Does a Heat Pump Really Work In A Victorian Terrace?
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
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Today’s episode supplements a recent release on the Fully Charged Show channel, where our presenter Helen Czerski explained how heat pumps work in “Defying Physics and Making Boilers History?! Heat Pumps Explained”
Here we find out what it’s really like to live with a heat pump from homeowner Jan Rosenow.
Installed in a Victorian terraced property in Oxford to replace an old gas boiler as part of a bigger renovation project, Jan takes us through the reasons why a heat pump was the best option for him, what challenges were experienced during the installation, and what the neighbours think.
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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:03 What Does a Heat Pump Do?
1:27 Installation Challenges
3:10 Why an Air Source Heat Pump?
3:41 What does the Heat Pump Connect To?
4:07 What Is It Like To Live With?
4:38 A Future Technology?
5:43 Energy Usage Comparison
6:17 Telling others?
6:39 Finding Your Installer?
7:32 Home Energy Efficiency
8:33 It’s Not Rocket Science! - Věda a technologie
I'm a heat pump installer (in UK). Unsurprisingly, I think they're great - although there's a few things to note:
For most larger homes, they're an absolute no-brainer if you're changing your existing system, but I don't think there's yet a great range of products for smaller homes (although my expertise is mainly in the Samsung systems we install & I may not be up to date on what other manufacturers offer). Problems for a smaller home are - where to site the outdoor unit without it getting in your way or being adjacent to a bedroom window (or the neighbour's!) which might be a noise problem. They're not particularly noisy - when I service mature units I do a noise test & they normally come out at 42dB ('library') to 45dB ('dishwasher'), but this is at relatively low frequencies so you can get resonance problems if they're badly situated, e.g. facing a fence or in an alley, and unlike a combi boiler they can run continuously for some time. My main problem when doing noise tests is getting a proper reading over traffic or other noise.
Also there's the question of here to put the hot water cylinder. HPs can't deliver instant hot water like a combi, so you'll need a cylinder. Hybrid HP / combi systems exist but they bring their own problems.
There's different types of system and some take longer to install than others. You'd be lucky to get one completed in a couple of days - we're often on site for a couple of weeks, but that depends on a lot of things.
They can heat most places, including old draughty Victorian solid-wall places. We do a heat loss calc for every room to confirm. Radiators are typically way over-specified so we mostly don't have to make any changes, but sometimes we add or replace radiators. So far I've only worked one project where we changed rads wholesale. Microbore piping can be a problem in older places where heat demand is high, but it's probably OK in a newer well-insulated home. They work really well with underfloor heating, but don't worry if you don't have it.
We always used to say running costs were approximately equivalent to a gas boiler (they're 3x as efficient (ish), but use 3x more expensive fuel). However the balance is tipping in their favour as gas gets more expensive. Also if you have solar PV panels, that will help.
Heating controls can be as complex or as simple as you like. We can wire in to existing basic thermostats or include a fancy high tech controller as required.
If you get the right system and installer you should end up with a capable, green, cost-effective, long-life and lo-maintenance system.
@bimblinghill Part of my PhD research during the 1990s (Mech. Eng.) involved air-source heat-pumps for home heating in Christchurch, New Zealand. One of the surprising findings (to me) was that manufacturers rated heat-pump performance in dry air conditions only. So when I measured actual installations I found the CoP dropped to 1 when the outdoor temp was below about 6 degrees C due to icing/de-icing of the outdoor heat-exchanger -- even though the manufacturer's specs gave a CoP greater than 3 for that temperature. Do you actually measure real CoP on your air-source installations? Does it match the high CoP numbers given by manufacturers? If so, can you speculate as to what might be different between England and the South Island of NZ (which I would have thought would have quite similar climates)? We do use air-source heat-pumps in Southern New Zealand, but you see massive spikes in electricity usage (& costs to the homeowner) once the nighttime conditions get into low single digit temps. I can't understand why this wouldn't be the same (or worse) for the UK -- but perhaps I'm missing something..?
@@davidhaywood8029 We do look at the instantaneous CoP as we commission, on the models that give this info. For us it's a sanity check and not very scientific, but it does fluctuate wildly. It seems to get very high in moist air at maybe 6deg ambient; I presume because of latent heat of condensation passing into the coils. Then if the moisture starts to freeze on the coils (which are necessarily colder than ambient) you have a drop in CoP due to the defrost function. Finally when ambients are below freezing, CoP recovers somewhat as the air is much drier.
Icing conditions (damp, low single-digit positive temps) are fairly frequent here, but they still make up a small-ish proportion of usage so they don't seem to have a massive effect on overall annual consumption.
I'm an installer though; I'm not studying the performance. I build the system, commission and move on, so I'm not the best person to speak on this.
Wondering if you could answer a few questions, I'm building at the moment I'm in the stages of selecting a heating system. I'm passive standard and self sufficient in power to what I require at the moment, and the heat pump interests me. I need a 250/300 liter tank and I think 8kw unit, (1) what tank would be best, a tank suited for a heat pump or something like a maxipod that uses heat exchanger keep the central heating warm rather than the hot water (2) what wattage does the units run at (3) what's the average wattage consumption per day (4) is all units similar or is there a different type of unit that's better suited to our miserable climate.
@@bimblinghill Thank you for the reply -- very interesting! As I recall, my sites in Christchurch were pretty much 100 per cent relative humidity all the time on winter nights, which was most of the usage time. Great that you measure CoP of your installations -- it's not easy to do accurately in real-world systems (although you only need ball-park figures in your context, of course...)
An added advantage removing natural gas from the heating system is as fare as I can find that heat pumps do not explode. On a visit to UK I had the "pleasure" of standing next to a wonky natural gas water heater and it started with a bang and a small fireball. No real damage, but I still do not like them. 🙂
I'd like to flag something here: in the UK, we pay a green tax on electricity, but not on gas. Firstly, that's insane, secondly, if the green tax were moved from electricity to gas, then a heat pump would be a better option financially. The UK wholesale electricity price is also set based on the most expensive generation source, meaning that it's currently dominated by the price of gas, even though gas is making up less than half of our electricity mix at the moment. As it is, gas boilers and heat pumps are roughly neck-and-neck. If energy pricing were reformed, heat pumps would have a decisive lower total cost of ownership compared to gas boilers, much like EVs compared to ICE.
All subsidy and government interference should be removed from the energy market. If this happened the true price for wind and solar would be massively higher taking account of their unreliability and unpredictability.
Llywelyn mentioned in another recent video that this tax is a false problem pushed by our government in the media just to find excuses as it just amounts to 1-2p per kWh out of the current price (30-37p/kWh).
@@timfallon8226 no they'd be lower. Gas is what went up in price, not renewables. The reason energy prices went up everywhere is because its an open market. If you can buy 100mw of electricity for a third the price of 100mw worth of oil you'll just turn and sell it at a higher rate.
Supply and demand.
I have one and a more efficient cylinder installed and the saving of the loss of gas and standing charge is far greater than the increase in our electricity expenditure
How surprising that the system is sqewed to benefit the privately owned suppliers that have a massive lobby with legislators. Essential services must be in real public ownership or consumers will always be robbed.
I'm in Canada and just turned off my gas line because I've switched over to a cold climate heat pump to heat my house! Heat pumps are magic and I highly recommend them! I'm so happy my house no longer has an exhaust pipe and doesn't burn stuff anymore.
Hello Mike,
Can you tell us the precise model of your cold climate heat pump?
@@effemmelle it’s a Mitsubishi Zuba PUZ-HA36NKA
Surely Mike the power station just burns stuff on your behalf now, so moving the exhaust pipe? ;)
i was quoted $21,000+HST for the Zuba HA42NKA1 (central ducted, 48,000BTU)... this is crazy expensive system!!!
