UPDATED: Air Source Heat Pumps/Air Con - Full Info & Guide, is it cheaper to run than mains gas?
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A standard split is 1 indoor connected to 1 outdoor unit. A multi split is several indoor units connected to 1 outdoor unit - thus multi.
The folllowing technologies are the same but two diff manufacturers Mitzi and daikin named them separately. VRF - variable refrigerant flow, VRV - variable refrigerant volume are connected the same way as a multi split unit. Multiple indoor to one outdoor, the difference is that they are 3 pipe systems so instead of having just liquid and gas pipes back to the outdoor unit you have a third pipe, this third pipe allows for heat recovery and this system is ideal when simultaneous heating and cooling is required in a building - e.g. Office or hotel complex. This can also be utilised if heating is not required for water heating which is why I recommended this option also. Cost though is more for vrv vrf. Manufactures to look at for multi systems deffo have a look at LG who are now very good and affordable along with the higher end stuff which is Mitsi, daikin etc.If you found my post helpful, please remember to press the THANKS button! --->0 -
Agree with Richards points above.
One point not mentioned is the potential problem of noise, both for yourself and neighbours. An issue that needs to be considered in the design of the house.0 -
Agree with Richards points above.
One point not mentioned is the potential problem of noise, both for yourself and neighbours. An issue that needs to be considered in the design of the house.
Outdoor units are generally very quiet now unless u go for cheap rubbish.If you found my post helpful, please remember to press the THANKS button! --->0 -
Excellent explanation of the VRV/VRF systems. Now I know the differences between these systems and a AC Multi-split system.
About the external noise, I have also considered that. This could also be a problem if using a heat-pump, but I think it will not be a problem. In the house where I live now, we have two Daikin standard split units, and although they are entry line models, they are very very quiet. Also, I guess that all neighbors have or will have AC units0 -
It is interesting to read the comments on this forum having not visited it for 4 years. I had my heat pump installed nearly 4 years ago and in that time it totally contradicts most of the negative comments on here. It is quiet. It is cheap to run. It heats up a 178sq. metre 4 bedroom house in less than half an hour. It heats up a 210 litre tank of hot water up to 55 degrees in less than an hour and up to 60 degrees once a week with the help of a timed immersion. It heats up 11 bedrooms in the house by use of radiators not by underfloor means. In the four years I have used it it has not had one call out. If it had needed it the system was covered for parts and labour for 3 years. It is now covered by anextendedwarranty. I get 116 pounds every 4 months for the next 7 years in RHI payments. This would have been more but I had previously been given 850 pounds grant.
My payments for last year were 96 pounds a month to EON. This included all my electricity usage i.e computers, dishwasher,washing machine etc. At the end of the year I was 180 pounds in credit on my bill.
Having previously lived in a duel fuel house we were paying about 150 pounds a month and that was 7 years ago.
I own a caravan and that is double glazed etc. and has gas central heating. The radiators get very hot quickly but the caravan is still bloody cold because of its poor insulation.
That is the key. Insulate a house properly and your heat pump will work. Find an installer and a recommended heat pump and the system will work.
I have used both gas and a heat pump and if I had a choice I would choose a heat pump every time especially in a well insulated new property.
Why? For the simple reason that a heat pump is far healthier. No more dry throats and headaches associated with the 80 degree temperatures of agasheated radiator and no0 -
[carry on as I pressed the wring button- now where was } singed fingers from touching them. No danger of gas leaks or explosions or carbon monoxide poisoning.
We should be looking to install a combination of heat pumps and solar panels,which I do not have, in all newly built houses. If we did this then we could fetch down the costs and enable the industry to expand asit hasdone in Europe. The price of electicity should also be reduced and cheaper gas should be used to produce that electrity.
I forgot to mention the fact that when my wife and I were working I used the system and still do when required on a timed system i.e. if we finished at 5 then I put the timer on to come on at 4.30. The house was always warm as it is every morning when I put it to come on every morning in the winter.
As for the myth of the 24/7 heat pump it is set to on put is controlled at different times by a thermostat as we are both at home most days. It is set to 20 degrees from 6.30-8.00am and after that down to 19 degrees from 8.00 to 16.00 when it is set to 21degrees til 22.30. If it is colder then you can increase or decrease the temperature as apropriate. Between these times once the temperature is reached the heat pump will switch off. It is set at 17 degrees from 22.30 til 6.30. All these temperatures can be easily adjusted to suit us.
