water and of course no standing charge. If you have solar and a cheap night tariff etc the savings will be more.
There's boiler slingers and there's heating engineers. They are opposite ends of the spectrum for designing and installing heat pumps.
Problem is anyone with a gas safe certificate thinks they’re a heating engineer 🙄
What’s mad, is we’re still building houses with fecking combi boilers.
You can heat a house quickly with a boiler. Not everyone is at home all day, every day.
I have a LG 9KW hart pump. It was installed in September 2021 and at the time I was living alone in a 4 bedroom house. At the time of the install the engineer predicted it would use 5841KWH of electricity over the next 12 months in October my daughter and Grandauther moved in with me. When I had my ASHP serviced a year later it had actully used 5747 KWH, my electric bill is currently £204 per month with about £500 in credit. I am totally satisfied with my system.
I paid a deposit in September 2021 and although the heat pump is outside my house, my supplier has sacked his staff and now employs a sub-contractor! I’m getting the installation finished in a month, but I’m not holding my breath on it working!!
I have 2 Daikin ASHP, 2 oil fired central heating sytems and 2 woodburners. All in the same 2 properties.
Bottom line, ASHP costs 14p - 18p per KWh output in the winter using realistic COP values (daikin publish realistic 2.1 - 2.6 and say to allow 20% lower for defrosting the condenser at temperatures below 7 deg)
Oil fired central heating is 8p - 11p per KWh output no matter what the temperature.
Woodburners are less than 5p per KWh (depending on where the wood is sourced)
So the heating costs can be 40% lower simply by using conventional oil heating systems.
The best thing about the heat pumps is they cool us in the summer and work on a remote control. It certainly isnt the price!
Spot on mate
In California, I'd never heard of a heat pump. Air conditioners, yeah, and furnaces, but not heat pumps. When I moved to Oregon, I've found them everywhere - absolutely ubiquitous, but they were a foreign concept to me. I had to ask people about them, and everyone takes them for granted, and nobody really knows how they work - they just do! LOL But Oregon gets more months of cold than California, so I guess they make more sense here? They probably make more sense everywhere.
How do they work? They work absolutely great. Fantastic. Set & forget.
Like any complex device, components can fail. But Heat Pumps here are completely bog-standard, and not a soul questions whether they work or what. The notion that there's any controversy about them anywhere just blows my mind, which is quite something given that I'm an American and almost-literally everything is divisive here these days. Heat pumps? Never would have even occurred to me to question, now..
Im a plumber in Calgary Canada They do not work in -40c. (Air to Air) The heat exchanger in the home will blow +6c air lol (Ive personally measured ) The rest of the time they do work. So make sure if installing one in northern or central Canada to do it with geo thermal and or with Additional supplemental heat. via electric coil.
I'm sure in England they work just fine in the winter at 0c
I’m sure you could design one to work at -40, but there are probably other ways to deal.
Luckily we don’t get -40C on our damp island 🌧️🌧️🌧️
@@JohnR31415 Generally if you're getting into regular -10C or below territory then the even more expensive option of a Ground Source Heat Pump should enter consideration - outside temperature doesn't drastically affect the COP, and there are ones on the market now that can achieve a COP of 6. Plus has the benefit of none of the outside complaints ("noise" and "unsightly").
The problem in the UK is the humidity. Mostly in the winter it is just above freezing, what happens when you use an air source heatpump for heating in the winter is the external coils can run well below freezing and fill up with ice, which then goes into a heating cycle to clear the ice. Which means the internal unit stops heating. You end up in this ever decreasing cycle of luke warm heating.
It's fine when the external temperature drops below zero, as the humidity is essentially zero, but in our traditional English weather, it all goes a bit wrong!
@@SailingAquamarine humidity does increase defrost cycles but it's not as much of an issue as you say. With the area of the coils a huge amount of water vapour needs to condense on the coils and freeze. Also with monoblocks which most of these are, there's not an internal unit for heating, it's all done within the outside unit. Given the volume of water on the inside circuit the defrost cycle is barely going to affect the flow temperature before it can get round to heating it again.
EV man always talking sense.
I’m excited by the new mixergy tank with integrated heat pump.