@@stuartburns8657 He is in Canada which exports much of its hydro power to the US. They produce 60% of their electricity from hydro. There is a lot of wind power too.
As a Floridian, I've lived with heat pumps most of my life. If a heat pump can't get your building cool enough or warm enough then the problem isn't the heat pump, it's your building.
You live in stock built homes in the USA. 99.9% of homes are brick builds in the UK with most of them closing in on 100 years old. The issue is the cost of retrofitting old housing stock to be suitable to allow for a heat pump. This has been getting sorted for many years with majority of homes now having double glazed windows and doors. We need our homes to be insulated though and the cost for this is unaffordable to people for the most part. For instance I was quoted £14k to insulate my home and that would not affect its value. In fact it would mean some mortgage providers won't give me a mortgage.
@@PKSiAMiAM Yeah, that's a problem. My house is a concrete block frame 1950 model that has been expanded several times by successive owners. I've spent US$20k on a new roof with upgraded wind protection, which was necessary to get insurance, and I'm looking at another $20k in insulation and HVAC upgrades within the next couple of years. That's why we call them "buildings" rather than "builts": We're never really done building them.
You are a Floridian. You barely need heat. Heat pumps decline in effectiveness the colder it gets outside, especially below freezing.
@@jamesengland7461 He meant the air conditioner he uses. That's also a heat pump.
@@upnorthandpersonal no; he said cold enough or warm enough. I'm referring to the heat side of the unit. They may not always be adequate in extreme cold.
This video is titled "home truths" but it's relentlessly positive when I believe the reality in the UK is nuanced to say the least especially when it comes to cost.
There's a good deal more useful information in the comments (especially from bimblinghill) than in the video itself.
There are a number of issues that the video glosses over or does not mention at all, for instance:
* Air source heat pumps are drastically less efficient when it's wet outside and below 6°C.
* You need space for a hot water tank.
* Gas is still cheaper than electricity so even if you do save kWh, you may not save money.
* If the house cools down it takes many hours to warm up.
* High installation costs.
My house is small, with solid walls, a nice gas oven and no hot water tank and my bank account isn't as flush as the people featured in the video. I'm also often away from the house for one or two nights a week. I can turn my gas heating right down while I'm not there, but I think that wouldn't work for the heat pump.
I'm researching a heat pump, but it honestly doesn't seem to make sense at the moment.
If I were to take this video at face value, I'd come away with the idea that a heat pump is a no-brainer. But that's just not true, is it?
All sounds lovely, but I know it's simply not true that heat pumps generate enough heat for most Victorian homes in the UK. I live in a detached house built in 1890 and it leaks heat very quickly. They're designed that way - stone takes on moisture and releases it - the house needs to breathe. Completely different to modern houses that are designed to keep moisture (and cold air) out.
I've added masses of loft insulation, double and triple glazing, composite doors etc but without insulating the floor and walls, heat will be lost quicker than a heat pump can generate it. Then there's the 10ft high ceilings - all that space above your head has to be heated before the room can start to feel warm.
External or internal wall insulation is not financially viable, especially in a cost of living crisis, so I'm afraid heat pumps remain a thing of wonder to those with a modern or otherwise super-insulated home and of course the wealthy, who can spend their way to end up featuring in videos such as this.
Your argument is a reasonable one based on common conception. But it’s not quite correct watts are watts so a 16kW heat pump delivers the same 16kW a gas boiler can but at much lower temperature. Once you know the heat loss of a room at say -3 you can then size the heat emitters accordingly to deliver the watts required at the lower flow temps I.e 35C heat pump sweet spot. You don’t need to add insulation if you don’t want to if you did you can save energy be it gas or electricity. Heat pumps need to be run in a steady state mode low and slow,low flow temps and slow to react to temperature change they are a different mind set a rad at 30 C flow temp keeping a room at 21 takes some getting used to. My advise for what it’s worth get a heat loss calculator freedom heat pumps have one you can down load you can size each room put in the construction width height and it spits out heat loss for each room gives you rad sizes at the different flow temps and run costs verses gas and oil. At the very least you could slowly replace rads to be heat pump ready once the Government bans gas boilers. Hope you find this helpful and maybe help out at a future date also check out the heat geek channel and web site.
Thank you for your reply. I had given up hope of reading any thing that gave any information that fitted my situation.
I'm really glad that EES are now covering heat pumps. I'm also glad that "insulate first" was mentioned (because the heat-pump needs to be well matched to the heat demand) this is important.
I would prefer a bit more of a balanced look at the pros and cons of heat pumps, they are not a perfect replacement for a boiler. I would have like comments Like:
Heat pumps are very slow to react taking hours to heat up rather than minutes, this is not a problem but if you need a fast warm up you might be unhappy.
If the existing system uses a combi-boiler, a space will need to be found for a hot water cylinder.
Heat pumps are not much cheaper to run than gas boilers even now, but they might cost roughly the same to run.
No mention was made of the need to upgrade existing radiators, the hot water cylinder and some of the pipework because the heating system operating temperature is much lower than a gas or oil boiler.
The house shown in the video was heavily upgraded first, so it was easy to add a heat pump. I would be interested to see how a straight swap with no insulation improvements stacks up and the disruption and cost involved.
Overall the video was a very good effort but slightly lacking in depth.
I have noticed that the Brits seem to ignore mini splits with air handlers. I would not retrofit a gas boiler system because you lose half the functionality of a heat pump, the cooling aspect. It would be much cheaper to put a mini split in.
@@leroyharder4491 Yes and they are just as efficient. I must admit that radiators make the house seem a bit more comfortable for some reason.
A hybrid heat pump can straight swap with a combi boiler. But it isn't utopian enough so you hear little about them.
@@leroyharder4491 It's partly the incentive system in the UK. There's a £5000 boiler upgrade scheme grant, but it's only available if the system is not set up for cooling (functionality has to be physically disabled) and it must also supply all heating and hot water (so no hybrid systems).
Of course it's stupid, but hey, politics!
The preference here for water-based heating (radiators) rather than air blowers might be mainly historical. Many of our houses pre-date any form of central heating, and its far easier to drill small holes in walls to retrofit 15mm water pipes than it is to make larger holes for air passages. Therefore this is what our heating industry knows, so they continue to build what they know into new builds. That said, I don't know that air systems are better than water systems other than the cooling functionality, which is something we've barely needed until very recently.
@@bimblinghill We have similar problems with our incentive systems. When we install a heat pump, they want the legacy gas system removed to qualify for the incentive. Its a bit ridiculous as air source heat pumps cannot keep up when temperatures get very cold here in Canada. Oddly enough here in BC, ground source heat pumps that make more sense in our colder temperatures, are not listed as approved systems.
I personally like some redundancy and would not remove our legacy system. Back in the day, when solar did not make economic sense, they were actively promoting removal of wood stoves. When things go seriously wrong with gas or electrical systems, whose house will everyone gather? The one with the wood stove. I understand the regulation to make them burn cleaner and safer.
Our insurance companies are partly to blame as well. Our current provider has a cap on the amount of solar. They also don't like wood stoves. Somehow the cost of repairing a frozen house during a long power outage doesn't compute. We have forest fire seasons as well, and having electricity, water even if the power went out would prevent severe property damage from a nearby fire. Resiliency and redundancy simply doesn't compute with insurance companies.
There is almost no simpler system than a mini split. Power to an outdoor unit, which then is connected to indoor units via small bundle of 2 pipes and power cord. Only small holes required. Very flexible.
So many UK houses built during the last 40 years have microbore pipework and very small radiators. The upheaval/cost to replace pipework and radiators isn't going to encourage mass take-up of heat pumps. I just replaced my gas boiler at a cost of £1500, with the cost of electricity a heatpump for 10 times the price didn't make sense. 3:06 not many houses have room for that lot.
