Heat Pumps

The photo from Mattsmum makes me think there’s going to be a business opportunity for someone clever who’ll make covers to camouflage those units!

We live in an area that doesn't have gas, so obviously, our small house (used to be 3 bed before was was made into a bathroom) is all-electric.

Our air-source heating costs a lot less to run than the mixture of storage heaters, open fire with small back boiler, and immersion heater that it replaced eleven or twelve years ago.

Obviously, the system uses a lot more energy in winter than in summer, but our total consumption averages out around 6000 kw/h per year, which I don't think is too bad given that the house is kept at around 20/21° all winter.

But when you add the cost of annual servicing and repairs on to the initial outlay, (though ours was fault-free until last year), plus the fact that, according to our latest repair engineer, their lifespan is not much more than ten years, I think that a lot of people would struggle to afford them.

But aren't they now saying wood burners are polluting the atmosphere? I've used wood for years but am told its 'dirty' heat. Because of all the smoke it produces.

(thanks for explaining how they work folks, I can see why the colder the weather the less efficient they'll be.
Doesn't sound like a practical answer to our problems does it?

All those having success wth heat pumps have houses that are non-standard. Pollytickle says her house has two foot thick walls. A form of insulation in itself.

I keep thinking of standard 19th century houses, those brick built terraces, and semis with walls 9 inches thick and no cavities and blocks of 19th century mansion flats with similar walls, where the only place to put the heat pump is in a window.

I am very uneasy with the concept of the 'one size fits all solution' the government seems to be pursuing. Just as the housing stock in the UK is immensely variable in construction and design, so we ought to be looking at a variety of different solutions for different types of housing in varying conditions.

It has been said thaat those who see a simple solution to any problem are invariably wrong. And here we have the government coming up with a simple solution to a very complex problem.

We had a home with a heat pump. It lowered our bill a bit, but my complaint was the air coming out of it felt cool no matter the setting. We were told it was normal and as the room air circulated it would warm. That part proved true, but I always missed sitting next to a warm space on winter nights.

I agree Monica, not suitable for all.

I think the weather in New Zealand is a lot milder than in the UK.

I thought so, too, M0nica and was reliably informed that was the case by DH who had visited many years ago.
When we went two years ago I felt frozen some of the time in the cold, lashing rain. It wasn't even winter and that was North Island.

The use of the word reliably was ironic btw!

Here's a very informative article by a construction engineer who seems to know what he's talking about:
Heat pumps are a con
After reading that I wouldn't have one, and they are absolutely impossible when half the properties are flats. Someone suggested reverse cycle air conditioning which is what they seem to use down under, so maybe that's the answer. Either way, half the population won't be able to afford any such changes.

I live in the subtropical Far North, so I understand that the winters are in no way comparable! I lived in the UK for many years and found the winters almost intolerable- not so much the cold as the grey, grey days and the night falling before school was over. My brother in North Dakota, where there is snow for almost half the year, and the temperature drops regularly to minus 20F, said he would take the snow and cold anytime, over the grey damp of the UK. And it's so much warmer today than it was 50+ years ago! Heat pumps require regular cleaning of their dust filters to ensure optimum performance. Otherwise, they sulk and do a go-slow.

My friend lives in a two bed council bungalow with a heat pump and their fuel bill is similar to ours - we’re a HA three bed house with all electric. It’s so expensive that we’ve turned the hot water tank off. We used to have storage heaters which we miss - they were newer ones and much more economical and efficient than the electric heaters that replaced them.

Monica, I agree with you about this not being a one-size-fits-all solution, and that is is impractical for many properties for a whole range of reasons.

I think I've mentioned before that it was actually a HA that fitted ours.
As it is a small brick terrace without cavity walls (apart from two small sections below the downstairs windows and a small 1970s extension that housed an inside bathroom downstairs), they had to do a lot of extra insulating to get it up to scratch, some external but some internally where external cladding would have restricted access too much.

At the time they suggested putting in the heat pump, we had finally won a longstanding argument with them regarding lack of insulation - up until then, they had strongly denied (in a very sneering, condescending way that they generally used with their tenants at that time) that the built-on bathroom had no insulation, even though it was blindingly obvious that it didn't.
When I eventually escalated things and they had to recognise that they were wrong, they suddenly became very accommodating and I think were prepared to do a lot more work than would otherwise have been the case.

When they suggested it, we were only too willing for that freezing cold built-on bathroom (where just going for a wee was horrible in winter, let alone having a bath!) to become a sort of utility room and house the internal part of the new heating system, and sacrifice an upstairs bedroom for a new bathroom.
It did mean one of our sons, who had moved back in a few months earlier, had to move out again, but the timing was right and he was ready to go.

