ASHP life expectancy

eugeneg

Does anyone have experience of how long ASHPs should last ? I paid £10k six years ago for an 11 kW NIBE Fighter 2005 pump that has just required £1,600 to fix a leak. Now it's failed again (in a different way).

I had this unit commissioned 6 months before the start of the RHI scheme so I have received no help with the cost.

Should I pay more money to get this fixed or cut bait and buy new ? A new one (probably 14 kW this time) would cost about £12k but I would get RHI back on this and it would be a tad more efficient.

lovesgshp

Refrigerant leak, or what? And the new problem?

eugeneg

Yes there was a tiny hole in the top of the cooling fin's coil that took an engineer 2 days to find. He fixed that but the top of the fins remain iced up sometimes and the immersion hearers are both on when the Fighter is off. I'm guessing that one of the sensors has been damaged or misplaced causing the Fighter to switch itself off after a few minutes.

lovesgshp

It could be a sensor fault, but firstly check a couple of settings to see if they have not been changed for the defrost settings. Have had a quick look at the manual for the model, so this is just thoughts.
Look through the channel sensors especially 06 & 07 which are the defrost on and off confirm the readings.
Also look at 09 which is the defrost timer. According to the manual, default is 7 mins.

Silent_Dancer

You won't get RHI on a replacement as it is to cover new installations.

Richie-from-the-Boro

SWenergy wrote: »

the average life expectancy of an ASHP is around 25 years, you may find your problem was an incompetent installer or possibly you were extremely unlucky

- 5 posts all flogging an individual company and a heat pumps
- spam elsewhere my friend
- you and every post you made are gone, all that effort and you are made invisible

eugeneg

I believe the problem is solved. It seems that a coincidental (with the refrigerant leak) problem caused an accumulation of black ferrous crud to severely restrict the flow between the heat pump and internal tank (a VVM300). One company (ISO Technology Ltd.) flushed this with water alone and didn't realise a problem remained. After attaching a vacuum cleaner to the pipes we sucked out the crud and the problem is now gone.

I have now had a magnetic filter and inhibitor fluid added to the circuit. The total cost to me of all the (unproductive) engineer visits is over £3,000. In the end it was the experience of the local plumber that achieved what the manufacturer and installation companies failed to appreciate.

Silent_Dancer

This story where £3,000 has been spent on fixing a heat pump reveals the lies of the heat pump manufacturers that heat pumps are maintenance free. Refrigerant systems are expensive to work on due to the time taken to find faults and the specialist skills involved. On wet heat pump systems the heat pump has to work hard because of the high temperature rise therefore causing components to break down quicker than with an air to air.

You could have a brand new boiler installed with change for £3,000.

lovesgshp

Silent_Dancer wrote: »

This story where £3,000 has been spent on fixing a heat pump reveals the lies of the heat pump manufacturers that heat pumps are maintenance free. Refrigerant systems are expensive to work on due to the time taken to find faults and the specialist skills involved. On wet heat pump systems the heat pump has to work hard because of the high temperature rise therefore causing components to break down quicker than with an air to air.

You could have a brand new boiler installed with change for £3,000.

No heat pump is maintenance free, so I do not know where you got that idea from. Filters need to be checked, more often in the first years of operation, as there could be debris coming through, which is quite normal after installation.
A refrigerant problem, would be similar to a normal refrigerator, but I would not think it would be 2 days for a experienced refrigeration engineer to sort out, Most systems as far as I know have a sight glass that shows if there is air in the system during operation. Then, a leak detector would show where the problem is occuring.