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

zeupater

Dave2360 wrote: »

Hello All

Forgive me if this the wrong forum for this question, but i could really do with some direction!

I have recently moved into a new Millgate Homes house that came complete with a Nibe F2015 ASHP for all heating requirements (ex Hot Water for taps). The house also included an Energy Monitor and as you can possibly guess we seemed to be using a lot of electricity and accumulating a hefty power bill.. on the last check it was £490 for a seven week period, or £10 a day average. (Large 4 bedroom house)

We had no warning of the high costs associated to the ASHP and when escalated to the MD of Millgate Homes he accepted that they are not the best option for an area with Gas Supply due to the high running costs. In fact, he stated that they have installed 20 over the past 3 years to meet the local councils directives around renewables and in that period 18 have been decommissioned, I guess leaving only me and another soon to be shocked Millgate customer with them running..

When asked why i was not informed of the highcosts, he replied, 'your a business man' what would you have done... got to admire his transparency.

Anyhow, enough moaning. Millgate have offered to cover the cost of removing the ASHP, but on the agreement that they keep all the associated kit - F2015 + Buffer Tank + SMO 05 etc... In my mind not a good deal given the RRP of this kit and the fact its only 5-6 months old. Alternatively, they suggest that I pay for the system to be removed and then sell second hand to cover costs..

My plumber seems to think I will be able to sell second hand, but i have not seen and second hand/refurbished systems on ebay etc, so is anyone likely to buy??

Can anyone provide any guidance on reselling such a system? I have spoken to a number of Nibe premier fitters listed on nibe.com and whilst they have been really useful in terms of how best to run the system, none have been interested in buying.

Hopefully you can offer guidance and i have not offended anyone with a sales question!

Many Thanks

Dave

Hi Dave

Couple of questions ....

Are the builders looking at replacing the HP with a gas boiler for no cost in exchange for taking the existing kit away ? ..... If not, can your plumber utilise anything in place (buffer tank & piping ?) within the design of a new system in order to reduce costs ?...

HTH
Z

[Deleted User]

Dave2360 wrote: »

Hello All

Forgive me if this the wrong forum for this question, but i could really do with some direction!

I have recently moved into a new Millgate Homes house that came complete with a Nibe F2015 ASHP for all heating requirements (ex Hot Water for taps). The house also included an Energy Monitor and as you can possibly guess we seemed to be using a lot of electricity and accumulating a hefty power bill.. on the last check it was £490 for a seven week period, or £10 a day average. (Large 4 bedroom house)

We had no warning of the high costs associated to the ASHP and when escalated to the MD of Millgate Homes he accepted that they are not the best option for an area with Gas Supply due to the high running costs. In fact, he stated that they have installed 20 over the past 3 years to meet the local councils directives around renewables and in that period 18 have been decommissioned, I guess leaving only me and another soon to be shocked Millgate customer with them running..

When asked why i was not informed of the highcosts, he replied, 'your a business man' what would you have done... got to admire his transparency.

Anyhow, enough moaning. Millgate have offered to cover the cost of removing the ASHP, but on the agreement that they keep all the associated kit - F2015 + Buffer Tank + SMO 05 etc... In my mind not a good deal given the RRP of this kit and the fact its only 5-6 months old. Alternatively, they suggest that I pay for the system to be removed and then sell second hand to cover costs..

My plumber seems to think I will be able to sell second hand, but i have not seen and second hand/refurbished systems on ebay etc, so is anyone likely to buy??

Can anyone provide any guidance on reselling such a system? I have spoken to a number of Nibe premier fitters listed on nibe.com and whilst they have been really useful in terms of how best to run the system, none have been interested in buying.

Hopefully you can offer guidance and i have not offended anyone with a sales question!

Many Thanks

Dave

Personally I'd let them keep the kit. Nibe ASHPs are complete tosh but the GSHPs are ok. The hastle of storing it to try and sell would be a nightmare. An Ecodan from Mitsubishi on the other hand would be snapped up Indeed your running costs are 3 times my EcoDan :eek:

wormboy

I have recently bought a two up two down old semi with a solid fuel fire with back boiler for heating backed up by an immersion heater.