Our immediate neighbours with an almost identical house were not offered an upstairs bathroom. As a result, the large internal unit of the heating system had to be put in their kitchen. Neither they nor the family that came after them are happy with that

I suppose the point that I am trying to make, in a very long-winded way, is that I can see why it would be either impossible, too expensive or too impractical for a huge number of homes.

I would like to think that better solutions are being developed as we speak!

Another thought- comparing our energy bills with those of our neighbours, even if they live in an identical house, can be rather meaningless as a guide to the running costs of a heating system.

One household might take more frequent/longer showers, or even baths. They might do a lot more washing, or like the house warmer etc.

Even if they had identical heating systems, such factors could make a huge difference to their actual energy consumption.

We have just had our old oil heating changed for an air source heat pump, we had new rads too but had spoken about changing theses before we changed the boiler. You need larger rads with heat pumps, they work at full efficiency up to -7 degrees then it drops a little. DH has poor health and feels the cold but I will say that so far it is a fantastic heating system, expensive but we feel it was worth doing for many reasons.

If nothing else, maybe the government drive to get everyone to install heat pumps will widen discussions and hasten the development of other, hopefully better, alternatives.

Necessity is the mother of invention, as the saying goes.

I'm in a 1950's bungalow, well insulated, with enough outside space to place an air source heat pump. When I moved here I had a company come and give me a quote to have one installed. They said it wouldn't be possible [technical issues, can't remember the exact reasons now]. So that's me out.

So I can see why they won't be suitable for many, many situations. That's apart from the expenses and disruptions to radiator systems etc that installations involve. Doesn't seem to have been thought through properly.

ours was rubbish

Shropshirelass How well insulated is your home. This is going to be the crucial issue. What level of insulation is required for heatpumps to work efficiently

But you put your finger on the nub of the issue when you said it was expensive. Quite simply, for many people in this country the cost of installing a heatpump, is prohibitably expensive because not only is the heat pump itself, far more expensive than a new boiler, but there are so many other things that will have to be changed to make a heat pump system work. new larger radiators, with all the disruption that will cause. Many homes now have combi-boilers, so space will need to be found for hot water tanks which will mean replumbing all the bathrooms, kitchens, Utility rooms, cloakrooms etc in a property.

Combi boilers were developed to be suitable in flat developments and conversions because space did not need to be found for a hotwater tank. Many of these smaller homes are going to find it very difficult to find space for a water tank.

Somebody with a sufficient income to buy a small house reasonably well insulated, but not highly insulated, could find themselves having to pay, not just for the heatpump, but extra insulation, new radiators, installing a hotwater tank and rerunning all the domestic water plumbing. I doubt they will get any change from £20,000 for all that - and probably need more. How on earth do they finance all that?

There is a place for heatpumps in the future, I have no doubt about that, but I find the way this government are convinced that the future is heat pumps and nothing but heatpumps, I find really, really worrying. As i have said before when anyone thinks there is aone simple solution to a complex problem, then they really really do not understand the problem - and that is very worrying.

Our friend a plumber, says they don't give out enough heat

Built into a new property with space for ground source heat pump it’s likely to be a good system, converting and upgrading existing houses is very expensive and may not be any benefit.

Surely, heat pumps should now be fitted, as a matter of course, into ALL new build houses/bungalows. (Still not sure if possible in flats). But insulation is so important and I have been given to understand that there are no laid down minimum rules for this in property.

Nothing can just start inthe middle. So, Insulation minimum rules for new-builds, under floor heating and heat pumps. That is the way forward.

For existing properties, many badly insulated, many far too small to cope with current day Heat Pumps (including virtually all flats.

In all probability over the next 10-20 years, the efficiency of this sort of heating will improve and the boilers become smaller (as has happened with electric cars).

BUT......the 'grant' money which was anounced is really just another sound bite, by a government that exists on these, and will have no real application.

How do pensioners with small or no savings pay for this. The grants should pay for everything. In my case my old boiler will need removing and the wall repaired, bedrooms will need repair and so will loft. Can't see any grant paying for this, I'm too old to remortgage now.

The way our house works, long and thin in foot print with water pipes and water consuming rooms at each end, we already have 2 small CH boilers, one each end to avoid long pipe runs. We will, presumably, need to have 2 heat pumps! My eyes are watering already at the thought of the cost!

I know someone who has one and it`s an eyesore and noisy, also does not give off enough heat,and he lives in a flat.

It's well known fact that they do not give out enough heat during very cold spells, so you will regret it when the temperatures drop. As for new builds having them automatically, would you want to be left in the cold when the weather is freezing?
See the link I posted earlier.