My Heat pump Story -Davec

DavecUK

LMSC Is it going to be air-source heat pumps? Thx

It’s a Vaillan Aerotherm Air to water unit, I have a ⅚ bedroom house, so it’s a 7kW unit. Having the install done was a no brainer.

domestic copper cylinder (117 litre) 30 years old and damaged during the loft conversion 13 years ago
Gas boiler Boiler installed 9 years ago, so perhaps 3 or 4 years before problems.
central heating controls 30 years old, thermostat 30 years old 3 way motorised valve 13 years old
Stuart turner demand pump to feed loft and loft showers 13 years old, due replacement soon
2 Quartz Aqualisa pumped showers 17 years old (never failed, but running on luck?)
Radiators 30 years old

Replacement

Vaillant Unistor pressurised heat pump cyclinder 250 ltre
Vaillant Arotherm + 7kW Heat pump
10 radiators changed (including a much larger towel rail rad for main bathroom)
My connect Gateway, remote waireless room stat, control panel etc.. etc..
All pipework, installation and external making good for heat pump circuit
removal of all waste materials, rads, gas boiler etc..

I’m going to try and get on the Ovo heat pump add on tariff, which is 15p per kW for everything the heat pump uses.

Teaboy

DavecUK please could you do a thread about it and how it gets on from install and be interesting including kWh consumption and if we have a cold winter I hope you’re kept warm and have ample hot water.

LMSC

DavecUK 10 radiators changed (including a much larger towel rail rad for main bathroom)

Have you taken this as an opportunity to install any dual-purpose units? Cooling and Heating.

IIRC, @dfk41 installed something like this ? 😊

DavecUK

Teaboy please could you do a thread about it and how it gets on from install and be interesting including kWh consumption

I will be, this is a first machine so I will be checking the software, suggesting any tweaks and basically seeing if the machine is as quiet as the one 2 years ago in the factory at 9pm. I think the actively heated group should be great and with the right software tweaks should be able to warm up fast.

What makes the machine important to ACS is no Gicar stuff, it’s their own mother board, high resolution touch screen and the high speed proportional SSRs by Gavazzi, so no on off control…something a little more sophisticated.

Adrianmsmith

DavecUK

I thought he meant the whole heat pump experience!!

Would be interesting to hear how that goes as well….

Not exactly coffee related 🤭

DavecUK

Adrianmsmith I thought he meant the whole heat pump experience!!

A probs… lol

The pipework is a work of art, that will soon be hidden under lagging…plus the 250 lt tank shouldn’t have fitted in the cupboard, I was going to have to get the door moved out, but somehow Jack (the installer) made it fit.

10 rads being changed for larger heat emitters including a new larger heat pump towel rail in the main bathroom. 2 Aqualisa Quartz showers all converted to digital pumped to digital pressurised and the cross shower in the loft bathroom just runs straight off the pressurised system, no trouble. It was an incredible amount of work and continues tomorrow (electrician to finish electrics) and probably Monday to finish the wet work on the system, so that’s 6 working days in total.

P.S. My old copper tank was only about 110 lt

Jony

Yes Dave please stay on track haha you should know better haha

John_Yossarian

DavecUK Are you going to insulate all the copper pipework, otherwise it will be a massive loss (sorry for stating the obvious). I considered an Air Heat Pump three years ago, but as our house is 2014 built, the inner diameter of the pipes (all polypropylene) was too small to have the right flow. The suggested “change the pipe work across the whole house” discouraged me to take this route. Otherwise I would have done it.
Please, keep us posted. Whether we like it or not, unless the hydrogen is moved forward quickly, this might be one of the few options left in the future.

smallblueplanet

DavecUK 10 rads being changed for larger heat emitters including a new larger heat pump towel rail in the main bathroom

What is your new hp towel rad? We’ve an ordinary rad in our bathroom when we had our Daikin 8kw fitted by Octopus and it’s not big enough and unfortunately the bathroom is in the north corner of the house is is a bit too cool at times.

LMSC

John_Yossarian change the pipe work across the whole house

That would require opening the floors and floorboards, I think. Normally, they would disconnect existing pipe works, and install new ones.

John_Yossarian

LMSC It was a major disturbance, all walls would have been re-done to get the new one in.

Cuprajake

Be interesting to see how this pans out, if theres any savings to be had,

Do you have solar panels?

Suppose its ok if you have space to install all the hardware with it, its very much a case by case basis, but from the installs ive seen people have been no better off in the pocket from heatpumps.

HarveyMushman

What’s the overall cost of this work if you don’t mind saying?

And then what’s the ballpark annual saving?

I keep reading a lot about the merits of these pumps and have an elderly family member who just moved into a new-build with one already installed who raves about it.

I suppose there are other benefits beyond cost saving also.

LMSC

John_Yossarian It would have been. I have no what the cost will be.

Perhaps, £20K-£30K depending on the property size, complexity. It may be more, if one will to carry out complete re-wiring, which may make sense if the walls are also ripped apart. 😁

LMSC

Saving money and boosting energy efficiency is just one part of the picture.

I wouldn’t replace anything that’s working fine, considering it’s already paid for. But it’s a different story if the stuff is old.

My plumber says our copper pipes are ancient – from 1980-81. Green stains showing up around the new wash basin within a couple of years is a classic sign. He’s not suggesting we redo the pipes. But if we go down that road, investing in a megaflow system and similar upgrades would make sense

dfk41

I admire Dave for doing this but I have some reservations. Sometimes things look absolutely fine on paper, but the practicalities of a working model are different. Due to the arm twisting of the grants system, the truth rarely comes out. Youtube is full of people who have slated heat pumps for years yet now praise them. Personally, I cannot see the benefit of converting over to a single source of heat for the house. I understand ratios and efficiency but I intensely dislike the idea of not being able to pop the heating on an hour before bed and having to have something running 24/7 whenever it is slightly cold.

Without causing a running debate on climate change, I do not buy that either. There is a Masonic saying, ’the earth, constantly revolving on it’s axis in it’s orbit around the earth’……the climate is documented as changing constantly over the Millenia and we are going through a change, without a shadow of doubt. But, is it man made, conveniently so that a few folks/corporations can make a shed load of money? Or in a few hundred/thousand years when earth has not exploded might we go into a cold period, safe in the knowledge that our heat pumps will keep us just above freezing providing we can find a reliable source of energy

smallblueplanet

dfk41 Personally, I cannot see the benefit of converting over to a single source of heat for the house. I understand ratios and efficiency but I intensely dislike the idea of not being able to pop the heating on an hour before bed and having to have something running 24/7 whenever it is slightly cold.

Do you misunderstand the different way heat pumps work? The radiators are sized to emit a certain amount of heat for each room, you choose what temperature you want the rooms to be at. So the heat pump is on all the time the rooms aren’t at the temperature you want, you don’t need to ‘pop on the heating for an hour’ although you certainly can, it just won’t be as efficient.

We had our old oil boiler, and all our radiators, changed out by Octopus (using the BUS grant) for an 8kw Daikin heat pump and it’s very good. I wish we had solar but that’s too pricey.

Cuprajake

dont forget there are grants in place as its being really pushed, i know that they have stuff in place that makes heat pumps more beneficial to be sold, what i cant get over is the massive push to being all electric when its generally more expensive than gas, that and the fact if they want to phase gas out, why are they digging up and re sleeving all the gas lines ready for this new hybrid gas,

i cant find the vid, but a guy with solar already installed, broke just about even with his energy costs, the install was octopus and it wasnt the nicest

sorry to sound very negative but it just dont think they are all they are cracked up to be, and having friends in the trade, who install them they actually say the same.