With that installed first then a heat pump doesn’t need the high temp option, and the hot water doesn’t need to come into that job either.
But then you need planning permission ( to install a 2nd heat pump) and you cant get the grant👎
I suggested a mixergy system with my installer whilst we are still planning our system and despite him being a certified installer for mixergy, he suggested for a heat pump that its not worth the extra outlay compared to the valiant one we are having installed. As most of our hot water is going to come from a low tariff overnight we'll just fill up the tank with hot water and use that for the rest of the day.
@@chriss4949 still don’t need planning, but the loss of the grant would be a pain (it’s a bloody stupid requirement).
Might just leave that heat pump off for a while and “retrofit” it later.
I think the problem with rogue installations is down to training, or lack of it.. If an installer wanted to make more money why would they specify an oversized heat pump/installation materials? They would make more money by jacking up the labour costs and keeping the material costs down. Sheer ignorance/ inexperience in my opinion. I see it when I do electrical checks in houses, customers have been told "you need a complete rewire", or "you have to have a new consumer unit". Mostly incorrect advice, based on either their ignorance, greed or taking advantage of the clients ignorance, particularly if its a woman customer.
I couldn't agreed more, well said!😎👌
love the content and you are dead right on everything you say. I have a 10k vailiant HP and love it, quiet and efficient. The heat calculation was spot on and no radiators were harmed in the install. But one thing I noticed with your HP was how close to wall it is. I had to have a meter gap with mine. fact or just a belt and braces fit?
1 foot for mine. But it’s at least 2/3 foot.
@@ElectricVehicleMan good reply. bloody camera angles!
I now have a regular plumber/heating engineer who's been re-installing our new shower and sorting out our heating and he's great. But, and it's a big but, he's very dismissive of heat pumps "Oh no, they wouldn't be man enough for your house". The house is half old-old, half 20 years old but has wet UFH, we've upgraded almost all the windows (others are a long term goal), the worst door (others are, again, long term when I have money). We have good loft insulation but I've improved it and will be adding more to the new part which needs insulated plasterboard for 'reasons' (stupid design decisions by the original owner/builder). We're running the whole place on a single 6kW flow boiler, so clearly a 6kW heat pump would do just as well but with less energy, but he's extremely dismissive. I don't know why he doesn't do a bit of thinking and self-learning because he's otherwise and excellent plumber and heating engineer, yet he seems dead set against heat pumps. I mean, it's all a bit academic for us right now anyway, not got the money plus siting it and all the rest of the logistics around pipework and where we would store the tank etc would be very awkward, but the point is if I had the money I'd be keen to do it, yet I struggle to find anyone in my area who I would trust (no Heat Geek engineers nearby). I've said to my wife more than once that if I won a huge Euromillions jackpot, I'd start a business to do exactly this in my area since it's rural with lots of older properties and ripe for someone to do the required work to prove the suitability (or otherwise I suppose) of heat pumps in areas like this. I'd find a willing heating engineer and pay them to get heat geek accredited and get any and all other qualifications and accreditations necessary, work with specialists in older buildings and show how it can be achieved. Ultimately of course, the initial outlay is what really puts a lot of people off and that may or may not change with time, or they stick to the acquired wisdom that gas is cheaper and always will be so why bother. Those people will either literally die out or have to change their tunes in time, I'm sure, but getting more and more high-quality data and information out there would be a huge step forward.
The issue is the installers are only after the grants, my experience before going air to air as well was 1200 dollars per month for water and heat ( -20c cop 1.5 to 1 , 40 min defrost cycle 039c per kWh) winter 2 with retro air to air (-32c 1 hour defrost cycle every 8 hours 0.34c per kWh 30% solar powered 900 dollars for air to air, we have now replaced the air to water it just wasn’t up to the requirements for the temperature, once up to temp we were kicking over at 3.5 kwh ) back in the U.K. I had such a bad experience with the air to water , and like you got some wild quotes that I went gas and retrofitted r30 everywhere , that ticks over on wether comp and has cost this winter 460 pounds set to 19c. And yes I did install new radiators from k1 to k2 plus and a few k3 on the ground , flow is just 35c most of the time
Urban plumbers on the old CZcams is the boy to get if you live down near london
I don't understand how it would heat my home given that heat pumps run at typically 45 degrees versus 70 degrees for my gas system - I can't even turn mine down to those levels but if I turn it to absolute minimum, would that not be a realistic test to see if my home is suitable as is (I know it wouldn't in my case because its only achieving 20 degrees in the house when turned up to 70%).
