UPDATED: Air Source Heat Pumps/Air Con - Full Info & Guide, is it cheaper to run than mains gas?

[Deleted User]

nande2000 wrote: »

Well ive bitten the bullet and had an Ecodan 8.5kw installed.
Power usage and heat output seem ok so far (still a bit of air in the rads, but thats getting sorted).

Only concern is the noise output; anyone had the same issue, found a solution ? Or is it something you have to learn to live with ?

In fairness the oil boiler it replaced was a lot louder, but the ashp is more of a low level annoying noise.

Some have described it like a washing machine in the garden Whilst I don't think it's that bad I can tell when its running when inside certain rooms in the house. In milder weather it will be quieter. If I was a neighbor I would not want one pointing at my house.

All the best

Cheers

nande2000

Id agree with the washing machine statement. i was going to put some fencing round it anyway. Im looking at sound proofing grade timber to at least direct the noise away from the house. My nearest neighbour (excluding sheep) is a good 200m away so no problems there.

[Deleted User]

Hmmm... I'd hang off with the timber just because it may not make that much difference. In my case the room closest to the ASHP you can just about hear it in winter but not during spring, summer and autum. In a bedroom where I notice it in the dead of night it is more of a rumble through the ground. You get used to it anyway and its a low level noise. In all fairness my last house had a gas combi in the loft - now that was annoying all the time...

[Deleted User]

nande2000 wrote: »

Id agree with the washing machine statement. i was going to put some fencing round it anyway. Im looking at sound proofing grade timber to at least direct the noise away from the house. My nearest neighbour (excluding sheep) is a good 200m away so no problems there.

How are you getting on with it?

We had heavy snow last night which made driving a nightmare [on way to curry house ] but with Ecodan/log burner combo wife was complaining house was to hot

Women are never happy :whistle:

bernithebiker

Just to share experiences, I've just installed myself a Mitsubishi Hyper Heating 4kw air/air heat pump into one of our gites (https://www.frenchberry.com), which already has an oil boiler and a wood burner, but fairly poor insulation.
Very pleased with it so far; it cost 1500 Euros including prepared bendy copper piping - you just have to connect them up and then open the valves, no refrigerant topping up necessary.
The indoor unit is quite large, but chucks out alot of heat when on full blast. It has a little 'eye' that scans the room temp.
The outdoor unit is nice and compact and unbelievably quiet. You have to go right up to it to check it really is working.
Quoted COP of 4.6, I've monitored it at between 1 and 5 amps consumption (220 to 1100W), so looks good.
By my calcs, oil is a bit less expensive than pure electric 1 for 1 heating, so if I run the HP all day at say 500W, (I'm only looking for 16'C in the house as it's mostly unoccupied), I will use 12kW in the day. This, instead of 48kW for pure electric. Thereby saving about 4 Euros per day.
Over 150 days of heating, that's 600 Euros, so should be paid for after 2.5 years.
Happy days!

nande2000

Ok heres an update from me;

We moved into a detached house on the side of a hill in NWales 7 years ago and ive hated the oil central heating ever since we moved in. It was noisy and smelly and the house was always too cold or too hot.

Initially i was convinced that wood pellets were the way forward; but after seeing the prices and quality of the kit on order i was put off; im also convinced that a surge in demand of wood pellets equals deforestation.

So the choice was efficient oil boiler or ashp. After seeing all the posts about Air source I was very sceptical, but couldnt bring myself to spend any money on a new condensing oil boiler.

I had 5 companies quote for an ASHP; for each I asked for the Mitsubishi Ecodan as I know that is the market leader. One company told me it wouldnt work withought measuring my property or asking how well it had been insulated, another calculated I would need two large units to satisty the houses heat demand. The company who installed my PV system (who did a good job by the way) again didnt measure any rooms or ask about insulation, just asked me what I wanted. So I was left with a national chain who refused to recognise I have other heat sources in the house or another local company who actually wanted to ask about my properties dimensions, insulation history and would be pragmatic about other heat sources. I went for the latter and chose the Ecodan 8.5kw, which according to Mitsubishi is just about powerful enough for our house (I would have needed a 100a main fuse for the 14kw which would have cost over £2k as my leccy supplier says I would need to pay for a new transformer ).