You will have to decarbonise eventually... And we should start distinguishing between the cost of replacing the boiler/heatpump in an existing system designed for it, and changing the heating system to be more efficient (lower circulation temp). People are conflating these and saying 'this is what a heat pump costs', which isn't actually right. When people come to replace their heat pumps in 15 years time that won't cost much either (probably about the same £1500).
It would have been a much more convincing video if the improvements made to the house to make it more efficient to support the heat pump were explained rather than just re-iterate the efficiency of heat pumps. I know it will vary between properties but in this case what was done? Wall insulation, underfloor insulation, bigger radiators, how much additional space for tanks etc.
Good general discussion. Well done EES. I've had a heat pump for 8 years in a 250 yr old house and it's been very good. Much cheaper to run than the previous oil boiler.
how cold does it get where you live
I would think that our weather is pretty average for the Midlands. Our coldest temp we had was when the UK had “The Beast from the East” in 2018. It got to -7 degrees Celsius then.
@@johndaly8156 Worth noting that heat pumps have been used very effectively in Scandinavia, Germany, and other parts of Europe for decades. It's less about the local weather and more about either a properly designed system specific to your house or, as noted in the video, do the house efficiency things first; draft proofing, double or triple glazing, and, most of all, insulation, insulation, insulation.
@@mrmidland_traveller936 I live in Ma. usa the coldest was -22 fahrenheit
@Mr Midland_Traveller
That's interesting to know, so solid walls I presume? To what sort of temperature do you heat your home? I'm in a fifties ex- council property and although the internal walls could really do with attention I'm very reluctant to just fill in the cavity with insulation because the house has been "breathing" with no damp for fifty years. If I close off its cavities surely it's going to get damp and goodness knows what other complications. It's been heated to temps never above 19°C in the winter quite happily without the boiler running more than a couple of times a day. I'm wondering if a heat pump would do the same in those conditions.
Sorry probably not a question you can answer!
We had one installed 12 months ago in a 1930s semi, north UK. It's working great - higher COP than expected, reliable and at current prices is saving money vs. gas (12months ago I couldn't say that, but it was a small difference even then). I haven't done anything extreme. It still amazes me how much false information is online about them, hence I intend to put my experience online as another rea-world retrofit example.
How much did it cost in total to switch over to a heat pump, equipment and labour?
What was the COP please.
@@timfallon8226 I can't give a short answer as we sneaked in at the end of the RHI scheme and also took part of that upfront as the green homes grant (you couldn't have both!). The online advise generally says £9-14k which was right for us, I upgraded the heat pump spec higher than necessary to accommodate a potential future extension which added significantly to the cost. In the end I also installed the appropriate radiators myself and paid on top for that (long story; wanted to keep fancy column radiators). The math says about £3900 total after the 7 years of RHI payments, ALL costs included, based on todays energy prices - but £9k upfront without me changing radiators (it worked fine with the existing radiators, but works much better with the upgraded system). I plan to do a decent blog on this soon - hope that helps.
@@normanpouch was around 3.5 with gas system / higher temperature sized radiators, running the last couple of months at COP 4.9, main rooms at 20C and hallway at 18C. I need to see how winter goes for a full comparison, but comparing to last year Autumn is suggesting 1-1.5 increase is attainable, as I've got the setup much better than the installers started it on. I hope to do a blog on it. I have the MMSP data for the above figures, I am amazed by it so far.
@@greenbot9467 thanks for replying.
So all in all it was massively more expensive than a conventional gas system even with a fat slab of government subsidy thrown in.
Just done a house refurb and installed ASHP and retrofit underfloor heating. Currently (on same tariff) have reduced energy costs by about 20%. So pretty happy
May I ask what was the total cost of installing ASHP -all included?
It’s always fascinated me when I visit the UK that you have almost no heat pumps. We were last there in Summer, and we sweltered in a heat wave, and nowhere that we stayed (mostly airbnb) had any kind of cooling.
Here in Australia they’re extremely common, usually in the form of inverter reverse cycle airconditioners, and even if often used more for cooling than heating in Northern parts of Australia, but they’re still terrific for heating in winter, absolute best of both worlds.
Heatwaves are short-lived in the UK, and the media always go mental over it, pushing the climate change narrative, but a few weeks later, it's all back to normal and it turns out yet again we are not going to die from the climate just yet.
Because summers are short-lived, air-conditioning is mainly for office buildings and rich folk. It hardly seems worth the expense just for a few weeks of warm weather.
@@mclovin8739 But, you’re completely losing sight of the fact that they make fabulous super efficient heaters too, unless it’s colder than about minus 7Celsius or so.
We just didn't need indoor cooling in this country more than about 1 day/year until quite recently when the whole place got heated up. So it made no financial sense to install equipment for it. Even now the incentive structure discourages heat pumps that can do cooling as well.
Lol imagine being in Britain and complaining about the lack of air conditioning.
I have been enjoyed, so thank you for delivering.
For the Lay person or future householder investigating heat pump installation in the average Terraced House in the UK there is one source in the UK that in my opinion demystifies the installation of Air Source Heat pumps in the average and not so average homes in London and surrounds.
This guy explains in a plain matter of fact manner the complexities of installing Air Source heat pumps in older houses so well that he has gained a following of Plumbers and engineers in Germany and Italy and the Scandinavian countries for using Concise but comprehensive instructions for Installers and plumbers who have ignored requests from their existing clients to install an Air to Water System as too difficult and not being profitable enough for the amount of labour costs involved and even the guy from the CZcams channel " Heat Geek " is a fan,
This Guy is on CZcams and his channel is called "urban plumbers" - episodes to watch - Is this heat pump better than your gas boiler & Heat pumps don't work. Here is why
Urban plumber is a bloody legend. These Europeans though, coming over here with mad skills, making our houses warmer for less money… disgusting. 😂
@@Muppetkeeper Probably better trained and not out to rob you like so many outfits do her.Neighbour had just had her bath taken out and replaced by a step in shower unit.Over ten grand.No sink replaced eitherr The old bath is still outside their house they didn't ever take it away.A so called reputable company my arse.
From a pure financial standpoint - these systems are currently not worth it at all. With gas @ 10p and electricity @ 34p, unless they can reduce energy consumption by more than 2/3rd's then you will be paying more than your gas boiler.
Where there is some benefit is if you have battery storage to be able to use cheap night electricity - but then you need a very big battery to be able to store enough energy overnight to use during the day for your heating. Cost of a battery this size makes it completely unviable.
It just doesn't financially work at all at present in the UK with current electricity prices and limited government incentives - the current situation also doesn't look to be changing any time soon. It's a shame as a properly designed system really can cut your energy usage by half or more, just the desparity between gas and electric prices per kWh means it will cost you more to run without any chance of payback on the £5000+ (after grant) upfront cost.
The complete and utter lie that is the '20 year lifespan' of these systems also needs to be addressed. I'm an electronics engineer and HVAC specialist and i can tell you now there is no way that the majority of these systems will last 20 years without expensive inverter boards, solenoid valves, sensors, pump and compressor failures - they are complex devices with a LOT more to go wrong than a basic gas boiler. I'm sure an entire industry will form that specialises in repair and maintenance of heat pumps - at exorbitant prices no doubt.
All the comparisons in costs i've seen rely entirely on the heat pump lasting 20 years and a gas boiler lasting 10.....in reality that is going to be the other way round. A good brand gas boiler will usually do 20 years, and i think you will struggle to get many heat pumps to do 10 years without the aforementioned failures....and good luck getting warranties honoured in 10 years time, the business would have probably collapsed and pheonixed more than once over that time.
I am all for this tech, when designed and installed properly in houses where they are suitable - but there is a lot of marketing BS that is typical of emerging technologies - i used to work in the LED lighting industry and the 20 year lifespan on heat pumps reminds me of the magical 50,000 hour lifespan of an LED lamp that was stuck on everything with an LED in it. It's just some number thats been concocted from some severely flawed study or a dodgy manufacturer MTBF test that then gets banded round the industry. Reality will unfortunately be very different.
