Old air source heat pump

Luketum92

Hi all,
Mum recently bought a property that had an air source heat pump in it and now winter has kicked in its costly her £300plus a month on electricity Bill's just to keep warm. The colder it gets the more energy it uses its £1.09 an hour at the moment 6.6 kWh, I've phoned everyone about getting it replaced bia some sort of grant and I cant. There is no mains gas to the property either my Mum is a pensioner and she receives guarantee credit but because it's already an air source heat pump (classed as a renewable energy boiler) shes not eligible and at this rate she will either freeze to death or be evicted through lack of money to pay her bills. The air source heat pump is a NIBE Fighter 360p.

Please help she is desperate.

She moved in mid June and was homeless due to her dad dying and his house being sold where she lived and cared for him and had no way to test it because it only works when it's cold outside the energy efficiency of the building epc is C which is around average but £300 plus is not average its extortionate.

Thank you in advance.

Gerry1

Is she getting all the relevant benefits to which she is entitled?

Has she registered with her electricity supplier and set up a direct debit? Sounds like she's on a very poor electricity tariff if she's paying 16.6p/kWh.

Has she been sending meter readings every month?  Make sure she's on the Priority Services Register.

Help her to find something better; start comparing with Citizens Advice and 'Switch with Which?'.

matelodave

You need to learn how to use it properly, however it will use more energy when its really cold but should use less when its not so cold. Setting and tuning them is a bit of a black art and needs careful attention. have you got the instructions, if not what make and model is it. We may be able to get a copy from t'interweb. What controls has it got, have you got a room thermostat, how is it set. is there a time switch, if so what does it do. Have you got radiators or underfloor heating.

They work in a different way to a boiler and if it's wound up to get hot radiators then it will cost a lot to run especially if its set to use the back-up heaters as well. Ideally it should be run for a much longer time than a normal heating system and not turned on and off but just turned down a couple of degrees.

The rads should be lukewarm, never hot, but on most of the time, giving the place plenty of time to warm up and stay warm. The same with the hot water, keeping the temperature above about 50 degrees.will also utilise the immersion which will also use the back-up heater.

Give us a bit more info and someone might be able to help

BTW I've got an 11kw heatpump and when it's running it uses around 1-3kwh depending on how cold it is so I suspect that yours may be using the back-up immersion heater as well. On Monday this week the temperature never got above -3 and there was freezing fog all day. My ASHP used 41.5kwh in 24 hours at 12.25p/kwh = £5.18 but that's unusual.

Today is a lot warmer and it's used less than 8kwh between midnight and 14:45

You should not get over anxious about short periods of high consumption if the average is a lot lower so use the info gleaned from the smart meter to tune and optimise your heating rather than panicking because you've suddenly seen a big number.

stewie_griffin

If 6.6 units is costing  £1.09 then it's about 16.5p a unit. You should be able to get a much better tariff than that so get comparing asap.

Mister_G

matelodave said:

 "if not what make and model is it. "

From the OP
" The air source heat pump is a NIBE Fighter 360p."

matelodave

Sorry missed that - here is a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTmNN7i9bgc and here is a manual https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1240673/Nibe-Fighter-360p.html

As far as I can tell this is an exhaust air heatpump which ventilates the dwelling and extracts heat from the warm air before its exhausts outside. So the filters need to be kept clean, the ventlation fan need to be kept running and letting the place get cold just means it has to work a lot harder to get it back up to temperature.

Bear in mind that a previous tenant may have mucked up the settings so you may need to check how its all been configured. Take note of the warning about enabling the backup heater - using it will dramatically increase your energy consumption. If you see the lightning symbol in the top row on the control panel then you'll know that the back-up heater is operating and you should investigate why.

Think of a running heatpump a bit like driving a car - thrashing up and down the motorway migth get you there a bit quicker but at the expense of a poor fuel consumption whereas taking it more gently will still get you there, although it might take a bit longer but you'll get a significant improvement in your fuel consumption.

If you are really stuck then get onto the housing association or landlord to help you sort it out

Luketum92

Hi all thank you for your responses we had one of the manufacturers installers out a while ago and he said its a complete mess and needs ripping out and installing a completely new one said we had been "ripped off with the purchase of the property with this ASHP" it is set up correctly and pulls just over £1 an hour when the weather was mild it was £6.50 for a couple of days now its 10 pounds a day and the colder it gets the harder it gets he said the compression feet are broken and that will cost £400 to fix that problem but said there are likely more problems as it 10+ years old and hasn't been looked after properly. In regards to the benefits situation she receives pretty much everything she can no cold weather payments as of yet because it hasn't been that cold which is worry because my mums ASHP pulls 6.6 Kwh when its running please believe me when I say I have tried most things from the eco scheme to the green homes grant and I really am worried about her finances. She has a smart meter installed and is with bulb her tariff is 15.71 per kwh and that was the cheapest a few months ago.

Gerry1

Luketum92 said:

She has a smart meter installed and is with bulb her tariff is 15.71 per kwh and that was the cheapest a few months ago.

No way.  You obviously didn't do a full comparison, so right now is the time to make good on that.

matelodave

The only answer is to try and get the cheapest tariff - her's is 3.5p/kwh more than mine. I use around 7200kwh a year which equates to an extra £250 a year or £20 a monthso  she could possibly save £250-£300 a year or more depending on her consumption.

Ideally you need to try and read the meter yourself at least once a month, more often if possible and log her consumption. That's the only way to keep track.

I'm guessing that it's a fairly newish place (say 10-15 years) but unusual as having the Nibe heatpump,in a private property. These seemed to be favoured by housing associations as they got grants for fitting them.  I don't think that exhaust heatpumps were eligible for the RHI especially if a grant was used to install it in the first place.

Apart from that there's not really a lot of help anyone can give you although if you own the place and if mains gas is available it might be worth considering pulling the heatpump out and installing a gas boiler instead - you have to look very carefully at the economics.

bob_a_builder

There was case some time ago where a whole estate was fitted with the Nibe ones but they all had to be ripped out - had been underspeced ?
There was a whole series of videos over the course of the issue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJr_oPXRYl0&t=26s&ab_channel=jasonoldy69

Luketum92

Unfortunately  there is no gas mains, the cheapest tariff I can find is 14.50 a kwh no idea how you are getting around 4 kwh