Mine is built 1968 so old'ish but hardly ancient. Is your house really heavily insulated would you say, and do you ever have to supplement this heat pump system?
Sounds like you might need to look at insulation first.
If you have single radiators you may need to get double ones so that at the lower temp they still give you the same amount of heat output.
@@PSNvjimmy Understood - What about the water temp at 45 degrees (7 degrees centigrade) how does that ever get a room to 21c - am I missing something here, is it cumulative or something?
@@GHOOGLEMALE i run my water temp at 48c to go around the radiators. I have a mix of mainly single rads with very few with the extra fins. The difference is that you pump the water for longer. Your rads arn't burning hot, just warm. The longer time that they run maintains the house at more of a constant temp. All the TRV's are set to max, as the whole house warms at about the same rate. The house was built about the same time as yours, we have added cavity wall insulation and loft insulation though.
You say your gas boiler runs at 70 degrees that in centigrade and the heat pump would be 45 degrees C. Not Fahrenheit so not sure why you’ve done a conversion.
With larger radiators there is more surface area to transfer the heat so the water can be a lower tempreature. If you have good loft insulation and double glazing your house should be OK for a heat pump but the better you can get the insulation the less you will have to spend on larger radiators. How old is your boiler does it have weather compensation? Do you have cavity walls?
What is the difference between a hvac and a heat pump
Nothing, but most HVAC are air-to-air. For heating we tend to use air-to-water because we already have the radiators installed and that’s what the grant is available for
It's rather an odd response though, if you hear someone having bad experience with a builder, it doesn't make you lose respect for the concept of a house
Agreed, but houses have been around for many hundreds of years & are not considered ‘newfangled’…
@@SpenceW But air conditioning isn't newfangled, it's widespread for well over half a century and people know to have the player, not the game.
I suspect that the reason for the unusual response is media FUD, articles like these are wilful and intentional. It is no accident that these misrepresentative and misleading stories appear so frequently.
The heat pump solution appears to me to be like trying to bang a small nail in with a mallet. Sometimes it will work, sometimes not, but highly dependant on who swings the mallet, Until we have technology which can replace a combi boiler (plug & play), this solution doesn't work for all unfortunately.
I heard they come with a 5 year warranty , is that true ?
Up to 10.
Hi Andy, love your no nonsense videos. Please can you do your chalk and talk on current EV car depreciation. It's horrific. I want to sell my Kona EV and buy a Tesla MY. My car, 6 months ago, was worth about £29k, today I'd be lucky to get £22k. I know Tesla price cuts are the main cause of this so you could argue it's relative , Great for first time buyers but crap for others..... the EV market is in turmoil, I'm seriously considering buying an old Lexus. No wonder EV used sales are so poor. I say this as an EV lover, so many advantages but depreciation is the killer.
It’s not in turmoil, it’s just reset back from highly inflated to normal levels.
You also have to consider the other half of the issue, the homeowner needs to understand how to operate the heat pump.
So many homeowners want to run their new heat pump like a gas boiler, on for an hour or 2 in the morning and the same in the evening.
They also need to know how to find the best curve, a good installer will make their best guess but it needs fine tuning over the first year or so.
Totally agree Steve.
We are having heat pump installed soon, which means we can then be disconnected from the grid. We found it hard to find installers and it's quite scary finding someone you can trust with that much money. Like you say Heat Geek is amazing, I think their channel has given me more confidence in the technology, otherwise I think I would have been scared off. Our house is really well insulated and has 4kw heat lost. Hopefully we're doing the right thing!