....isn't it more like £10,000+!?
@@andymccabe6712 Yeah it's 10k but there is a 5k boiler replacement grant available, so it comes down to 5k. Still doesn't pay when it costs more to run than the gas boiler (and again 20 year lifespan is BS without very expensive repairs during its life)
All true - if you're on mains gas.
If not, ASHP can start to make more sense, but good points about life, warranties etc. I would go for A2A hp as don't have a wet system, and have a one level dwelling (like a flat or a bungalow).
Perhaps the wrong place for a nuanced view of heat pumps but total honesty is needed if we're to help people make the right decision for their situation. I spent a few hundred hours looking at videos and reading articles before, disappointingly, deciding that a heat pump system was not right for me in a semi-detached house in the north of England.
Here we don't have extreme weather (it's November now and 13 degrees), in the summer if it goes over 30 degrees it's newsworthy. So no real need for AC at all and central heating is only on for a quarter of the year. Without the need for an airtight house people won't pay to have an airtight house. I've got 300mm insulation in the loft and decent double glazing and exterior doors. An electric combi boiler meets our needs and PV and battery keep the price per kWh very low.
Fits all sizes is not the case with heat pumps.
I think the biggest problem is still cost. Until the full install cost is on par with getting a boiler replaced nobodys going to go to that expense, especially right now.
I've been a big fan of Fully Charged for years, but just ignoring the elephant in the room here (plus talking about energy reduction instead of cost reduction) really undermines their credibility. Relying on ordinary people paying £15k is never going to get this country to net zero.
@@robinbennett5994
15 thousand pounds? Are they nuts.Gas boiler about 2 to 2.5 grand or even less.The green con deal.
@@foppo100 I think you've misunderstood me. 15k is what we've been quoted for a heat pump.You're right that gas boilers are much cheaper, and unless something big changes, most of the country isn't going to switch.
@@robinbennett5994 It's not the first time Fully charged has ignored it as well. In fact they seem to intentionally skirt around the extremely high cost of some of the products featured, presumably because its all sponsored content.
Really wish they'd do a few episodes on lower cost options, or focusing on breaking the figures down to help justify the expense.
@@robinbennett5994 I asked about an idea of the costs involved and was told my query was irrelevant...
Thanks for the informative video
Ha. I recognise that voice. That's not just any Jan Rosenow, that's Jan Rosenow from the 'Watt Matters' podcast :-) Well worth listening to for a European view on the energy transition
Thanks, love my heatpump!
Brilliant! I am getting one for our 110 year old, two story house on the Canadian prairies. I am told they will operate down to -35C. Soon I will complete the R27 foam insulated walls then a new electrical system then install an air sourced heat pump...which I hope will allow us to reduce the natural gas heater by 95%.
I am a bit confused about the benefits mentioned at 09:04 - ".. not burning fossil fuels anymore. It's protection again future price rises". I thought heat pumps ran on electricity. And switching to them would reduce use of Gas (savings) but increase the use of electricity (the price of which continues to climb. And is expected to. Not saving). So unless he means that the electricity use is much lesser in terms of cost than that of gas, how does this come together to make sense?
He means that HE doesn't burn fossil fuels for heating anymore. locally in his home.
He could also be with an energy supplier that provides his supply with electricity produced from renewable.
Then, he could have solar panels on his home that provides the power for his heat pump when solar is producing, and additionally could have a storage battery that is charged by the solar panels and is then utilised to run the heat pump in an evening when solar power isn't being produced.
great information
The only issue I have is that heat pumps seem to get pushed as the only solution. They are great but not suitable in all scenarios, an article comparing several alternatives, with their pros and cons, would be great. It would also need to highlight where something less efficient might work such as electric radiators but in a home with high electricity self-generation.
I ‘love’ how casually the guy talks about ground source being a bit more involved. Reality is unless you have a field behind your house then ground source isn’t really an option.
Additionally, the cost of ground source is prohibitive. I just had a quote for £22k for one.
The main guy being interviewed mentions having a mixture of radiators &UFCH. That’s a recipe for disaster as such a mix is really inefficient.
The bore hole option has got to come down in price as more installers offer it and manufactures supply the pipe work.
I moved to an ASHP from a bulk 1000 litre LPG storage tank and boiler. Costs of bulk LPG were more volatile and could easily jump 2 or 3 x the lower costs we have had. we would have 2 or 3 refills over the year and mid winter it would be only 6 weeks.
The ASHP takes a little space, but has meant we are now fully maintained from electricity, hot water over the summer was roughly 2kWh per day, via the ASHP andthat is for 3 adults in the home!
I am coming into my first winter and have followed advice of setting all rooms to be heated at same time to same temps and only dropping by 2 degrees C overnight. So far looking good and I am sure this will cost me far less than the LPG, especially now at 76p per litre!
Heat pumps are common in France for years. I am surprised by this gap just a few kilometers up north.
For my house built ten years ago, I actually declined because of cost and opted for insulation efficiency.
I'm fully in favour and "in the zone" on this as well.
I have a ATW Daikin heat pump and love it . Best thing I did was to have my oil boiler taken out .
Daft question........ If lots of houses in the same area have heat pump tech. Won't the outside temperatures be lower during the winter. How can you get heat from freezing temperatures outside?
Great report - I'd would like to install a heat pump and would love it if you could do a report on how to get it done without being ripped off by the installers. I've had a detailed quote from an installer which includes material costs of 30% More than I know the materials are costing them. Labour costs for what is described as 20 'man days' (their word - Max) amounting to £5,800+ I sent my heat loss report to two othe installers and got back quotes 25% and 35% higher than this. The gov grant of £5,000 and VAT relief amounts to a saving of around £8,000 most of which it seems is going into these greedy installers pockets!
Could be worse, there are schemes where govt. pays for the entire installation for qualifying tenants in private rented homes - entirely predictably it is the domain of the high pressure sales cowboys
I don't know how long the Heat Pump grant will be in place as the Government has realised that using £5000 to insulate will cover more homes and reduce gas usage overall, that's their aim. Not wanting to make any judgements but it can help more poorer families than fewer better off families that may be able to afford the full cost anyway. With the ban on gas boiler installs from 2025 manufacturers will have to bring in cheaper HP's if they want to sell anything. Stand buy for a deluge of Gas boiler replacements in 2024 you won't be able to get a plumber.
Get multiple quotes. We have a 24k btu mitsubishi system with dual zone control installed in one day of work for 13k USD total. You can barely tell when it turns on and it performs well even below freezing. Depending on your specific needs the price and system can vary a lot, which is why you need 3 quotes minimum. Do your research or you will get scammed by bad installers, but the good ones will guarantee their work and have references to show for it.
How is this new? They've been around for "ever", bought our first cheap Chinese pre filled one in 1998 in Finland, still works, that house has 3 and the garage has 1. Compared to oil or electrical heating it saves a lot, we don't have gas heating in Finland. Works fine till -18C.
Well, obviously, it depends where you are on the planet..!!
Here in the UK, almost NOBODY had a heat pump until very recently - even now, we're only just starting to talk about them seriously..!!
I don't know anyone who has one......
...they're certainly new to us!!!
We don't have space for the unit or the tanks in our home. It's December, but it's 11°C so no need for heat in the day. Heat pumps aren't very good at providing heat only for a few hours when you want them at night.
Its a no brainer especially in the mild and warm clinate in uk. They work brilliant in scandinavia aswell down to minus 25 centigrades. You give 1kw and get 5 kw its excellent
Informative, thanks. I'd like a case study of an end of the 80s 5-bed detached microbore reasonably insulated😉
What does 'reasonably insulated' mean? This is one of my bugbears - there is no generally understood language for the difference between '50mm of fibreglass cavity-fill' (minimal insulation) and '50mm of cavity plus 200mm of external EPS/rockwool/woodfibre' (very good insulation - passivehouse grade). One is U=0.57 the other U=0.15 (nearly 4 times better).
