Air source heat pump problems

hayley54321

Hi all,
Rather naively we recently moved into a house in the Highlands heated by an air source heat pump under the impression that they were pretty economical to run etc etc. Long story short a month in ,with the thermostat set at 17 it's costing us about £25 per day to run( about 50kw plus per day). For context we are freezing, and trying to minimise all usage, and it's still pretty well bankrupting us. To make things worse we had intended to run the house as a B&B, but that now looks impossible as I can't even begin to fathom how much that would increase the usage / bills. Pleas tell me,is this anywhere near normal? I'm at my wit's end with this 

comeandgo

You mention it’s costing about £25 and using about 50 w.  Electricity should be about 38 p a unit .  I also stay in cold remote Scotland.  Some of my neighbours got the air source heating and they need their log burners as well. The air source not so good in minus 10.

hayley54321

I'm not sure what to do,the sitting room is double height so we shut that off so that the thermostat isn't trying to heat the big room to 17, but as I say it's way too cold,and for the privilege of being this cold we're paying a fortune. We have minimised everything,only showering and using the washing machine once a week,eating 90% cold food , 

Ramouth

Air source heating works by extracting heat from the air.  In winter this is much harder and it is less efficient.  

Generally, it works  very well in highly insulated homes with good air tightness and underfloor heating where you would aim to keep a fairly constant temperature.  It works less well in a more traditional house.  What is your house like?

UnderOffer

I’d contact an ASHP engineer expert /service company and pay to have it looked at and ask them to explain to you how best to run it and heat your home efficiently. In that appointment with a very knowledgeable person could really help you in the long run to fully understand the system. 

welly_59

Same as @Ramouth stated, if there's no heat in the air to be extracted then ashp's are terribly inefficient 

ProDave

I am in the Highlands and my ASHP used 50kWh in the last WEEK.  This week will be higher as it is colder.

An ASHP is not really "cheap" heating, I would say cheaper than other forms of electric heating, but at best it will only just match the cost of mains gas central heating.  It is a good option where you don't have mains gas, which is not much of the Highlands.

What is the EPC of the house and how old is it?  And how is the heat delivered? UFH or radiators?

We had -7 yesterday, Braemar had -16,  It is a lot colder here than many places down south.

ProDave

welly_59 said:

Same as @Ramouth stated, if there's no heat in the air to be extracted then ashp's are terribly inefficient 

There is always heat to extract from air, unless it is down to -273C.  At 0C the amount of heat that can be extracted is only a few% down on say 10C

Mine is working just fine in this cold spell keeping us warm.

hayley54321

So the house had an EPC of E, it's mixed ages, 1850,1980 and the newest double height extension in 2005. We have lots of loft insulation,and double glazed throughout - I'm not sure what else we could reasonably do, especially with little funds. Even with a bad EPC surely we shouldn't be on 50kw per day when someone else in the Highlands uses this much per week ?!The heat is delivered by radiators and a tiny patch of under floor heating in the bathroom. We've tried so hard to get an engineer out,but I think owing to our location,no one will get back to us

ProDave

hayley54321 said:

So the house had an EPC of E, it's mixed ages, 1850,1980 and the newest double height extension in 2005. We have lots of loft insulation,and double glazed throughout - I'm not sure what else we could reasonably do, especially with little funds. Even with a bad EPC surely we shouldn't be on 50kw per day when someone else in the Highlands uses this much per week ?!The heat is delivered by radiators and a tiny patch of under floor heating in the bathroom. We've tried so hard to get an engineer out,but I think owing to our location,no one will get back to us

EPC E is your problem.  ANY form of heating in that is going to be expensive, even mains gas if it was available.

I have just read my meter again and in the last 4 days since the weather got really cold, my ASHP has used 13kWh per day so that would be 91kWh for a whole week or about £25 per week.

The poor EPC will probably be the construction, probably stone walls with no insulation.

hayley54321

ProDave said:

hayley54321 said:

So the house had an EPC of E, it's mixed ages, 1850,1980 and the newest double height extension in 2005. We have lots of loft insulation,and double glazed throughout - I'm not sure what else we could reasonably do, especially with little funds. Even with a bad EPC surely we shouldn't be on 50kw per day when someone else in the Highlands uses this much per week ?!The heat is delivered by radiators and a tiny patch of under floor heating in the bathroom. We've tried so hard to get an engineer out,but I think owing to our location,no one will get back to us

EPC E is your problem.  ANY form of heating in that is going to be expensive, even mains gas if it was available.

I have just read my meter again and in the last 4 days since the weather got really cold, my ASHP has used 13kWh per day so that would be 91kWh for a whole week or about £25 per week.

The poor EPC will probably be the construction, probably stone walls with no insulation.

Safe to say we're feeling pretty foolish at this point then, maybe not a lot we could affordably do to get us near a 'normal' level of consumption