I am considering installing solar panels and an ASHP. As well as the feed in tarrif I would expect the solar power to be used during the day to help power the ASHP and maintain a background heat.

With the ASHP advertised at 400% efficient am I missing a bad side?

[Deleted User]

wormboy wrote: »

I have recently bought a two up two down old semi with a solid fuel fire with back boiler for heating backed up by an immersion heater.

I am considering installing solar panels and an ASHP. As well as the feed in tarrif I would expect the solar power to be used during the day to help power the ASHP and maintain a background heat.

With the ASHP advertised at 400% efficient am I missing a bad side?

What you are saying is entirely possible, indeed it is what we do. On the roof is a 4kw solar pv with the house heated and DHW by 14kw ASHP. Over the last year we have spent apprx £650 on our total electricity bill. On top of that we receive FITs and RHI. So yes making a profit out of heating our home etc... Mad eh!!! This is likely to be lower still as the PV was only installed in Nov.

But please whatever you do investigate, study and view as many working systems as you can before buying anything...

albyota

wormboy wrote: »

I have recently bought a two up two down old semi with a solid fuel fire with back boiler for heating backed up by an immersion heater.

I am considering installing solar panels and an ASHP. As well as the feed in tarrif I would expect the solar power to be used during the day to help power the ASHP and maintain a background heat.

With the ASHP advertised at 400% efficient am I missing a bad side?

Whoa....400%, who told you that? Work on a SPF (seasonal performance) factor of around 320% (COP 3.2) that's if you would use radiators calculated at 45 degree flow.

I assume you are off the GAS Grid.

The roof area of a standard 2 up 2 down is not likely to be big enough to get much more than 1.5kWp (6 x 250W panels) so do some calculations prior to spending your money.

After April 1st (FITs 21p/kWh) You will have to get a SAP report on the house and it must be a 'D' or better, same goes for the Heat pump (but not sure if its the same date).

My 8.5kW Ecodan runs between 960 Watts and 1.4kW all day with 35 degree flow temp to UFH, on an average bright day my 3kWp PV can provide more than enough juice to equalize, including fridge & freezer. However, when the PV picks up in the summer, you would not need heating, but you would time the heat pump to run at mid-day to do the domestic hot water.

hope this helps

Edale

We have had our Mitsubishi Ecodan 14kw for over a year now, total electricity consumption for the year since installation (including all other usage) was 12364kwh. We are on EDF fixed saver 2 and the bill including standing charge and dd discount has been £1035. Our house is a late 1960s detached four bedroom c1700 square feet, well insulated and running large radiators. We have also fitted a log burner and burnt c£200 of wood in the year so total bill is £1235. I don't have full info for previous years as we only moved here in July 2010 but used an average of 16kwh electricity per day prior to heat pump. Our old oil boiler used 100l of oil per week during last winter and I reckon we would have used at least 3000l in a full year (this compares with a neighbour in a similar size house). This would give an oil bill of £1920 (boiler juice best price is 64p per litre inc vat) plus an electricity bill of £540, total £2460. Saving has been around £1200, however I don't think it is a true reflection as the Ecodan developed a fault and started eating electricity at the begining of the year. We used 4500kwh in the first 10 weeks of this year (30% of the total for the year!), after 3 engineer visits Mitsubishi have replaced the unit FOC. Much as though I am annoyed at it going wrong, the level of service from the installers and Mitsubishi has been great although it did take some time to resolve leading to the excessive consumption. The installers tell me they have installed over 300 Ecodans and are only aware of one other major fault. If it hadn't gone wrong assuming Nov/Dec average daily electricity consumption I reckon the figures for the year would have been 11000kwh/ £930/ £1130 inc logs which would give a £1300+ saving over previous heating arrangement.