@@xxwookey Good point. Cavity wall was filled shortly after we bought the house back in 2005, no other wall insulation, we have ~300 mm of rockwool in the loft, all windows were changed in 2018 to A rated double glazing.
great video guys. keep up the great work. keep smiling everyone
Lot of sense doing this if you're already in the middle of a refurb or adding extension. In any other situation it involves major disruption.
Here's a few home truths. I have a 4 bed detached house with an oil boiler that was built in 2013 an has an EPC rating of C. I got quotes for an ASHP and GSHP. The quotes came back at £22k for the ASHP and £35k for the GSHP, excluding civil works for the underground pipes.
The work required replacing the water tank and all of radiators
A couple of comments about the example used in this video
1. The owner says that he has reduced his energy usage by 60% (from 15,000kwh G&E to 6,000kwh E). However with a CoP of say 3 this amounts to around 18,000kwhr. His house also has solar panels, so have these been factored in. Hence he has not saved any energy, physics is not magic
2. For me a HP is not economic especially with electricity 3x the price of gas or oil. The price differential of electric kills any benefit you can get from the COP of the HP
3. My first house was a 2 bed semi built in 1992. It had a gas combi boiler and a small garden. It would have been problematic to install an ASHP since there was no room for a hot water tank and I would not have liked to sit in the garden next to he HP radiator
The technology is not mature. If they made it plug and play to replace an existing gas/ oil boiler, reduced the costs and got the electric price down to what it used to be (say 12pkwh) then the basic economics would encourage the change and it would not have to be driven by ideological reasons
If you have a oil burner, a heat pump can save hundreds of dollars each month! I have a air to air heat pump, 1,800 square feet and 48,000 Btu heat pump. A little oversized, but in the winter I never need to run a electric back up heater! My coldest outside air temperature is about -5C or 20F. At 23F (about -5C) the 48,000 Btu heat pump can collect only about 24,000 Btu's of heat, because the outdoor air temperature is so cold. Just enough in my case!
My experience overall of an Air Source heat pump installation over the last year is a positive one. However two points are worthy of note for Gas/Oil users. The system responds gently to demand, unlike traditional systems which respond very fast in comparison. Also, efficiency drops off the colder the weather. Below zero this is noticeable. We opted for a 7 kWh unit rather than the standard 5 kWh recommended for our "high-efficiency" New Build and still the system struggles below zero. I would recommend a Ground Source approach if feasible as the ground temperature should be constant at sufficient depth, whatever the weather.
It looks like HP is at the bottom of the garden. Are the pipes running back to the house underground? If so what distance is possible?
Interesting, but this example coincides with a large house renovation. In reality most will just want to swap out their existing combi boiler for a heat pump. So how do the costs, disruption and associated works really compare? New combi boiler takes a day to fit and costs circa £4K. Fitting a heat pump to an old Victorian may involve new rads, piping, water tank, electrics, wall and floor insulation, double glazing (if you don’t have it), making good and redecorating, the HP unit, concrete base or wall mount, external pipe lagging. So looking at weeks of work & disruption, and significantly higher costs. And though it’s 4 times more efficient, electricity is 4 times the cost of gas, so you don’t even get a return on your investment. How are low/middle income households supposed to fit these even with £7k gov grant.
UK still has houses with single glazed windows? Well, fix that first!
It's not just the windows, it's the poor quality building design and material too.
Its not possible in all areas of the country some places are conservation areas and you can't make changes to the external of the house
Changing windows doesn't necessarily change the outside although it can be an expensive special order to make new windows look old. You can even get newly made wavy hand made glass for the right look. But, listed buildings are only 2% of buildings so it is a minor problem.
I was hoping this would get into a little more detail about how often backup heat needs to run on these newer heat pumps in cold climates. I have no doubt about the significant savings but would still be good to know.
Something I have been wondering, what is the difference between an air source heat pump and the air conditioning units you can buy that also have a heat function? (or are they pretty much the same thing?)
An air conditioning system with a built in heater generally uses the same technology as your standard electric heater. So they are not as efficient as air source heating as they use electricity to create all the heat. Air source heaters pump heat energy from the environment.
Thanks for the video, but I have a question- do you have any UK data on the split between gas tanked boiler systems vs gas combi? I’d like to understand if homes which do not have space for a hot water tank what alternatives are available? Is it cost effective to install a tank in the loft or would it be better to switch to an electric boiler?
If you retain a gas feed then you're paying Gas standing charge all year round. Maybe best to fit Solar water heating which is a one off cost with an immersion heater for really dull days.
Is there a place for a 'hybrid' system i.e. a part air source, part ground source set-up for smaller properties? Alternatively, can the ground coils be mounted vertically in a trench, rather than horizontally?
I don't think ASHP/GSHP hybrid systems exist. For a smaller home, ASHP is the way - the efficiency benefits of going ground-source aren't that huge.
The comment he made that "we are not burning fossil fuels"how does he think electricity is mainly generated, mostly gas, last time I looked that was a fossil fuel. Also how does it run when its minus 5C, at those conditions, I know from my own experience it'll spend half it life in defrost, no one ever mentions that.
For me to install a air source heat pump would require replacing my radiators and 9mm microbore with larger units and at least 15 mm pipework. I live in a small semi with only very limited space at the rear and path at the front... and that 's just the start before I think about the insulation- Underfloor, walls, roof and upgraded glazing. Might as well gut the house and start again...all on state pension!...it's not happening any time soon.
We have solar, but our hot water, heating and hob are gas. I looked at moving our hot water to electiricy, but because of the solar back compared to our night rate electricity charges, and our cheap gas prices, moving our hot water across to electricy would mean our power bill would increase. Another factor I had to consider is that we currently have instant hot water on gas that heats our water to 45'c. If we moved to electricity and a hot water cyclinder, we would have to heat the water to 60'c. We also don't have any subsidies here in New Zealand so there are no insentives to switching heat, water and cooking away from gas.
In UK gas is still best option if available. Only if doing new build or not on gas grid does HP make sense. At a price.
Nice introduction to heat pumps, but what about the additional noise, the need for bigger radiators or going for air-to-air heat pumps?
Our Mitsubishi Zuba heat pump is built for cold climates (I’m in Canada) and it’s much quieter than the air conditioning unit it replaced. It’s so quiet in fact that I usually have to look for evidence that the fans are turning to know that it’s even running!
I've done exactly that: gone for a simple air-to-air heat pump (essentially an air-cond system) simply because it was considerably cheaper to buy (£1,300. installed) than a full air-to-existing central heating one, which would have been £10,000 - £14,000 installed by the time rads and pipework had been upsized. Mine consists of just one indoor air blowing unit, serving a single open plan living area, although you can get ones with multiple indoor units, working off one outdoor compressor. I'm getting infrared electric panels to serve kitchen and bathroom. Of course, being a blown air system, it can't produce domestic hot water. For that I've bought a modern, maximally efficient, direct electric hot water tank, just big enough for my needs (you have to have a ginormous one for a typical heat pump). If I'd gone for a more comprehensive air cond, of even two of them, one serving the bedrooms, it would still have worked out a lot cheaper than a 'conventional' heat pump. As for noise, it's no noisier than a typical fan heater. The compresser's noisier, but it's outside anyway.
