Octopus Heat Pumps

Magnitio

Currently have gas central heating and hot water cylinder. Boiler is fairly efficient and works well, but is 16 years old. 4-bed detatched, reasonably well insulated house and about 6000kWh per annum gas usage. Considering replacing with heat pump and have contacted Octopus for a quote. They currently instal Daikin. Has anyone experience of Octopus for heat pump installations, or recent Daikin equipment? Also, any suggestions for alternative suppliers and installers.

Screwdriva

Magnitio said:

Currently have gas central heating and hot water cylinder. Boiler is fairly efficient and works well, but is 16 years old. 4-bed detatched, reasonably well insulated house and about 6000kWh per annum gas usage. Considering replacing with heat pump and have contacted Octopus for a quote. They currently instal Daikin. Has anyone experience of Octopus for heat pump installations, or recent Daikin equipment? Also, any suggestions for alternative suppliers and installers.

Went down this path with Octopus. Base Daikin install is £3K (if you have underfloor heating). Add another £1K for a new heat pump ready cylinder and additional costs if your emitters need upgrading to T22 type to support low design flow temperatures. 

I'd recommend a quote from the Heat Geek Elite program to compare (HG typically install the Vaillant AroTherm+ ASHP, which is my pick) before deciding on which quote is right for you. 

Both options will claim the £5K boiler swap grant from the government without your involvement and both will offer a no obligation survey followed by quotation.

Reed_Richards

Heat Geek make money by training installers and giving these installers their own certification.  What you really want is an installer who is MCS accredited.  This may well apply to Heat Geek Elite installers but your choice of those may be limited and they'll have to charge you a bit more to pay back the cost of their Heat Geek training.   

Alnat1

Magnitio said:

Currently have gas central heating and hot water cylinder. Boiler is fairly efficient and works well, but is 16 years old. 4-bed detatched, reasonably well insulated house and about 6000kWh per annum gas usage. Considering replacing with heat pump and have contacted Octopus for a quote. They currently instal Daikin. Has anyone experience of Octopus for heat pump installations, or recent Daikin equipment? Also, any suggestions for alternative suppliers and installers.

Our house, boiler age and annual use are very similar to yours. I'm considering heat pumps too, been thinking about both A2W and A2A.

I'd be interested to hear what quote Octopus come up with for you and it would be great if you could share any other information you find. 

2nd_time_buyer

I had a quote for a heat pump from Octopus. We have a 3 bed 1920s semi. Double glazed, cavity wall insulation, loads of loft insulation. EPC rating C (almost 'B').

Last year when we used the central heating, we had the flow temperature of the boiler set to 50 and we only use the downstairs radiators for a few hours a day to maintain 19 degrees. And had all the upstairs radiators turned off. So I was hoping we would get away with not charging the radiators. The guy from Octopus came and did the survey. Every radiator in the house was apparently undersized for a heat pump and they would have to be replaced by triple panels (K3). It was going to be upwards of £12k all in. Our radiators and 'period' style column radiators. So they modern panel radiators replacements would also look a bit naff.

I was a bit disappointed and came away thinking that very few houses would be eligible at close to the base price. Particularly period houses.

It makes me think the current government direction of transitioning to air-to-water great pumps is not feasible at all.

We have gone down the air to air route.nMuch cheaper installation cost, less disruptive, and significantly better efficiency.

Magnitio

I'm hoping not to need new radiators. All pipework is 15mm, plenty of large radiators and we often have the flow temperature from the boiler at 45 to 50 degrees with no issues. Bedrooms have smaller radiators, but that doesn't really bother me; is it a requirement to get the government grant that the radiators need to be appropriately sized? If they do need changing, I can do that myself prior to installation.
I'm waiting to hear back from Octopus for a date and will post what their recommendations are. Will also look at getting a quote from a local company.
Not keen on the air-to-air route as I think it would be more disruptive.

2nd_time_buyer

Yes, it is a requirement that the radiators are appropriately sized to get the grant. It will be interesting to see how you get on as it sounds a similar situation to ours.

As you say, there is nothing stopping you doing the radiator upgrades yourself.

Alnat1

We have mostly 10mm pipework so it would be a PIA to get it all changed out which is why I'm more than halfway leaning to cheaper A2A for now. There seems to be some new ideas around ASHP, heat storage type stuff and I think I'd rather wait and see what develops over the next few years before committing.

There's only 2 of us in a 4 bed, so a unit for dining room/bedroom and en suite above and another on the other side of the house for living room would cover the areas we use most. Not sure if installers would need to see planning permissions? Was hoping to get away with it as both neighbours have cooling systems on their conservatories and could hardly complain 

I wouldn't expect A2A to cover all our heating needs in very cold weather so leaving the GCH as back up appeals. Also leaves us options on heating water by gas or overnight electric depending which is cheapest each day. Bonus is the cooling with A2A which would be great in our SW facing living room.

Reed_Richards

2nd_time_buyer said:

Last year when we used the central heating, we had the flow temperature of the boiler set to 50 and we only use the downstairs radiators for a few hours a day to maintain 19 degrees. And had all the upstairs radiators turned off. So I was hoping we would get away with not charging the radiators. The guy from Octopus came and did the survey. Every radiator in the house was apparently undersized for a heat pump and they would have to be replaced by triple panels (K3). It was going to be upwards of £12k all in. Our radiators and 'period' style column radiators. So they modern panel radiators replacements would also look a bit naff.

My heat pump was installed 2 years ago (and has nothing to do with Octopus).  My MCS calculation assumed I wanted the same temperature in my rooms 24/7 and this was 21 C in the living areas and 20 C in the bedrooms.  I had to replace all but two of my radiators and add an extra 2.  These were mostly double panel double convector (replacing mostly double panel).  The old radiators had no aesthetic value. 

Two points:

1.  You will only want your heat pump providing water at 50 C in the coldest weather outside.  My heat pump is set to provide water at somewhere between 30 C and 50 C depending on how mild it is outside.
2. The survey is only as good as the input parameters.  Do you know the specified heat output for your column radiators?  Did the survey calculate a heat loss that was similar to what the EPC estimated?

If you look around online you can find your own survey tool.  It's a bit technical to know quite what the input parameters should be but could be useful if you want to invalidate another survey and are prepared to do a bit of learning.
        

Screwdriva

Octopus will not take on a house with <15mm micro-bore piping. Don't believe the Heat Geeks will either. Insisting on K3/ T23 radiators in a bit harsh - I know the Heat Geeks are okay with K2/T22 as long as <40 degree flow temperatures can be designed into the system.

It is more than likely that both will insist on newer style radiators. See the latter half of this video for better idea of why. For us, A-A is a no go because we would lose the underfloor heating.

If you do contact Octopus, ask for Toby Clarkson - knowledgable and very helpful. 

2nd_time_buyer

In our case, I found the spec sheets of the current column radiators so it should have been quite accurate. 

Interestingly the required heat output for the house was around 8-9kw. Which is somewhat lower than I might have expected. But it ties in with my gut feeling that two air to air heat pumps could be sufficient.