Install completed on Weds, commissioning was done yesterday. Upstairs is lovely and warm. Downstairs is acceptable; the heat is there, the heat pump is getting the water up to temp, but the flow to one key rad is slow (a massive 2.5kw vertical 3 bar rad), also the wireless thermostat I have ( Siemens) keeps losing connectivity to the base unit and the heat pump keeps turning off as it thinks the house it up to temp. Total amount of electric consumed so far (since 7pm Weds) is 73 kwh; which I reckon is about a 30% cheaper than I was spending on oil. Hot water is much better, the oil boiler took forever to heat a 120l cylinder, my new 210l vented tank (a thermal store, being used as a HW cylinder only as my heating is a sealed system) gives perfect mains pressure hot water in the same time.




All in all Im happy ive made the right decision, but I know ASHPs need a certain amount of obsessiveness on the homeowners part to work.

Happy to post photos on here if someone can tell me how )

[Deleted User]

nande2000 wrote: »

Ok heres an update from me;

We moved into a detached house on the side of a hill in NWales 7 years ago and ive hated the oil central heating ever since we moved in. It was noisy and smelly and the house was always too cold or too hot.

Initially i was convinced that wood pellets were the way forward; but after seeing the prices and quality of the kit on order i was put off; im also convinced that a surge in demand of wood pellets equals deforestation.

So the choice was efficient oil boiler or ashp. After seeing all the posts about Air source I was very sceptical, but couldnt bring myself to spend any money on a new condensing oil boiler.

I had 5 companies quote for an ASHP; for each I asked for the Mitsubishi Ecodan as I know that is the market leader. One company told me it wouldnt work withought measuring my property or asking how well it had been insulated, another calculated I would need two large units to satisty the houses heat demand. The company who installed my PV system (who did a good job by the way) again didnt measure any rooms or ask about insulation, just asked me what I wanted. So I was left with a national chain who refused to recognise I have other heat sources in the house or another local company who actually wanted to ask about my properties dimensions, insulation history and would be pragmatic about other heat sources. I went for the latter and chose the Ecodan 8.5kw, which according to Mitsubishi is just about powerful enough for our house (I would have needed a 100a main fuse for the 14kw which would have cost over £2k as my leccy supplier says I would need to pay for a new transformer ).

Install completed on Weds, commissioning was done yesterday. Upstairs is lovely and warm. Downstairs is acceptable; the heat is there, the heat pump is getting the water up to temp, but the flow to one key rad is slow (a massive 2.5kw vertical 3 bar rad), also the wireless thermostat I have ( Siemens) keeps losing connectivity to the base unit and the heat pump keeps turning off as it thinks the house it up to temp. Total amount of electric consumed so far (since 7pm Weds) is 73 kwh; which I reckon is about a 30% cheaper than I was spending on oil. Hot water is much better, the oil boiler took forever to heat a 120l cylinder, my new 210l vented tank (a thermal store, being used as a HW cylinder only as my heating is a sealed system) gives perfect mains pressure hot water in the same time.




All in all Im happy ive made the right decision, but I know ASHPs need a certain amount of obsessiveness on the homeowners part to work.

Happy to post photos on here if someone can tell me how )

Great to hear all is going well.

Perhaps use dropbox to share pics in the 'public' folder?

I'll PM you later with some pics of ours if you like.

TiredGeek

I couldn't suss out a simple way to post loads of photos, so I set up a free account with Photobucket and load the pictures on there, then simply post links to the folder or pictures as needed.
Might not be the best way of doing it but it works for me

http://s1187.beta.photobucket.com/user/TiredGeek/library/Heat%20Pumps

nande2000

Pics of our new system, plus also our Fronius 4.0 TL inverter and immersun.


http://s1308.beta.photobucket.com/user/neil_anderson2/library/#/user/neil_anderson2/library/Ecodan?&_suid=135447986950705888762727202488

TiredGeek

They've even fitted the condensate tray! Nice