How’s the efficiency now when you pay 43c kW? As they need to be on pretty much 24/7 at this cold weather
Great content as always, if I could put in a request: it would be really good to get a side by side comparison of home heating tech; ideally covering pros and cons, the average install and running costs, and finally one of the key costs for us small house and garden owners - space required. I've looked at heat pumps and IR panels. I know that heat pumps can do it all, whereas IR panels mean that you need other tech to heat water, so it would be good to see how IR Panels paired with an immersion heater (or similar) stack up against a heat pump. From what I can tell, heat pumps seem to look good on paper, physically however, with their not insignificant size and industrial looks...IR panels lack of need for external infrastructure makes them look attractive. Ultimately, we the pubic have been known to buy not necessarily what is "best", but what is more convenient. I guess that's what I'm trying to work out. If it costs more to heat my home and water in the long run with IR etc, but by doing so I wouldn't need to look at a heat pump every time I walk out the door - would I consider the additional cost to be worthwhile?
The nice thing about an IR panel is that you can buy a small one and try it without committing yourself to a whole house system.
I'm very happy with my ASHP installation in a 1970's detached house. Two winters completed so far. I have solar, a house battery and an EV, so I have access to EV electrical tariffs and being able to shift cheaper energy into the day. I've used 2368kWh of grid electricity this year so far which has cost me £224.11. This covers heating, hot water and EV charging.
So you say you have used 2368 kWh from grid this year. You paid for that 224.11 GBP. That means you paid 9.46 p/kWh. How is that possible when I pay now 44.347p/kWh on government lowest electricity tariff at day ? How big is your house? How much heating energy do you use per year?
@@teranova5566 I have an EV tariff from Octopus Go. Until Mar 22 it was 5p/kWh for 4 hours and 15p/kWh the rest of the day, from Mar 22 to Mar 23, my tariff is is fixed at 7.5p/kWh for 4 hours and 32p/kWh for the remainder. With solar and home battery storage, I use negligible grid electricity in the brighter months and in the darker months I fill the EV, the house battery, heat the water and start the ASHP going during my cheaper 4 hours. At the moment the battery and any solar covers the my off peak use. This will change as it gets colder and darker. I'll see what stats I can dig out from the ASHP...
My new daytime elecric tariff is 5 times that of my gas tariff. So I would be paying a lot more if I switched to heat pumps for the whole house. I self installed a de-Longhi air conditioner heat pump (for 1 room only) nearly 20 years ago and it still works fine so know how good they are, its just that our crazy UK energy pricing scheme (as someone else below points out) makes it a very uneconomic choice at the moment.
The term "Home Truths" should indicate some level of balance. This video is everything about advocacy and little about truth. As numerous people have commented here, there are many disadvantages to retrofitting heat pumps to existing buildings with gas central heating. Having to replace radiators and pipework, find somewhere for a hot water tank, noise, installation costs, are all potential issues with heat pumps. I am disappointed that these facts weren't aired. There is a very good case to make for heat pumps but not in all situations.
What is the cost for a detached 3 bedroom house with a gas combi boiler supplying 8 radiators.Also hot water.Shower is electric heater.We are ove 70 is it worth the cost and how much average to install?
Love the comments just brushed over such as
1: Insulate your home. With older buildings that’s difficult. My narrow cavity, sodden raised floor (below dirt) you basically have to insulate externally, then replace every window as they are now too deep set in total your looking at £12,000 before you start.
2: Next the floor. Designed to allow air to be drawn up to feed fireplaces originally. You can’t install underfloor heating which most people advise to use. So either you have to seal the floor & install a raised floor with insulation or you pour an insulated concrete slab by ripping up your floors in your whole house.
So after that little lot, once you’ve spent £15k you then have £6k for the install of the heat pump. So your now about £21k to £25k in to replace a £2k boiler. Then you have the operational limits.
1: If you don’t have it constantly on with a store of hot water you can’t get instant (say 30mins) of hot water. Turn up home unexpected soggy wet & muddy you either put an Emerson Heater on (very costly) or you use an electric dribble shower.
2: Same with the heating. Get a cold snap or just feel chilly in the evening. Didn’t tell the system oops that’s no heat for you.
So sorry until you give me a system that a) is instant to respond not hours, b) doesn’t involve me rebuilding my house and c) is cheaper than gas (just work the numbers I’m paying 34p for Elec per KWh, whilst gas is 22p. So 6’000 kWh a year is £2040 a year whilst his previous 12’000kwh a year on gas is £2’640 Even at that price (Gas will come down) the payback time on your £25k system - £5k installed gas boiler =£20k/£600 saving = 33.33yrs without anything ever going wrong. And that’s if you’ve got £25k floating around.
So I support the move to net zero but please come up with a workable solution not great ideas for the few very rich people.
The options vary for type of house, lifestyle AND if mains gas available.
If gas is an option, it's still the best - and getting greener too.
If no gas, then HP may be viable.
Thats a lovely array of solar panels on the roof.
We have been given the opportunity to have a air heatpump system installed, but we live in a small 1970 mid terraced house. We were told that the system may not fit anywhere in the house and also cannot see where the outside unit could comfortably go? I'm worried that when our existing gas warm air which is same age as our house packs up what other system will be available? If we did have the airpump installed will we have to have radiators instead of heat grids? Just really worried, from a 72 year old that cares about the environment too.
How much electricity does it use on a kold (-5c) day? (in kW per day)
Why did he not mention the solar hot water on his roof and what he had to do to his radiators/pipework or any fabric improvements made. These all make the use of heat pumps viable.
I think it would be far more informative if you case studied a property that did not include any building works to see the true cost of swapping out of a gas boiler.
Looks like his Victorian terrace may well be double leaf and therefor have had cavity insulation? I’ve no issue with heat pumps but getting clear answers on costs etc is difficult. We live in a 1900 sandstone semi with high ceilings. The whole house would need internal or external wall insulation, pipe work would need redone, we’d need larger radiators in at least two rooms, gas fireplace would need to be replaced with electric or sealed up (then room would need redecorated) and we would potentially be told that underfloor heating would be best. This would be well into tens of thousands of pounds that we just do not have.
I enquired about external wall insulation in 2018 and had quotes ranging from £20k to 30k. How can regular families afford this stuff?
Would be good to offer a more balanced view including some of the downsides and interviews with people for whom they haven't worked well - I know this channel is all about advocacy, but I think it needs to be honest that heat pumps are not a silver bullet and if badly sized or fitted can be a disaster (and the reality is that there are a lot of cowboys out there jumping on the bandwagon doing a bad job of fitting them). Space and a suitable place to site the unit is a big problem for a lot of houses. Also while electricity prices are linked to gas and are 3 times the unit price of gas, the savings probably aren't sufficient to be affordable for a lot of people, especially when factoring in the capital cost of install. I recommend watching channels by fitters like Skill Builder if you want real home truths. There also seems to be lacking in the market sufficient reputable companies offering decent home energy efficiency surveys and advice (beyond the bog standard efficiency certificates for home selling).
Skill builder seem hell bent on gas for some reason. Also a badly fitted heat pump isn’t a downside of a heat pump, it’s the idiots who installed it or idiots who Mis sold it that’s the problem.
Badly fitted and Mis sold boilers are just as bad, they don’t condense properly, never save the claimed £800 per year on the boiler advert and can be extremely dangerous if not fitted properly. I know of a plumber who did time for killing someone via carbon monoxide poisoning.
Yes but he's not the only one doing videos about the drawbacks of heat pumps, even when fitted and sized properly. Also we don't have the long term experience with them in this country or enough skilled people to maintain them/ repair them when they go wrong.
Heat pumps run on electricity which is 3 X the cost of gas, you also need huge Radiators as the ideal temp for economy to run a heat pump is about 35 deg once you increase the temp you decrease the efficiency, in older homes forget it
So you can connect an ashp straight to a boiler tank and run the existing radiators and hot water use from that, have I got that right?
I understood that it was complicated because of pipes needing to be re-sized for some reason... Can anyone tell me what I'm missing here please?
Thanks, thought provoking Helen, cheers.👍
The pipework needs to be changed and I'm told you need different radiators too.
