UPDATED: Air Source Heat Pumps/Air Con - Full Info & Guide, is it cheaper to run than mains gas?
Comments
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never mind the cop or whatever, any system which means your gas boiler is off more often, and heats your water and home effectively must be a winner.
remember, this is not a new idea, sweden have been using it for years so its tried and tested!
i have nothing to gain by mentioning husky, but over here they are doing well and they will put me in touch with recent installations for information.0 -
Have already posted this elsewhere, but another member suggested this thread, hope its ok to post same info twice.
Help our oil combi boiler potterton statesman flowsure is on the blink constantly, OH keeps it going with "elastic bands", & am fed up with something going wrong everytime we switch back on again after being away. Currently the Pressure gauage is showing 95 & the bar is approx 2.5. Water is too hot & radiators not hot enough. Has checked everything and is going to fit new thermostat control, which has always been inexact, as temp measure.
Our oil bill for the last 33 weeks was nearly £1200 therefore £1800 per annum & our current elec is approx £500+ per annum total £2300 per annum.
We also have a morso multi fuel stove, and unlimited free access to wood as fuel, this heats one room & the chimney! If cost effective we may consider a stove with back boiler. Our existing oil boiler & pipes are situated in the small utility room 3 rooms away from the stove approx 28ft away.
We live in a 2 bed detached stone cottage in SW Scotland, not wonderfully insulated but we are planning on improving where we can. The ground floor rooms are 10ft high & have approx 8-9ft height in loft which we intend to make a bedroom/bathroom. There is no hot water tank or header tank.
My question is do we keep repairing the old boiler & paying for the ever increasing cost of oil?
Or pay out at least £3000 to replace oil boiler & put up with oil costs?
Or do we look at installing an electric wet boiler or Air to Air Heat Pump or both. The disadvantage being that A-A Heat Pump works better with under floor heating not our small radiators & also the possible massive cost of the electricity needed to run the system so that it is warm enough for us, esp given last winter and we are retired so use the heating most of the day in cold weather?
Also is there any way if we bought a multifuel stove with back boiler that we could utilise the free heat it would generate in tandem/together with existing/or new central heating system, esp given our lack of a 1st floor & only 8ft head height in loft?
I have done a lot of research and some people advocate electricity as the new 'gas' for rural areas (no gas supply), some say forget the cost & stick with oil.
I would really appreciate any advise re best cost effective options available.
Sorry for long post! Please help!0 -
Homes with solid stone built walls are the worst for heat leakage. Presumably you don't want to insulate the outside of the walls for reasons of appearance?
How far are you prepared to go?
4" of insulation under the floor
4" at least of effective insulation (something like "Celotex") on the inside of the walls?
I cannot comment on the loft conversion but you might have trouble achieving the modern building regulations ever tighter standards.
What sort of windows do you have? Do they face south west to capture every last hot ray of sunshine?
What sort of chimney stack? Internal? Solid? [It would be useful to have some thermal mass inside the envelope].
When you have done all that, see if you can get someone to do a SAP (Standardised assessment procedure) using good software to work out the heat losses of your building; then contemplate a heat pump.
Alternatively, if you have endless wood then you can afford the existing heat losses but teh only way to avoid the labour involved is to burn wood pellets.
I know someone, admittedly living in central Europe who gets through 16 tonnes of wood a season, it only has about 25% of the heat in anthracite. You would need a garage full of fuel to use a pellet burner.0 -
Heat pumps are looking a whole lot less attractive with the latest round of electricity hikes. On 1st August the cost of running my ASHPs will go up by 30%
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How many do you have, what sort of house and what sort of consumption do you get from your ASHPs?
Your bills may be going up 30%, our oil bills have already gone up by nearly 50%. So we still may be better off pro-rata.0 -
yes, electricity is going up, (here in the north west i pay 9.5 pence per kwh) but it seems a lot lower ratio rise than gas.Heat pumps are looking a whole lot less attractive with the latest round of electricity hikes. On 1st August the cost of running my ASHPs will go up by 30%
how are your bills now with the ASHP?
dont forget too, there is an announcement end of july about help from the government to encourage the installation AND some sort of rebate for the amount of heat produced. they seem to have difficulty in measuring the systems, despite having all the facts and figures from sweden and norway etc. who have had these systems for years.
today i flung out my old gas guzzler boiler (1972) and will shorty be getting the husky ASHP installed.
as recommended, i have beefed up the rads. to double the surface area to compensate for the lower temperature (45 degrees) as mentioned before, watch this space!0 -
Hello,
I have a ASHP and here is my electricity usage for the last 8 months ish :-
24/03/11 - 14/06/11 83 2666 32
29/12/10 - 23/03/11 85 4219 50
08/10/10 - 28/12/10 82 5265 64
The numbers are number of days , KWH and KWH per day.0 -
Do you just have one ASHP?
How many rooms do you heat, how often do you use your heating (ie we are retired, so would have it on all day in the winter), is it under floor, blown air or radiator? If radiators how many?
How hot does the ASHP get your house? We like a quite warm house.
Thanks for your replies0 -
Hi, this is a repeat post (my original was under a different topic) - hope somebody can advise me
I intend to have a ASHP installed in August. My 185sqm detached bungalow was built in 2005 has blown polystyrene bead cavity wall insulation and 200m fibre in the roofspace. It has room zoned UFH
I am located in northern ireland - no RHI yet but it is promised!!!!
I have been quoted by 2 firms, one advising a 16Kw Altherma monobloc and the other a 14Kw Ecodan. The price difference between the 2 quotes is £200
Does the sizing seem ok and which one do you think I should go for
Cheers0 -
Hi, this is a repeat post (my original was under a different topic) - hope somebody can advise me
I intend to have a ASHP installed in August. My 185sqm detached bungalow was built in 2005 has blown polystyrene bead cavity wall insulation and 200m fibre in the roofspace. It has room zoned UFH
I am located in northern ireland - no RHI yet but it is promised!!!!
I have been quoted by 2 firms, one advising a 16Kw Altherma monobloc and the other a 14Kw Ecodan. The price difference between the 2 quotes is £200
Does the sizing seem ok and which one do you think I should go for
Cheers
14Kw should be ok. Get a proper thermal report, as you may even get down to 11Kw if the load need is less.As Manuel says in Fawlty Towers: " I Know Nothing"0
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