LMSC Do you think this is worth it? Air Heat pump is probably cheaper than ground-source heat pump. I thought this still fall short by some margin relying on the gas. Furthermore, one needs to either instal a solar panel or draw electricity from the provider. In our case, the electricity consumes a half of our utility bills.
It depends on the situation I guess vs a gas boiler. I always hear a heat pump with a house insulated as well as your average fridge is cheap to run, but a gas boiler in that same house would be cheaper to run. That a heat pump is up to 4 times more efficient than a gas boiler…though the don’t mention that gas is up to 4 times cheaper. The SCOP figures that are almost 3.8 or 4, but they don’t mention those are only reached with flow temps of 40C.
My situation is this. gas central heating, mostly microbore pipes and rads that are not overly large because they don’t need to be. Putting a heat pump in my house would involve a new water tank, special hot water auxilliary heat pump buffer tanks, replacement of all rads and most of the pipework, involving floors up and external pipework on walls, plus a real mess. Cost of all this, well over £16,000, probably nearer £18,000 (after the grant), because they are effectively putting in a whole new wet system.
I’m not going to pay that to be cold…and run a HP system which you shouldn’t actually turn off, because if the house gets too cold, it takes 5 hours to warm up again. In winter the COP will be horrendous.
So enter the air to air multisplit (using the right refrigerants, currently R32, it would be better still using R717 first used in 1920 ish, but they don’t do that). The COP can be over 5 and the SCOP higher than an air to water system.
The advantage is I only have to have a single cassette unit in the rooms at the junction of the wall meets the ceiling and small holes for the refrigerant pipes. I can leave my radiators or have them removed. Each room is only heated when I need to use it, and the system can be on timers for frost or damp protection. Heating is hot air and essentially warms a room within 10 minutes of switching on an individual unit. The COP is high because it only puts out air at a max of 28 or 30C and you would usually have it set to 22C… You only heat the rooms you need to heat when you need to and they can all be at different temperatures.
It also works as an air conditioning unit as well for cooling individual rooms as required during hot weather, and even has a dry function to remove condensation/humidity if that is required.
I think the cost of installation would be considerably cheaper than an air to water system, even though there are no grants for air to air systems. I also believe it would be considerable cheaper to run than a heat pump. it is my preferred option if they ban gas boilers.
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For people wanting to turn off their internet routers at night…it can play havoc with certain types of broadband, gfast etc,, causing the system to think it needs to fall back to lower speeds to maintain your connection at a good service level.
