Do you have air source heating?

Surfer

If you have air source heating, what er your experiences using it regarding heating itself, cost of consumption, icing up etc.

We had storage heating and this is our first winter with air source heating. Our electric bill has almost doubled in comparison to last year. We also find that the machine ices up on cold days and is not very effective when you really need it. On moderate days it is fine and works okay.

We have had to resort to buying a gas heater and only use the central heating in off peak due to the high costs.

Your views will be appreciated. Thanks.

[Deleted User]

Our ASHP, despite the freezing weather, seems to cope fine maintaining our ancient pile at 20c. Currently using no more than 40 units a day. Never found icing to be an issue. In saying that we light the stove in the evenings for cozy nights in as wifey like 25c+ when the soaps are on. Vastly cheaper than when we were on LPG.

Surfer

When ours ices up, it struggles to heat our place which has good insulation. It does have a de-icing mode but it has to run for this to work and it only seems to de-ice on a whim. The machine is a Mitsubishi and we have had nothing, but trouble since the unit was fitted.
We tried running it 24/7 so that it would switch on and off to maintain the temperature at about 21C however this then worked out at about £5.35p per day so we reverted to E10 and only running it during the off peak hours.

nande2000

Surfer wrote: »

When ours ices up, it struggles to heat our place which has good insulation. It does have a de-icing mode but it has to run for this to work and it only seems to de-ice on a whim. The machine is a Mitsubishi and we have had nothing, but trouble since the unit was fitted.
We tried running it 24/7 so that it would switch on and off to maintain the temperature at about 21C however this then worked out at about £5.35p per day so we reverted to E10 and only running it during the off peak hours.

I concur with Jeepjunkie. Whilst the condensate tray on my Ecodan is icing up in the current weather, the electric usage is still perfectly acceptable (26 units a day in the current cold snap for the 8.5kw Ecodan) and is heating the house fine.

Sounds to me like there is a plumbing issue on your install; if the unit cant get at the heat in your CH when it needs to perform a defrost it can get stuck in an endless defrost cycle and send your electric bill higher.

if you have TRVs on rads make sure they are mostly open also check pipe sizes, are they correct ? Has the unit been sized correctly ?

muckybutt

Worst thing we ever had !

We had one fitted with a grant a few years back, a Heatking 11Kw, had all the specs drawn up and passed etc new rads - tank etc etc. In mild weather it was fine, lovely and warm then as the weather temps dropped it started to struggle even though it was correctly sized for our house.

Then we were getting complaints off the neighbours about it running at night because the defrost cycle was keeping them awake.

Final straw came when our electricity provider rang us up to inform us we had a large electricity bill coming, in 70 days I think it was something like £800 odd quid :eek: needless to say with the high bill and the moaning neighbours and council getting involved with the noise issue I ripped the damn thing out and sold it on ebay - I put the money towards a multi fuel stove and have never looked back.

They are probably good for new modern houses with proper insulation, but for a Grade II cottage with solid walls and no DG I doubt it would ever have been economical to run.

Surfer

It was fitted by the housing association and was the first one fitted by them. They also messed up big time when it was fitted and flooded our house.

Does yours run on "continuous" and regulated by a separate thermostat on a wall? We were using an average of 50 units a day to maintain a temperature of 22C so 26 is exceptionally good. It was set to run between 3am and 10pm with water heating between 12pm and 2.30pm.
Shutting it down to off peak only we use 20 units on E10 (1200 -0500, 1300-1600, 2000-2200 hours.
In the summer we use about 20 units a day with the machine switched off. This means in winter it increases by at least 30 units.

[Deleted User]

Just to add...

Driving home tonight in the Jeep I was greeted with snow drifts accross the road almost blocking passage and horizontal snow.

Not far from being cut off here!

Greeted to a nice toasty house

PS Just waiting for the usual power cut now

nande2000

Surfer wrote: »

It was fitted by the housing association and was the first one fitted by them. They also messed up big time when it was fitted and flooded our house.

Does yours run on "continuous" and regulated by a separate thermostat on a wall? We were using an average of 50 units a day to maintain a temperature of 22C so 26 is exceptionally good. It was set to run between 3am and 10pm with water heating between 12pm and 2.30pm.
Shutting it down to off peak only we use 20 units on E10 (1200 -0500, 1300-1600, 2000-2200 hours.
In the summer we use about 20 units a day with the machine switched off. This means in winter it increases by at least 30 units.

Ours is set to be off for 5 hrs in the afternoon when the house is empty and 5 hrs at night. We also have a 4.5kw log burner in the front room and as we have a vented thermal store cylinder we dont use the immersion (apart from via an immersun, but that is free electric from PV)
20 units a day in the Summer seems really excessive, does that include immersion use ? What size is the unit/property? I would start by checking if the unit is sized correctly.

Surfer

Hot water is heated by electric but is heated between 12am and 2.30am during off peak. I was thinking of it last night and I did think that 22 units a day (12 peak and 10 off peak)was excessive for summer use when the heating is switched off and it just the hot water being done. This figure was for 07/06/2012. However I have done a calculation for the average using May, June and July and it is 13 units per day, however of those 3 months we were away for approximately 1 month.

Our property is mid terrace bungalow with one bedroom. All our electrical stuff like fridge, oven and washing machine are under 3 years old and has a B rating.

In essence going from summer to winter we are using an additional excess of 34 units totalling 48 units a day Split 27 peak and 20 off peak so you can see our concern . The unit was supposed to cut down on our electric bills, not increase them b y nearly 40%!

nande2000

Surfer wrote: »

Hot water is heated by electric but is heated between 12am and 2.30am during off peak. I was thinking of it last night and I did think that 22 units a day (12 peak and 10 off peak)was excessive for summer use when the heating is switched off and it just the hot water being done. This figure was for 07/06/2012. However I have done a calculation for the average using May, June and July and it is 13 units per day, however of those 3 months we were away for approximately 1 month.

Our property is mid terrace bungalow with one bedroom. All our electrical stuff like fridge, oven and washing machine are under 3 years old and has a B rating.

In essence going from summer to winter we are using an additional excess of 34 units totalling 48 units a day Split 27 peak and 20 off peak so you can see our concern . The unit was supposed to cut down on our electric bills, not increase them b y nearly 40%!

Are the electric figures you are quoting actuals for the HP via an electric meter dedicated to the HP or are they the electric usage for the whole house ? Maybe you could have another appliance that is using a lot of electric - tumble drier, faulty freezers can use a lot. Assuming you dont use the HP in summer that means you are using an extra 30 units in winter (excluding that fact that you will be using more lighting in winter and maybe the tumble drier is getting used more). Also 22 degc is quite toasty - ours is set to 20 degc with the living room temp pulled a bit higher by the log burner. So maybe 30 units a day isnt that bad.

Surfer

No tumble drier and only the two of us at home most days as retired. The figures are actuals for all consumption. We dropped the temp down to 20C about 3 weeks ago and it didn't make a big difference but did save a few units.
I suffer from Rheumatoid arthritis so need to be warm otherwise I am crippled. We have an older Beko fridge freezer which is about 4 years old outside in the conservatory and on your suggestion we are emptying it to move everything into the newer fridge freezer.
I will give it a day or two and check our consumption again, but I still suspect that the Air Source Heating is not working correctly due to poor installation or plumbing. We had the technician around and he has set it to maximum defrost as it kept icing up and not defrosting causing it to run almost continuously.
Thanks very much for the input as it allows us to compare notes.