oil to air source heat pump

Bianchiintenso

toadhall said:

Our oil boiler has just been condemned after 20 years good service. The parts are no longer available. OH is now looking at the option of an air source heat pump instead. Given the price of oil at the moment would anyone have any info on switching or any advice if you have one.
thanks

I am installing ASHP next week, similar situation oil boiler costing more and more each year to repair. The single skinned 2000 litre oil tank is nearly 30 years old which is apparently longer than it's designed for. A neighbour had an oil tank failure a couple of years ago and it caused a lot of financial and environmental stress to clean up. I had the choice of new boiler and tank or take the BUS grant and replace house system. It might seem bad timing, but not having a crystal ball I have to go with my research and gut feeling that it is the correct decision for long term. Good luck with whatever decision you make.

shinytop

Bianchiintenso said:

toadhall said:

Our oil boiler has just been condemned after 20 years good service. The parts are no longer available. OH is now looking at the option of an air source heat pump instead. Given the price of oil at the moment would anyone have any info on switching or any advice if you have one.
thanks

I am installing ASHP next week, similar situation oil boiler costing more and more each year to repair. The single skinned 2000 litre oil tank is nearly 30 years old which is apparently longer than it's designed for. A neighbour had an oil tank failure a couple of years ago and it caused a lot of financial and environmental stress to clean up. I had the choice of new boiler and tank or take the BUS grant and replace house system. It might seem bad timing, but not having a crystal ball I have to go with my research and gut feeling that it is the correct decision for long term. Good luck with whatever decision you make.

I've had my ASHP just over a year. For me it was a no brainer as I had horrible old storage heaters and got the full RHI.  

With the current oil price and predicted electricity price, oil is undoubtedly cheaper.  But if you'd have said two years ago that an ASHP would be close to mains gas for running costs in two year's time you'd have been laughed at. 

orbit500

Reed_Richards said:

Seems to me like it's highly sane to evaluate the various options.  If heating oil is less than £1 per litre and your oil boiler is 90% efficient then you would be paying less than 11p per kWh.  I can just beat that now with my heat pump but probably not come October when electricity prices rise again, unless that has a knock-on effect on the price of heating oil

But Oil is 83p/litre or 9p per kWh. Perhaps you can beat that now, in summer but not when the heating is needed in October, not by a country mile. Personally, unless the uptick in oil substitution for gas in EMEA outpaces demand destruction by petrol price and recession then I agree with analysts putting oil at sub $70 by winter. Thus oil probably at under 60p litre moving it firmly into 'no-brainer' territory.

orbit500

shinytop said:

I've had my ASHP just over a year. For me it was a no brainer as I had horrible old storage heaters and got the full RHI.  

With the current oil price and predicted electricity price, oil is undoubtedly cheaper.  But if you'd have said two years ago that an ASHP would be close to mains gas for running costs in two year's time you'd have been laughed at.

With due respect, you haven't had a cold winter yet. ASHPs dramatically drop in sub zero weather. A cold winter would see SCOP drop towards 2.2 from 2.8 now. Currently we have 28p/7p, ie your ASHP would need to have a real SCOP of 4. In October it's 40/11, again 4:1. In January 54/15, a little under 4. Against plain old resistance heating it's much better of course but IMO will never match gas and oil is such a moving target, who knows.

lohr500

orbit500 said:

Reed_Richards said:

Seems to me like it's highly sane to evaluate the various options.  If heating oil is less than £1 per litre and your oil boiler is 90% efficient then you would be paying less than 11p per kWh.  I can just beat that now with my heat pump but probably not come October when electricity prices rise again, unless that has a knock-on effect on the price of heating oil

But Oil is 83p/litre or 9p per kWh. Perhaps you can beat that now, in summer but not when the heating is needed in October, not by a country mile. Personally, unless the uptick in oil substitution for gas in EMEA outpaces demand destruction by petrol price and recession then I agree with analysts putting oil at sub $70 by winter. Thus oil probably at under 60p litre moving it firmly into 'no-brainer' territory.