It's not quite that simple! You need to have a survey to determine the heat loss from your rooms and the heat output of the radiators at the flow temperature of the heat pump (an installer should do this for free, or you can do it yourself if you feel confident). If any of your radiators aren't able to provide enough heat they will need to be replaced with larger ones. Your existing cylinder will probably not be suitable for use with a heat pump and will need to be replaced as well. There is usually a requirement for a small buffer tank to match the output of the heat pump to the heating system.
All of this sounds complex but a good installer will size everything according to your needs and will carry out all of the required work.
(Edit: removed refernce to pipes)
@@alexwebster7065 thanks, that is so helpful. I have a combi boiler and no cylinder so I would just put the appropriate cylinder in the same area, there's room for any supplementary cylinder too if necessary, or there are other options on placement. It's all a bit hypothetical in my dreams at the moment but I hope to be able to get a greener home some day. Many thanks again.👍
@@waterboy8999 thank you, yes I heard that too. 👍
I have a heatpump in my 1984 built house. NONE of the pipes were changed, in many many homes in the UK, you will not need new pipes. I have new, larger radiators, but after the first week you don’t notice them at all. The house feels nicer as it’s a gentle heat, and my hills are 20% less than they were with gas.
Brilliant discussion, more like this please
If you plant thousands of more trees and plants hydrogen mix gas boilers could help reduce your CO2 emissions. Some homes with a very small garden or building that two small to have heat pump fitting inside you could still have hydrogen gasmix boiler but insulate your house to reduce energy usage.
So get rid of a gas boiler and get a heat pump. One big one off cost and then no gas bill for life.
Heat pump works off electric but my solar will sort that out
Heat pumps are not something American technicians seemed to be comprehensively trained about here. ..or if so they are not educating their owners very well. Mine for example promised snow would melt if sucked into the fins of the condenser. Instead I had a wall of ice form from melted snow blocking the air flow that never melted. On a forum, a tech who actually had a heat pump said he found he had to, melt the snow off the pump's fins, shelter his from midwest snows and his efficiency went up. I did the same and my monthly utilty bill dropped some $25.00. Additonally I was told never turn off the heat pump. I have a passive thermal solar mass than stores heat for up to 2 days if fully loaded with full sunshine throughout the day. Shutting off the heat pump completely until the temperature dropped to its set temperature of 68 F saved me an additional wad of money and consumed no utility energy whatsoever. There are several other tips I've picked up and that are never mentioned as heat pumps in the states are highlighted the only real concern to think about in keeping citizens warm while consuming the planet less. Thank you for a mention about insulation and efficiency. Combined with heat pumps the reduction on energy should be significant. Without decent insulation heat pumps are simply snake oil and false promises. It might not be bad to talk about what might be a target for insulation. My dwelling has an R-value of 35 in the walls and 55 in the roof, plus extra foundation insulation. Before I properly protected the heat pump my bill was almost the same as a home more than three times the size of mine that was well insulated. Getting the most out of a heat pump must be a partnership of equals believing the homeowner's skill capacity is as important as the technicians.
Is there enough elecric supply to heat all the homes in the UK?
Yes because of the significant reduction in energy needed to make the gas and the fact that in 10 years energy consumption has dropped due to efficiency in other areas and also in the last 10 years we’ve gone from almost no energy generation from renewables to almost 50%, so it can easily be done if we have the will, and then energy will get cheaper too as we won’t be extorted by the fossil fuel industry like we are now.
@@deanfielding4411 You mean people sat in the cold because they are terrified to put the heating on? Efficiency are you having a laugh?
Here in France a heat pump is supplied and installed by the government. And it costs 1 euro!
For the same price you can get solar panels! Supplied and installed.
Gas is a third of the cost of electricity typically. But they burn 30kW per hour. That now equates to £5/hour. Several £30 1kW electric oil heaters with a COP of 1 would still warm the house with radiant heat but would cost less per hour than gas. Or have I missed something? (Remember a COP of 1 is not acceptable to eco nuts due to demand from the grid, even though setup cost is miniscule compared to a £13,000 full fat heat pump).
Combi Boilers are quoted for hot water production and not for central heating. I have a 32kW boiler that costs around 50p for the first half hour of heat, as the heat flow is set to 50C. Then it uses less gas as it gets towards temperature. Over the summer the the boiler was using around 3kw a day for hot water. Now Autumn is here the boiler has used a maximum of 43kw in a 24 hour period or put another way £4.30. Yesterday for example the boiler used 13.85kw
@@MrRawMonkey A gas smart meter would be useful to learn how much it uses. Until then its guess work.
@@TeaBreak. true unless you get behind on your payments and they decide to press the button and move you to pre payment and charge you more. Happening in the uk and is the real reason for smart meters.
@teabreak combi boilers need a high kw rating as they need a lot of heat to heat the water as it flows past. If you have a standard boiler then you’ll see it’s more like 17kw or less. Add in opentherm and it will modulate the gas flow down depending on the heating demand. So instead of blasting full power and then turning off after 5 minutes and repeating that every 10 minutes it drops the power down and keeps running longer. Lower temperature means more condensing and greater efficiencies. Heat pumps are great but I worry about lots of them all spinning away at night making noise, but that’s progress I suppose. We’ll probably end up shutting the windows and getting air con and use more power supplied from gas turbines.
@@davideyres955 do you know the typical cost for a 1 hour's central heating boost with a 32kw boiler? Unit price is 15p I think atm.
Also a difference between air and ground is the ability to work when the temperature is very low.
We have a cold climate heat pump here in Canada and it works down past -25C so no worries about the cold.
Why is the electric HP any better then using an electric boiler (which are much cheaper to install)?
Heat pumps can produce more energy in heat than they require in electrical energy to run. You'll see this quoted as Coefficient of Performance (CoP) and it's normally 3-4. So you'll get 3 to 4 kWh of heat for every kWh electricity used. Whereas a straightforward electric heater can only yield 1kWh heat for every 1kWh electricity.
This should have been made to happen by regulation for the last decade, the govn really dropped the ball on this one.
Dama
It should never have been regulated in the first place, it is an ill considered law and will not do what the government thinks it will.
The problems are:-
The expected CO2 emissions will not be as large as the government thinks because they base the emissions on the average of the grid's output over time. This is not accurate as the extra demand on the grid can only be met by gas generation, remewables and nuclear cannot increase output to match the increased demand.
As more and more heat pumps are installed this will increase the summer to winter differential of electrical demand. (Winter heat demand is about three to four times electrical maximum demand) In other words more generating capacity will be required to be built but will not have it's capacity used for a lot of the year.
The local area network will need upgrading, and at who's cost? It is designed for frequent demand of short duration of higher load devices. As heat pumps run for long times, this affects the load drawn on the system and will need to be accomodated, electric vehicles will exacerbate this problem.
Their perceived efficiency is not true either as it uses electrcicity as base for COP which many take as efficiency. Electricity is carrier of energy, not a source.
Which is likely to be better, a gas burning device heating water to feed a hot water and heating system or a heat pump which uses gas to boil water to make steam at a few hundred degrees to turn a steam turbine to turn an alternator to generate electrcity. This is then increased to very high voltage to send it many miles before it is again transformed into low voltage and distributed to the user. A heat pump essentially uses the heat from compressing the refrigerant to feed a hot water system at a relatively low temperature.
Freedom of choice has been removed completely.
@@iareid8255 The grid needs updating anyway as electric demand is increasing and the national grid has been doing that over the past few years. Burning gas in a highly efficient gas turbine is more efficient than individual home gas boilers. You also fail to take into account that the grid energy mix could change in the future where gas is no longer required and could be a mixture of nuclear, wind solar etc. You also fail to take into account of people generating their own leccy via the means of solar or wind.
Verygood brother,
I think you misunderstood what I'm talking about. The grid used to cary about 60 Gigawatts but now maximum demand is a bit less than 50, so the grid has capacity.
