Nibe Fighter 360p ashp costing me loads to run

Cardew

Hi Fuel Poverty!

Welcome to the forum.

You have posted your interesting post 5 times - no doubt because you are new to MSE.

If you go to 'edit' on your posts and scroll to the bottom you can delete the repeated posts.

1plus1equal3

hi fuel poverty, are you a salesman for the atherma flex, or did your finger get stuck on the post button lol.Well ive pressed the dreaded switch today, and put the heating on, i have been using an average 10 units a day, so i will monitor my usage every day now the heating is on, and switch it back off again if it runs away with itself.Then i will be having an extremely cold winter, though i suppose looking on the bright side if i get hypothermia i will be in a lovely warm hospital.i cant face the thought of being constantly cold , as i have an illness which is made worse when im cold. But i cant allow my electric bill to go up too high as i am on a limited income. and cant risk the gas board insisting on putting a prepaid meter in, as my whole house runs off of electricity, and we have no extra fires or water heaters in the house, everything depends on my nibe fighter.hopefully browns engineers in norwich have rectified all the problems we have had for the past 2 years , and the system will be more cost effective to run this year.i will keep you posted on usage.

John_Pierpoint

Even rich people have trouble with "eco" heating.
Get the woman now at Sheffield on your side.

The testing results have been mixed. Although the Holdsworths are delighted with their £350-a-year energy bill (for their wood pellets and added electricity needs for household appliances), their main gripe has been getting the hang of the complex technology needed to run their home.
“When we moved in the solar panels weren’t wired up correctly, we didn’t know how to operate the ventilation system and the rainwater harvester didn’t work properly for months,” says Peter. “I’m not saying you need a physics degree to live in this kind of house but having someone to run through the operations systems with you, say, within a week of your moving in would be extremely helpful. We moved from a Victorian four-bedroom semi so it was a culture shock.”
Professor Fionn Stevenson from the University of Sheffield, who led the monitoring, said: “A key lesson is that occupants shouldn’t be put off by complex 'eco bling’. One of the occupants had been given the wrong information about the ventilation system and thought it was a heat recovery system. They left it on all day and their house got very cold.” As a result, says Duncan Pyle, of O2i Design which designed the houses in Stawell, Somerset, “the occupants started blocking up the air vents to try to keep warm.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/greenproperty/8818300/Are-eco-homes-worth-building.html

http://www.sust.org/pdf/POE%20Presentations%20Reduced%20pdfs/Fionn_Stevenson.pdf

lovesfarmbpha

The only way any heat pump will save money or be "green" is.
If the power running it is gained from a renwable source such as solar or wind etc etc .
Here in the UK most the heat pumps are run off Grid Electricity...Grid Electricity in the UK is currently dirty as in not green in fact it produces 2.94 times more CO2 than gas and is 3 to 4 times more expensive than gas.
You would need a heat pump to be over 400% effecient to save money. The CoP are usually around 3.4 but a NIBE boiler is 2.6.The minimum required is 2.5......
BEWARE the CoP is only calculated using the compressors power it DOES NOT calulate the other electrical items (such as a fan running 24hours a day for ventilation).
SO YOUR CoP ONCE ALL ELECTRICTY IS CALULATED IN IS LOWER THAN THAT ADVERTISED...A NIBE BOILER WITH A COP OF 2.6 (like the 360p) ACTUALLY IS ONLY A COP OF 2.1.
THATS 210% EFFICIENT......SO COMPARED TO GAS PRICES YOUR PAYING 90% MORE WITH A HEAT PUMP AND PRODUCING 80% MORE CO2...


In Sweden or Scandanavian countries the mains electricty is mainly clean as they use hydro (damns) to produce the power.
People selling these heat pumps in the UK to social housing should be banned because it is unlikely that the tenant will be able to buy solar panels for the home (due to legal reasons on the tenancy)Also because the ways they pay the bill differ greatly.
Alot of housing associations spout how economical the heat pumps are however all this is sales talk from the supplying heat pump company and never any true research has been done by the HA.
Heat pumps suk if your using grid power to run them .......simple!