I hope your prediction of under 60p per litre is correct. If so, I will be very happy.
Even at 90p or £1 per litre, I'm glad I didn't jump on the ASHP band wagon last year.

ispookie666

I replaced my 40 yr old Mylan oil boiler with Firebird oil boiler.  I'm hoping HVo will become a reality.  
Installed solar panels and battery and 3 x Air to Air Heat pumps (You need planning permission). Cost me around 25K in total for everything  

If I was to do this all over - I would still go down this route, except - get a multi split for a few of the smaller rooms. 
Air to water HP is not the only game in town and with the changing weather, its no brainer to have A2ASHP.  

If the oil tank is not up to mark, might be a costly addition.  

shinytop

orbit500 said:

shinytop said:

I've had my ASHP just over a year. For me it was a no brainer as I had horrible old storage heaters and got the full RHI.  

With the current oil price and predicted electricity price, oil is undoubtedly cheaper.  But if you'd have said two years ago that an ASHP would be close to mains gas for running costs in two year's time you'd have been laughed at.

With due respect, you haven't had a cold winter yet. ASHPs dramatically drop in sub zero weather. A cold winter would see SCOP drop towards 2.2 from 2.8 now. Currently we have 28p/7p, ie your ASHP would need to have a real SCOP of 4. In October it's 40/11, again 4:1. In January 54/15, a little under 4. Against plain old resistance heating it's much better of course but IMO will never match gas and oil is such a moving target, who knows.

With due respect a decent ASHP system will have a SCOP comfortably above 3 in the UK.  An average gas boiler has an efficiency of 70-80%. Do the sums again.  Also, if you ditch gas you lose one standing charge.  Gas is still a bit cheaper but not by much.  Move the green levies around a bit and it might not be. 

markin

Very odd for the to be no parts after only 20 years, get the part numbers and look online and phone around.

Cardew

In all the various calculations of oil/gas v ASHP there is one important factor not considered by many.

That is the need to run ASHP heating for very long periods even 24/7. That is less of a problem for those, e.g the Retired, who are home all day. But for those who are out of the house all day, it means you are having the house warmer during that period than you would need to if you had gas/oil where a quick blast of 80C water before you arrive home, or indeed get up in the morning, quickly brings the house back to the required temperature.

Yes I know all about setting back temperature with an ASHP. 

matelodave

Cardew said:

In all the various calculations of oil/gas v ASHP there is one important factor not considered by many.

That is the need to run ASHP heating for very long periods even 24/7. That is less of a problem for those, e.g the Retired, who are home all day. But for those who are out of the house all day, it means you are having the house warmer during that period than you would need to if you had gas/oil where a quick blast of 80C water before you arrive home, or indeed get up in the morning, quickly brings the house back to the required temperature.

Yes I know all about setting back temperature with an ASHP. 

I'd agree to a point, but a if a radiator pushes out a certain amount of heat at 80 degrees flow rate, it's really no different than a much larger radiator pushing out the same amount of heat at a 40 or 50 degree flow rate.

It comes down to a compromise between how big a radiator you can fit versus the lowest flow temp you can get away with. Underfloor heating is a bit different because its got a very high thermal hysteresis, it takes a long time to warm up and a long time to cool down and generally will operate at even lower flow temps.

TBH provided the system is properly designed and the rads are sized appropriately there's no real reason you can can't achieve a fast warm up time. Obviously the lower the flow temp the better the efficiency, but that's also true of both gas and oil boilers.

 The major factor is the significant cost difference between gas,oil and leccy. As @shinytop suggest, make the green levies a bit more equitable between gas and leccy or even shift them over to gas, if electricity is considered to be the greener fuel.

AFAIK electricity still bears the brunt, if not all of the green levies although it's difficult to find out how it's apportioned to either fuel