It is very doutful if gas turbines are more efficient than gas boilers. Combined Cycle Gas Generation plants are better but due to the balancing duties they have to perform due to renewables their efficiency is impacted. The mix is irrelevant when it is undispatcahble, gas will be needed for a very long time to come.
I don't really look forward to relaxing on an evening in front of a crackling heat pump. There's more to life than having your basic needs met.
Heat pump everything!
Certainly all new-builds, as that would bring the price of heat pumps down for everyone.
I feel parts of this piece are a bit disingenuous. The chap was asked if he had a lot of disruption fitting the heat pump. He's had a lot of building work done, so was already highly disrupted and said he had an extra day and a half work done, which was not too bad for him. A person just having a heat pump fitted will find it a lot of disruption, most likely having to change all you radiators along with the installation of the heat pump, tank etc. Also he stated that it save him approx 9kWh a year in gas and electricity. He should have stated how much it saved on gas only, given that electricity is approx 3x the price of gas, so reducing gas is a lot less of a saving that reducing electricity. Having said that, I will fitting a heat pump my house in the future.
How is the UK 20 years late to the heat pump party?
Er, plenty of cheap GAS .....!?
...and cheap boilers ....!?
Uhuh. No mention of the installaton cost - an air source heat pump will cost four to five times as much as a gas boiler, a ground source perhaps ten times or even more.
From minute 5 I could only think about the elephant in the room: price, cost, years to recoup your money, gimme something!
Can I ask what the payback is on your gas boiler?
@@Muppetkeeper oh please!! Not this wilfully naïve question - again...!!
Look - PLEASE try to understand - before one of us dies(to pinch a line from the great John Cleese!)....
...if you have a working combi boiler which you own, and you spend, say £12K installing a heat pump - to save money on spiralling heating costs(and help save the planet, for some....!?)then you start off £12K (+?) WORSE OFF than you were previously!
So, in principle, you need to see a saving of £12K BEFORE you see a financial benefit from converting.
If you have a knackered combi and replace it with a new one you're only into about £3K, or a bit less..
.. There's a huge financial disparity and so, OBVIOUSLY the overwhelming majority of 'ordinary working people' want - NEED to see the bottom line!!!
It's not complicated ........
And, furthermore, given that EVERY installation is different and potentially complex to calculate correctly, and fit correctly, and given that the industry doesn't exactly have a glowing track record when it comes to satisfied customers.......
.....there's a lot more than money at risk here!!
@@Muppetkeeper it only cost £2k to fit instead of £7k that's a lot of money to spend when you haven't got it
Mostly irrelevant and not to the point for the video, costs are so variable and are coming down rapidly so not very relevant to whether they work or not and what it’s like it live with.
@@deanfielding4411 For some people money is not a problem, for some others it is the deciding factor.
The costs involved are not irrelevant.
Can you do some videos on air to air heaters please?
isn't it the same exposure cause all energy prices exploded quite similiar at least here in the EU ?
Why should the kWh electricity be cheaper than that gas kWh cause here gas is used to generate electricity. All went through the rough.
Heatpump needs a solar power system as energy source first and even a quite large one with a battery storage and then you start the work on the heatpump system as a partial or full replacement cause you can get a heatpump to heat water only and also a few split ac to heat some rooms with surplus power from the roof.
I have not seen the solar power system in the whole video, only those for solar water heating on the roof at the end.
A heat pump uses electricity to extract heat from the outside air. So it provides the same amount of heating as a gas boiler, but uses a third of the energy. Running it from solar power and a battery would be nice but it's not essential. The important thing is that the carbon emissions from your heating are greatly reduced.
@@alexwebster7065 you have to realise though that most people don't care about the carbon emissions, they care about their direct debit to Eon etc. And it's hugely important to note that the energy efficiency does not equal price efficiency even with the current prices, let alone when gas was 4p/KWh...
What if everything was free. Does that change things
What no one warned me about with my forced air heat pump (Bosch) was how much louder the indoor air handler is, even on minimum fan, compared to my old condensing gas furnace (Lennox). It's ok after some noise proofing but still noticeable in living area and could be better. I presume the noise is part of the efficiency: moving more air at a lower temperature differential.
Our mitsubishi system is barely perceptible at all. We can only hear it when the house is completely silent and even then the clock ticking is just as loud.
The system you get makes a big difference.
@@kj_H65f You're probably talking about a ductless system. Not appropriate ($$$) when your house is already ducted, which is probably more common in the US than the UK.
@@kj_H65f Are you in Canada?, is your system ductless?
Interested in the subject but all of these types of videos fail in the same way. We need to know what needs to change in the house - yes I know it’s replaced the boiler but being told that the output water temperature is ~45 C compared to ~70+ for gas - this means all my radiators may need to be changed etc - an you do something on the practicalities please?
They are great come houses that are well insulated and the space for the external unit don't happen to be listed or in areas that are protected due to being a world heritage site or historically important that makes getting permission next to impossible. all well and good saying make your house effficient the UK has so much housing stock that can never be efficient they have walls with no cavities windows that can't be double glazed because they are listed and protected and require like for like replacements/ They are a great solution but they are not and never will be a one solution fits all solution.
Question - What is it like living with a heat pump? Answer - Normal.
Here in Australia, people are using heat pumps for cooling, in big numbers. I have just bought one and and it is extremely efficient and effective for cooling in the intense Australian heat.
However heat pumps can be "reversed", swapping the compressor with the venturi. People are reporting saving money on heating during winter, including myself.
Some Australian state governments are supporting the introduction of heat pumps for hot water. I have friends who say they have saved 80% over electric resistive hot water systems.
See Dave Jones on costing hot water system in Oz compared with gas,
czcams.com/video/iavM2IqueM8/video.html Heat Pump Hot Water System vs Gas Hot Water (14:31)
Seeing the phrase "Home truths" I thought there was going to be something negative - but thankfully no! I really hope these systems will be made cheaper and more affordable to install, IDK if there is government grants to help if your home is insulated enough to meet a certain criteria for them maybe? Thank you for sharing.
I had one in a rental for 3 years. Had issues with incorrect installation which was causing extreme inefficiencies. Also, no one mentions how snow and ice causes them to stop working too.
That must be a real problem for the people who been running them for years in Norway…..😂
@@devonbikefilms Or those in Finland, like me ;)
They have no problems with icing if they're working correctly - they have a de-icing function.
Mine must have not been working correctly then 😂
Sales Rep WARNING!
Electric 40p per kwh and gas 10p how can it be cheaper.
Please be a bit more honest about the seasonal COP- they half their efficiency during the winter (2:1) just when you need to put the heating on- lots of social housing schemes with Retro fit ASHP are finding their residents can’t afford it during the winter- GSHP in a community scheme would be better IMHO
Incomplete. So much information missing.
Until gas is more expensive, heat pumps, even at 3 x COP are still more expensive than Gas. Plus the radiator and piping upgrades. Long way to go yet.
Another big house money & space in abundance,
My concern is, once we have got rid of conventional energy systems like natural gas, LPG, oil and wood burning stoves. We are at the mercy of whoever controls the electricity supply!
No mention of prices again. How much does it cost for a unit like the one shown? Also, having the right radiators is briefly mentioned, but what ARE the right radiators? How much do they cost if we haven’t got the right ones?
You wouldn’t do a car review without talking price and range, so please give us rough idea of how much things cost in these kind of videos.
You can find ball Park prices for the units on Google.
The "right" radiators are ones that are correctly sized to emit sufficient heat into the room to meet the heat loss from that room and the heat required over and above that loss to heat the room to a specific temperature and maintain it.
This is achieved by calculation.
Yes thanks, but the point still stands, it’s not information in this episode.
Also, some say aluminium radiators are better, so it’s not just about size.