Cardew

People selling these heat pumps in the UK to social housing should be banned because it is unlikely that the tenant will be able to buy solar panels for the home

In winter, when you need heating, solar panels on many days will produce next to nothing and rarely more than a few kWh - not enough to power appliances in the house let alone the sort of power required for an ASHP. As they produce nothing at all after dusk you will have no heating at all - Solar panels and ASHP are not natural bedfellows!!

albyota

Correction......!!!!!!

NOT all heat pumps are like the Nibe (Exhaust air).

A good quality heat pump from the likes of Mitsubishi, Daikin, Panasonic, LG, Worcester Bosch, Vaillant, and others, when calculated correctly for the property and installed with care will perform without problems, AND reduce running costs over heating oil or LPG.

If mains gas is available, then a good quality gas boiler should be installed. (there will become a time when gas is more expensive than electricity, hence, this year, gas has increased by 18% -22%, electricity 11%-13%)

I truly feel sorry for you all, Housing associations, trying to score points for being 'green', and trying to meet the CSH (code for sustainable homes) will always go with the cheapest (rubbish) kit...slung in by 'untrained oiks', who will try and [STRIKE]bullsh1t[/STRIKE] convince you, that this is the best and they know what they are doing, when never actually owning one themselves, don't have a clue how to set them up, and with controls that are far too complicated.

Write to the top director of the housing association, demand they be replaced.

lovesfarmbpha

Understand that Solar is probably no good with these facts you have pointed out for the air heat pumps...thanks .
the main point is using grid electricity is not good ,green or economical for this system.
and yes we are connected to gas and agree that the NIBE should not have been installed.
The HAs well lets look at the one we are with ...the MD pay is £135k a year plus bonus....does he care? nope?why?
We have written to him and he passes it to his minions ...so far we have a complaint running from 35 people on the estate who have this NIBE thing and we are about to gain another 15 people who I did not realise had the NIBE.
Our end goal is the housing ombudsman but we must go through the HAs complaint process before the ombudsman will even listen...no quick fix..
As we are shared owners we have been looking into bolting on a gas boiler to the NIBE...the kit is £45....and sounds like the best answer or a wood chip burner...
Thanks for the info......lets hope we can get rid of NIBE ...soon

denial2010

Wow this thread is still going!

So I've had three of the four quaterly bills in now for the year... Since Nibe came out to tweak my 360P. Obviously, with the big one still to come in (October - January).


January - April: £119.13 (16.5KW/h per day)
April - July: £83.89 (8.79KW/h per day)
July - October: £77.12 (6.17KW/h per day)

Grand Total YTD (270 days): £280.14 (£1.03 per day)


NB - July through to October is perhaps higher than expected as I pay a daily charge on my tariff (to offset the higher winter usage). Also EDF put the rates up when they promised they wouldn't... cheating sods and I've had a friend move in over the summer! Once I've got the full 12 months worth of data I'll make a decision as to which tariff is best for this unit.

But I'm not counting my chickens until the last quater has gone through. All in all seems quite reasonable so far *touch wood*.

lovesfarmbpha

Thats really low power consumption.
Is that just the system or the entire house?
Can I ask...is your nibe 360p your only heat source?
The fan alone will use on average 4.2kw a day on normal fan speed and that before the compressor at 550watts kicks in to heat the water..so your 6.17Kwh suggests amazing results.....do you shower once a day
What size place do you have?
How many people live in the home?
Where you getting your daily power consumption readings from?

sorry for all the questions but with figures like that you must be doing something right...and we want to know what
We are EDF as well we use econmy 7 (the one where after 9pm the power is off peak till 6am)mainly coz we work all day and kids at school .To be honest there is not much difference in all the tarrifs....you may save £10 if your lucky....
we have a 3 bed semi ,one year old which is pretty air tight (now).
Our average energy consumption this week (Nibe on autumn/spring setting) is between 19 kw to 25 kw so not to bad heating on as cold.
The house is a temp of about 21C to 23C.

richardc1983

It makes no difference if the building is airtight you have air vents which supply air from outside to replace the air its sucking out.