Also probably plenty of sharks out there before, we had a service done on our gas boiler because my father in law who is a plumber was away, amazing he got back and the things that needed replacing didn't and what's worse the things they did suggest wouldn't have solved the F'ing problem so would have had to have them back -£500 (or someone else)
I had numerous quotes from local “so called heat pump installers” and many of them were clearly trying to rip me off. I was quoted for 2 x 10kW Midea heat pumps. Yes I said 2. Crazy, just crazy! Even the size of the cylinder needed was drastically different from quote to quote. We opted for a 200L cylinder as most people use 46L per person per day. One company quoted me for a 350L cylinder just incase we have people stay over once in a blue moon. Sorry but no! All I can say is do as much research as possible like watching good informative and honest CZcams channels like this. Thanks EVM!
How can the Daily Fail even survive?
Wonder if a better option would be to get a system design from an independent like heat geek but that doesn’t do installs so there is no incentive to over-spec. Include certification/training so you pick a good one. Then you hire an installer to work from that spec. You don’t normally hire a builder to design your extension too, you get an architect and the builder follows the instructions
That’s literally what I did.
@@ElectricVehicleMan but you’re a smart person. Standard thing is call a heating engineer and get an all-in quote. Your approach should almost be standard practice but it won’t unless things change
I think the Electricity Usage vs Heat Output thing is what trips many people up... after all, we have 800W microwaves, 1000W kettles etc, all that use the amount of electricity quoted whilst they are on. It was definitely something that took me a while to get around with moving into a house that had an A2A heat pump "You what? it's 7kW? I'm never turning that on". And I'm not sure it's something in the advertising that can make it easy to understand.. saying something like (e.g. mine) 7.7kW of heat, but 200W-2.4kW of electricity usage would likely cause more confusion to the average Joe. That said Americans use Tons for theirs and they still seem to have similar confusion.
Funny how most sparks are like, you’ve got no capacity for a 7kw load. 😂
So WHERE is a good place to find great, highly competent technicians/companies to design and perform an install either on a new build (as I'm going to do) or a conversion from an old system??
Heat geeks for me.
What would the 5 year old Tesla be worth compared to the Toyota today. Depreciation should come into the equation also.
No experience with air to air heat pumps. But have a ground source heat pump on a house in Norway. I would not recommend this system for the UK.
Funny as Australia is almost exclusively reverse cycle air conditioners/heatpumps across all climate zones as well. Though it definitely doesn't cost $25k to install, well unless you have some sort of ducted system perhaps most installs are much less.
Lack of education and minimal standards that installers have to meet is the problem. That and not giving a monkeys among some installers that pull the rest down and give the systems a bad name.
So true. A good product that is over or undersized & badly installed will never work properly. Take your time to find a good installer who can design a system as well as install it. Many can't & just use "rule of thumb" guesstimates which they could get away with for gas boiler central heating systems but not for heat pumps. I spent 48 years in the Air con / heat pump industry so I've seen many bad installations that have caused all sorts of heartache & hassle. Court cases, expert witness site visits to support claims against installers & HSE investigations when bad practices lead to injuries or worse. Unfortunately Government grants brings out all the cowboys who want to make a quick killing in a booming new industry & then disappear. My house hase 10mm microbore pipework so not suitable for an air to water HP system. When the time comes I will be going Air to Air HP & I will get the benefit of cooling operation in the summer.
octopus has just installed ours it's a 9kw Daikin heat pump our heat loss was 7.9kw we had 3 quotes and Octopus came out the best we went with them because they are going to be around for a long time. they only changed 3 rads plus we had an additional 3 fitted as well so I was very impressed with all the work so far. I know it will cost more in winter to run in winter but will tweak the system as and when we need to.
Got a 9kW Daikin 2 years ago. I did not tweak anything. It just works. Heating and warm water all year around for a 300 sqm house without insulation with the original radiators from 1983 and 50 degrees flow temperature.
@@wolfgangpreier9160 Can it give a higher flow temperature than 50°C ?
@@EgoShredder not tried any thing yes as it’s work in progress
It is called not understanding the technology.
Over the last 2 years I've lost count of the number of quotes I've asked for . . . Only 1 responded, and instead of sending someone to do the heat calculation, they sent a sales person to tell me what I'd already researched. Now looking at a heat battery which is cheaper and less disruption to install.