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

peat

The government has committed to the RHI although it will now be treasury funded and allegedly cut by 20% - anyone know any more details or at least a date when details will be announced?

rhubarbe

I thought it was funded by the tax on fossil fuels - like £15 for a bag of coal (£300pmt delivered) ...

peat

Now to be funded by the Treasury to the tune of £860 million, due to commence June 2011, full details to be released December 2010

rhubarbe

What was the funding level before?

StuHolmes

Just got myself a renovation project with no gas supply. Considering air to water for DHW and UFH on ground floor and possibly air to air upstairs to also give cooling in summer. But don't know where to start really.

Anybody heard of either of these companies?

http://www.heatpumpinstallations.com/
http://www.spaceair.co.uk/

Any opinions gratefully received.

albyota

Hi, StuHolmes, for air to air and air to water you should look at Samsung EHS, depending on size of house, levels of insulation, DG, etc..one unit outside would provide cooling in the summer with wall mounted or ducted units, and heating through under floor heating or radiators. Spaceair are mainly a distributor and charge an arm, leg and your liver to install and commission. I have no idea what HPI are like.

bobmedley

Albyota

I have three aircon/heat pumps already used in conjunction with oil CH and am seriously considering canning the oil boiler when this tank runs out (various reasons - cost, we've had a serious oil leak, boiler getting noisier through age etc).

I'm not totally convinced by the HT heat pumps, as in the Sanyo won't be big enough at 9kw (and my air-con man says that CO2 systems run at monster pressures so if anything goes pop it could be 'interesting') and I've seen mention that the Daikin has a compressor in the indoor unit that can be overly noisy. That means I would be looking at the 'standard' circa 55c heat pumps.

Anyway, I have a 300 litre unvented tank that is emptied completely every morning as the five of us get showered, and the oil boiler can get the hot water replenished within 10-15 minutes.

So the question is, how good is your Ecodan at heating water when there is a high usage?

rhubarbe

Our 8.5 Ecodan heats 150L of water in about 25 minutes. Costs about 13p per tank.

bobmedley

What water temperature do you choose and can you programme it so the immersion heater can assist?

rhubarbe

We use 55°C for the water from the ASHP. The immersion comes on once a week, on a Saturday morning from 8:00am to 9:00am (well that's the timer setting). It lifts the water from 55°C that the heat pump gets it to, to 65°C to kill off legionella. 65°C is way too hot to put your hand in - 55°C is OK, just about.

I wouldn't use the immersion to speed up heating of water because it's just so much more expensive than the heat pump.

To be fair though, we had a new bathroom fitted about a year before we bought the ASHP, and because we have no gas we had an electric shower fitted, so we don;t really use the hot water our heat pump produces unless we're doing a lot of washing (so much cheaper with a tank than with the LPG combi we had before).

We did get a quote for a new oil boiler and bunded oil tank but by the time we took off the Low carbon Buildings trust grant it was just as cheap to by the ASHP.

Not having to worry about running out of gas, not having to go out for coal on a freezing night - priceless.