replace oil boiler or ashp or hybrid ashp or? 2 December 2020 at 11:14AM in LPG, heating oil, solid & other fuels 2 replies 217 views

ak121078

Hi guys
My oil boiler is very old and will probably need replacing soon along with the oil tank.
instead of going oil boiler for oil boiler my other options would be:
an ASHP which will cost about £12k plus VAT (over email quote) - could probably get help from the green homes grant
a hybrid ASHP setup which will be done through EDF and their scheme here:
www__edfenergy.com/heating/electric/hybrid-heat-pump
£400 upfront and then £14 a month for 7 years and EDF get the RHI payments

i have a 4 bed semi detached and was just wondering what you guys thought of my options?

Thanks

AK

tacpot12

The EDF Hybrid system seems to assume that your existing boiler will remain (and continue working for the next 7 years), so this might not be a valid option for you.

matelodave

As above, the EDF scheme assumes that you are keeping your existing oil or lpg boiler so I guess it's an undersized heatpump that only works when its not everso cold and when you dont need a lot of heat - I cant really see the point especially as oil is pretty cheap anyway. Even with a COP of 3 it would be costing you more to run than an oil boiler at present and you'd have the added cost of the heatpump.

The option of going completely heatpump needs to be carefully examined - do not be persuaded to just stick an heatpump on in place of your existing boiler. The whole set up need to be properly assessed and designed. You need larger radiators (quite a lot larger),possibly ugrades to some of the plumbing and you need to understand how to operate it properly.
You'll probably get some renewable heat incentive but not if you get a grant towards installing it, so you need to see which option is more beneficial.
Regarding running costs, you'll only get them down of the system is properly designed, commissioned and most importantly operated correctly and it's still a close comparison with oil.

I dont know how much you pay for oil or leccy but you can do the sums - one litre of oil = 10.3kwh, so at 50p litre = 5p/kwh. heat from a heatpump with a COP of 3 using leccy at say 12p/kwh = 4p/kwh (put in your own figures)

Work out how much a new boiler and tank will cost, do the same with a heatpump taking into account the benefit of any grant or RHI to see if it's worth it. Get proper quotes from several companies (make sure that they are offering roughly the same sort of system).
Personally I'd probably stay with oil, even though I'm a happy heatpump owner but I did have the advantage of starting from scratch