Nibe Fighter 360p ashp costing me loads to run

lovesfarmbpha

I dont believe we have gas and are on a nibe monster!
Wood love a WBS but these modern homes dont allow space for one ...unless I break down some walls.....we are probably going to bolt on a gas boiler to the nibe.....then at least if a miracle does happen with electricity we are covered but in the mean time (next 100 years) we can run off the gas...the mechanical ventilation is a pain but the cost will be minimal....
Just hope we can get the housing ombudsman to see sense that putting in electric heating instead of gas when your connected tou gas is dumb

LewisUK

Hello all my first post here!

I moved in my house at the end of 2010 and had the Nibe as part of the house. My house is shared ownership with Shoreline (Grimsby Local Housing Association)
I recived NOTHING with my Nibe no instructions or anything, so I pretty much trawled the menus (not alot of options left on it!) and put the heating curve on max (15) and the offset at max. This is the only way I could get my house hot.
To give you an idea my house is 3 storey and three bedroom with these silly air intakes in my 2 bathroom, one in the toilet and 1 in the kitchen. My house is supplied with gas and I have a gas hob (Shoreline didnt even know this was installed, never even had a gas check on it!).
So I've been using my boiler like so:
When I want the heating I turn to winter mode and have it running full blast (have to) and when I dont want heating I have it in summer mode (over night and when I'm out).
Both me and my partner work and do our degrees.....we have a 2 year old with Astmha and her room is always cold!!
Onto electricity:
Since I've moved in my electric usage has been:
March: £160
April: £160
May: £130
June: £50
July: £60
August: £60
September: £80
Ocotober: £100
November: £120
December: £150
So far in Jan: £34 (its been mild and since reading this I turned it down)



I also shower every day but hardly use hot water really.
Also I had a plumber round today as the waste pipe was leaking in TWO place and has ruined my carpet in my dining room!!!
He tells me that the filters must be clean all the time and to purge the system every month? !!!!!! its heating.

I used to rent an old terraced house with no draught excluders and that had a gas boiler and we used the gas heaters in the rooms and the max we paid was £80 for gas and electric each month.

So what can I do about it?
I dont want the Nibe I cant afford it, I'm only a student. Also do you think the HA should give me something as the pipe underneath wasnt even connected properly and that caused the leak. My room stinks now and I do tutoring in there!
Currently my bills are £103 for electric but they will go up looking at my stats on the amount of electricity I consume.

Regards Aaron

Edit: My house has an area of 80m2 without hallway 2 x stairs and 2 x landings

lovesfarmbpha

Hi Lewis.
We are trying to battle this boiler with the housing ombudsman as we have a simialr story here in Cambridgeshire....up and down the country these NIBE systems are causing high bills and fuel poverty and have mainly been put in social housing.
We have a FB page called NIBE boiler problems..
You need to make a formal complaint(you must state on the letter to your HA that you are making a formal complaint)...explain that as your connected to gas you feel that the home is not meeting code level 3 of the sustainable homes act,also complain that you have never been given any user instaructions which as breach and you wish to claim back monies...persue this through all the stages of your HAs complaint process and if they do not budge take it to the Hosuing Ombudsman.....The NIBE systems are going to be re classified soon by the BRE and MCS (16th Jan) hopefully they will be dropped like a stone....Unfortunatley we are up against builders ,NIBE and many HAs who just dont want to listen and also are craping themselves as someone will be made liable....my guess NIBE are in for it soon very soon......

LewisUK

Thank you I will do!

lovesfarmbpha

The NIBE Exhaust air heat pump is NOT able to meet hot water and heating requirements without using the 6Kw immersion element and thus is extremely inefficient and hugely CO2 producing .
This link is a paper written by two guys from University of Wales ...section 4.2 is where the detail is.....
NOTE that the paper is written about the NIBE 360p which is connected to solar panels for hot water supply...NOT on its own ....

As we are are all aware the system works if its only taking on one function and the best one for it is the heating....if it tries to take on both heating and hot water supply it fails miserably....

Read and weep HAs..

http://www.uwha.co.uk/Helsinki/Research%20paper.pdf

lovesfarmbpha

Here some simple maths to work out the CoP
Take the heat capacity and divide it by the total power in put.
Page 56 of the nibe 360p manual.
Heat capacity is 1.75Kw Total power input 0.655Kw
Equals 2.6 CoP

Hold on under the standard for calculating the CoP ,EN 14511,only the compressor input power is used (thats the 0.655Kw)

If you are to add the constant fan power,at 0.170Kw you would actually have a CoP of 1.75Kw divided by 0.825Kw= a CoP of 2.1.
No need to add the circulation pump at 100W as its not constant but you can see where this is going.....down down down...
Ok that's all calculated in Lab conditions with specific temperatures...uhm we don't live in Labs..Oh yes we dont.
We know that as the outside temp drops the systems CoP decreases...In fact the Cambridge Carbon Footprint Org worked out that at 7C or below then secondary heat is required to help the exhaust air heat pump keep a decent CoP...
Ok so lets think the NIBE has a 6Kw immersion element that kicks in when it cannot keep up...
Shall I do the maths or shall I just leave it there.....

These systems do not run by themselves they need back up......and its probably best not from a bloody 6Kw element....

John_Pierpoint

.............running on full price electricity.

Probably cheaper to use night storage heaters, especially as they now know what is happening outside?.

How someone thinks a British built home can heated by an input of less than one of those old fashioned bar heaters (as used in bath rooms in the bad old days ) to produce an output in ideal 7 degree conditions of two bar heaters, escapes me.

Sounds like the sort of input one would leave turned on in an empty house in the hope it might stop the pipes freezing.

lovesfarmbpha

your probably get more heat output from a tin of Heinz Beans than a NIBE 360p..........or you can attach a NIBE heat pump installer/sales person as enough hot air comes out of them followed by plenty of Methane....light it up and watch it burn :T

lovesfarmbpha

Well our FB page Nibe boiler problems has had since its launch under a year ago 20,882 hits.......people from up and down the UK have contacted us and are complaining heavily....mainly housing association tenants but I also have heard from owners in London with Fairview built homes that are having stupidly high bills........................
At the Bedfordshire based housing association,BPHA, two estates have had electrical arcing from the mains switch for the NIBE which so far has just caused smoke and power loss for a few days... luckily no ones home has burnt down yet....BPHA refuse to accept anything is wrong..
I really hope this get sorted out soon....

nikkinoodles35

Hi, I also have a shared ownership house through Longhurst & havelock homes, Mine is a 3 storey town house.
I am at present going through the complaints process. i have just told them i going on to stage 2, cause i want something doing about the Nibe boiler.
I was also told that the system was cheap and eco-friendly. What a load of rubbish! The instructions are also rubbish, was given i thick book on how to install the thing, thats the last thing i want to do!
i STILL don't really know what i'm doing with it but i am managing it the best i can. I did find out the other day after all the wind and sleepless nights, that you can close the vents, it makes a difference in the house. I have tried to get nibe to come out and show me how it works but they won't, not even when it went wrong and i had to turn it off.
I am coping with the Autum/Spring mode at the minute cause i daren't put it Winter mode. i find myself turning radiators on and off just so i know i have hot water in the morning, Constantly checking my hot water temp, to make sure i have a high enough temp to maybe put a radiator on for a while, to warm my kids rooms.

If anyone else is in Longhurst and havelock Homes House, I am trying to get some support with my complaint, i believe that my neighbours have also put in complaints but the more they get the better.