This is how my system works. The house is over 7 years old and has not been updated to accommodate the system. These are just the facts.0 -
Sorry about some of the joined up writing and spelling errors. Just to clarify I get 116 pounds every three months.0
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It is interesting to read the comments on this forum having not visited it for 4 years. I had my heat pump installed nearly 4 years ago and in that time it totally contradicts most of the negative comments on here.
You are obviously getting satisfactory results from your system. However not everyone is so lucky!A recent BBC report highlighted the poor performance of heat pumps and referred to the EST report for field trials on Heat pumps - particularly on ASHPs. http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/...mp-field-trial
Or try this http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Media/node_1422/Getting-warmer-a-field-trial-of-heat-pumps-PDF
The study was a year long and had 29 ASHP systems from a number of manufacturers.(who installed the systems)
It is quite a long report but of the 29 ASHP systems the annual COP for 19 of the systems was 2.2 or less(the highest number had a COP of 1.6). So if that is an average spread across 12 months - little wonder systems are struggling in this current weather. In fact with the requirement for wasteful defrosting cycles, it is quite easy to envisage a situation with some systems where there will be a COP of less than 1.0 and people would be better to switch off the ASHP and rely on Granny's old 1/2/3 bar fire!!!!!!
It is also pertinent to point out(as I have before!!) that when considering the COP of ASHPs firms never take into account that the heat produced when occupants are out of the property, or in bed, is wasted. For instance it might be necessary to keep the ASHP running 24/7 because of the inability of the system with low temperature water to quickly bring the house up to temperature. It might be that, say, 30kWh will be produced when occupants are out or in bed.
With gas/oil CH with water at 80+C there is no need to heat the house when occupants are out/in bed, as 20-30 minutes will bring a house up to heat. Yet in the inevitable comparisons of running costs, the 'unwanted' 30kWh is always used to swing the comparison in favour of heat pumps – and still fails!
Now the trial was for 29 systems with the manufacturers involved over 12 months, all with a vested interest in getting good results and the results are frankly a disaster.
Virtually all the adverts talk of a COP(system efficiency) of 3 or greater, yet only one verified result achieved 3.0(there was an estimated 3.2)
Small wonder there are so many people on MSE complaining about their system’s performance and costs. Especially given there is normally reluctance for people to admit that something that has cost them £thousands is a disappointment.
It can’t just be the setting up of the system or none of the 29 systems in the trial – with the manufacturer at hand – would have performed so poorly; it must be more fundamental.
If the manufacturer monitored systems produced such poor results, I wonder what results a random check of properties with unsuitable or poorly installed systems would produce!!!
The ‘experiments’ owners are having to carry out in order to improve performance require some considerable technical knowledge. I shudder to think how many of the population could cope. The system should be set up by the installation company and be simple for the user to operate.
Frankly IMO it is irresponsible to recommend that anyone spends £thousands on installing an ASHP system where the results seem to be a lottery, and virtually nothing meets the manufacturer’s claimed performance.0 -
It is interesting to read the comments on this forum having not visited it for 4 years. I had my heat pump installed nearly 4 years ago and in that time it totally contradicts most of the negative comments on here. It is quiet. It is cheap to run. It heats up a 178sq. metre 4 bedroom house in less than half an hour. It heats up a 210 litre tank of hot water up to 55 degrees in less than an hour and up to 60 degrees once a week with the help of a timed immersion. It heats up 11 bedrooms in the house by use of radiators not by underfloor means. In the four years I have used it it has not had one call out. If it had needed it the system was covered for parts and labour for 3 years. It is now covered by anextendedwarranty. I get 116 pounds every 4 months for the next 7 years in RHI payments. This would have been more but I had previously been given 850 pounds grant.
My payments for last year were 96 pounds a month to EON. This included all my electricity usage i.e computers, dishwasher,washing machine etc. At the end of the year I was 180 pounds in credit on my bill.
Having previously lived in a duel fuel house we were paying about 150 pounds a month and that was 7 years ago.
I own a caravan and that is double glazed etc. and has gas central heating. The radiators get very hot quickly but the caravan is still bloody cold because of its poor insulation.
That is the key. Insulate a house properly and your heat pump will work. Find an installer and a recommended heat pump and the system will work.
I have used both gas and a heat pump and if I had a choice I would choose a heat pump every time especially in a well insulated new property.
Why? For the simple reason that a heat pump is far healthier. No more dry throats and headaches associated with the 80 degree temperatures of agasheated radiator and no
Its good you are getting good results from your heat pump system. Installed correctly (like any other heating system) you will experience good results. I fully support heat pumps systems BUT argue that if you have mains gas supply to the property you would be better off with a condensing gas boiler. Gas is still cheaper per unit than electricity and will be for some time into the future. Electricity is expensive in the uk. A heat pump is the best solution if you don't have mains gas.