Overall I am very happy with the performance of the system, prior to having it fitted I was concerned it would not be effective in heating the house and not give a sufficient saving to justify the c£10k outlay. I decided to go ahead because I believed an announcement on the RHI was imminent and the installer offered me an incentive as they had a free installation slot, when they delayed the RHI I feared I had made a mistake but having had it a year I am happy. We needed to do something as our oil boiler was on its last legs and a new oil boiler and unvented system would have cost £4k-£5k.

With hindsight I would not do anything differently but my tips would be:
1. Only install one if you are off mains gas and an added incentive is if your current system needs updating soon. It is madness that people have ripped out modern gas boilers to install ASHPs.
2. Use a well established installer who has plenty experience of ASHPs and ask how many of the type they recommend they have installed, also ask for references. Assessing your property is suitable and having a correctly sized system with sufficient radiator capacity is essential as you will read on other threads. I only got one quote as I was very confident with the Engineer who came and did the survey and the price seemed reasonable but I would advise you get three different opinions and prices. I would highly recommend the company that installed mine (ACS renewables Ltd) I think they operate nationally.
3. Choose one of the major brands such as Mitsubishi, Daikin or Panasonic. I was very pleased with Mitsubishi's service when mine devloped a fault and can imagine the problems with a lesser known manufacturer.

Enough of my ramblings - enjoy the rest of your weekend,

Cardew

Edale,
How much did your installation cost?

Edale

I got some CERT funding and including 3 new radiators and new unvented cylinder just over £9k net of the grant.

lovesgshp

Edale wrote: »

I got some CERT funding and including 3 new radiators and new unvented cylinder just over £9k net of the grant.

Good to hear of a successful installation in the UK after so many negatives.

John_Pierpoint

High folks I am just back from "Eco Build" - a three day juket for free in London Dockland's Excel (with a view of the 02 dome)

The attendance seemed to be down on last year and the atmosphere had lost its exuberant "gold rush" enthusiasm. Like the rest of the economy, which has now been in recession longer than the notorious episode in the 1930's, the atmosphere is now "NO MORE SUBSIDIES" and long hard haul. [I will try and summarise my impressions in more detail when I get a round tuit.]

However for heat pumps both ground and air source for the purposes of the Standard Assessment Procedure and the reduced-SAP, as used for every home's Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) the standard Coefficient of Performance (CoP) is being reduced and standardised as 2.3 for both technologies. Yes that is put in one kilo-Watt-hour of energy and extract 2.3 kWh of useful heat.

Now this might be to concentrate minds on good building fabric design AND IMPLEMENTATION, which is invisible and currently impossible to sell to the house buying punter (*); thus rescuing the old "bodge it up" designs by adding some eco bling, such as panels on the roof and exhaust air heat pumps.
There is also tremendous pressure to implement some sort of post construction monitoring - some limited surveys that have been done suggest that over 50% of the supposed savings at the design office stage have gone missing by the time the home has been built.
The ideal situation being "Now that you have spent theoretically £10K on a better insulated and designed home, you better now add the eco bling at your expense to make the building comply with the new standards; or knock it down.

This 2.3 CoP should prevent the installation of heat pumps into buildings connected to the gas grid.

Hopefully it will be enforced and the double glazing and second hand car salesmen who have gravitated into the "renewables" business will have to up their game.

As an aside, there was a story circulating that people with a ground source heat pump in drought areas built on clay were in trouble this year.
The rule of thumb for the ground loop is "the wetter the better" . This year the dryness and shallowness of some installations has combined and the clay has shrunken away from the "slinky" ground loop, effectively double glazing it and making the pump work overtime to the stage where it tries to freeze the ground.

No more budget for carrots here come the stick - as one wag put it, the RHI will not work; we cannot even give away insulation, let alone get people to borrow and pay 7% "golden rule" terms for it.

John

(*) Has anyone yet sold a second hand house, where the buyers have asked for the EPC and gone on to discuss it findings and recommendations ?

The woman who did one for me got paid £45 for the task - the result for a small narrow solid wall Victorian detached house, was near the bottom of the scale.
The selling features were Location Location Location and Victorian external "charm".
(internally it had been gutted in the 1960's). Nobody was the least bit interested in the EPC.