You say you run your heat pump at 55C well you could also run a combi boiler at 55C you don't need to run it at 80C and you would get the same results as your getting from your heat pump, only your bills would be even cheaper. I have a friend who was misold a heat pump when she came to replace her old boiler, her bills tripled, even though she had all the upgrades to radiator sizes and system installed correctly as verified by various experts and consultants. The company who installed it went out of business so its now at her cost to remove the system and replace with a gas boiler.
While there is mains gas, use it it will always be cheaper in this country. If there isn't then install a heat pump. If you don't like the high temps that a gas combi/condensing boiler "can" produce then reduce your flow temp, the lower the better as its even more efficient. I run my gas combi boiler with a max flow temp of 60C the opentherm does the rest as the house comes upto temp it reduces the flow down temp to as low as 30C if need be.If you found my post helpful, please remember to press the THANKS button! --->0 -
HiIt is interesting to read the comments on this forum having not visited it for 4 years. I had my heat pump installed nearly 4 years ago and in that time it totally contradicts most of the negative comments on here. It is quiet. It is cheap to run. It heats up a 178sq. metre 4 bedroom house in less than half an hour. It heats up a 210 litre tank of hot water up to 55 degrees in less than an hour and up to 60 degrees once a week with the help of a timed immersion. It heats up 11 bedrooms in the house by use of radiators not by underfloor means. In the four years I have used it it has not had one call out. If it had needed it the system was covered for parts and labour for 3 years. It is now covered by anextendedwarranty. I get 116 pounds every 4 months for the next 7 years in RHI payments. This would have been more but I had previously been given 850 pounds grant.
My payments for last year were 96 pounds a month to EON. This included all my electricity usage i.e computers, dishwasher,washing machine etc. At the end of the year I was 180 pounds in credit on my bill.
Having previously lived in a duel fuel house we were paying about 150 pounds a month and that was 7 years ago.
I own a caravan and that is double glazed etc. and has gas central heating. The radiators get very hot quickly but the caravan is still bloody cold because of its poor insulation.
That is the key. Insulate a house properly and your heat pump will work. Find an installer and a recommended heat pump and the system will work.
I have used both gas and a heat pump and if I had a choice I would choose a heat pump every time especially in a well insulated new property.
Why? For the simple reason that a heat pump is far healthier. No more dry throats and headaches associated with the 80 degree temperatures of agasheated radiator and no
Although I really like to think that heat-pumps in the right settings are a great solution, I really don't follow much of the content in the above post and the ones which followed ...
Previous posts (2013 etc) described coming from a cheap Chinese made unit which the builder originally installed, to a more efficient brand (8.5kW Ecodan ?) ... if so there must be some pretty interesting technologies and materials involved in the property design in order to achieve the rate of temperature changes described, especially with a Delta-T of 35C ... we can't meet those rates of change with 30kW and a Delta-T of 50C and we're massively insulated ....
... Whilst talking about 'massively insulated', we find that overnight heat-loss reduces the hall temperature by well below 1C, therefore I really can't see the benefit of such a wide temperature variation pattern as described in the quote below ...... As for the myth of the 24/7 heat pump it is set to on put is controlled at different times by a thermostat as we are both at home most days. It is set to 20 degrees from 6.30-8.00am and after that down to 19 degrees from 8.00 to 16.00 when it is set to 21degrees til 22.30. If it is colder then you can increase or decrease the temperature as apropriate. Between these times once the temperature is reached the heat pump will switch off. It is set at 17 degrees from 22.30 til 6.30. All these temperatures can be easily adjusted to suit us ...
... unless it's an ultra low thermal mass building I can't follow how a single 8.5kW heat-source could reach the thermostat set-points and allow the contents and structure to be raised and maintained without 24Hr operation, so I'd guess that 24/7 heating is actually being employed, providing background heating at 17C/19C (satisfying the majority of requirement) with a boost to increase the air temperature to 20/21 for a third of the day ...... All this is achieved from one 8.5 kw heat pump ..
... looks like myth-busting 24Hr operation could be a little premature but what would be interesting would be to look at object and internal structure surface temperatures and how they change during the day - we have huge variations throughout the house, but once allowed to be absorbed nothing really varies much over a day unless we provide literally hundreds of kWh.t into the property per degree C difference ....
HTH
Z"We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit. " ...... Aristotle
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