Are ASHP the way to go?

matt_drummer

[Deleted User] said:

matt_drummer said:

ProDave said:

matt_drummer said:

ProDave said:

The grant requires you to use an MCS registered company and then you are suddenly back to inflated prices, arguably you don't benefit from the grant, the installer does.

Where do you buy an air source heat pump and all the stuff to go with it for £3,000?

This is my reference

Midsummer Wholesale

And if it is not done by an MCS registered installer those prices are plus VAT at 20%

I would think that a 7Kw Vaillant heat pump and tank would cost at least £6,000 plus VAT and then theres all the other stuff you would need like pipes, fittings and electrical stuff.

It soon adds up!

Under £3K   https://coolenergyshop.com/collections/air-source-heat-pumps/products/cool-energy-pro-range-air-source-heat-pump-ce-h5-5-5kw

That is just the heat pump, not "all the stuff"  You need valves, pipes, expansion vessels and a hot water tank to go with a gas system boiler, so I was comparing apples with apples, just the cost of a heat pump vs the cost of a system boiler.  A heat pump is more, but not that much more.

P.S I paid under £1000 for mine ebay bargain.

The Octopus deal above looks to be finally a big player charging a fair price, should shake up the marked a bit and force the expensive "specialists" to be more realistic?

I would love it if Octopus can fit a heat pump here, I'm sure it will be the best option financially, but it does also need to work.

For a start, that means not oversizing, or not by much anyway.

As far as energy suppliers go, I think Octopus are a great company and will eventually have (and already have had) a big role in improving how we buy and use energy.

I haven’t read the whole thread but when I looked at this last year for my EPC B home (probably A with 6.35kWp solar), Octopus responded with ‘no can do - microbore plastic pipes’.

Yes, they have no appetite for replacing pipework like that at this stage.

Rightly or wrongly they just want the simplest installations.

I think it is partly down to just getting the number of installs up.

Mstty

[Deleted User] said:

matt_drummer said:

ProDave said:

matt_drummer said:

ProDave said:

The grant requires you to use an MCS registered company and then you are suddenly back to inflated prices, arguably you don't benefit from the grant, the installer does.

Where do you buy an air source heat pump and all the stuff to go with it for £3,000?

This is my reference

Midsummer Wholesale

And if it is not done by an MCS registered installer those prices are plus VAT at 20%

I would think that a 7Kw Vaillant heat pump and tank would cost at least £6,000 plus VAT and then theres all the other stuff you would need like pipes, fittings and electrical stuff.

It soon adds up!

Under £3K   https://coolenergyshop.com/collections/air-source-heat-pumps/products/cool-energy-pro-range-air-source-heat-pump-ce-h5-5-5kw

That is just the heat pump, not "all the stuff"  You need valves, pipes, expansion vessels and a hot water tank to go with a gas system boiler, so I was comparing apples with apples, just the cost of a heat pump vs the cost of a system boiler.  A heat pump is more, but not that much more.

P.S I paid under £1000 for mine ebay bargain.

The Octopus deal above looks to be finally a big player charging a fair price, should shake up the marked a bit and force the expensive "specialists" to be more realistic?

I would love it if Octopus can fit a heat pump here, I'm sure it will be the best option financially, but it does also need to work.

For a start, that means not oversizing, or not by much anyway.

As far as energy suppliers go, I think Octopus are a great company and will eventually have (and already have had) a big role in improving how we buy and use energy.

I haven’t read the whole thread but when I looked at this last year for my EPC B home (probably A with 6.35kWp solar), Octopus responded with ‘no can do - microbore plastic pipes’.

This is their latest stance

It looks like you live in a modern home (built after 1990), where it's very likely you have thin 'microbore' style pipes in all or part of your plumbing, which may make your installation a bit more complex than usual. We're working on quick, low-cost solutions to this now which will be ready in the next month or two - our team will reach out as soon as we can to move your enquiry forward!

[Deleted User]

Mstty said:

[Deleted User] said:

matt_drummer said:

ProDave said:

matt_drummer said:

ProDave said:

The grant requires you to use an MCS registered company and then you are suddenly back to inflated prices, arguably you don't benefit from the grant, the installer does.

Where do you buy an air source heat pump and all the stuff to go with it for £3,000?

This is my reference

Midsummer Wholesale

And if it is not done by an MCS registered installer those prices are plus VAT at 20%

I would think that a 7Kw Vaillant heat pump and tank would cost at least £6,000 plus VAT and then theres all the other stuff you would need like pipes, fittings and electrical stuff.

It soon adds up!

Under £3K   https://coolenergyshop.com/collections/air-source-heat-pumps/products/cool-energy-pro-range-air-source-heat-pump-ce-h5-5-5kw

That is just the heat pump, not "all the stuff"  You need valves, pipes, expansion vessels and a hot water tank to go with a gas system boiler, so I was comparing apples with apples, just the cost of a heat pump vs the cost of a system boiler.  A heat pump is more, but not that much more.

P.S I paid under £1000 for mine ebay bargain.

The Octopus deal above looks to be finally a big player charging a fair price, should shake up the marked a bit and force the expensive "specialists" to be more realistic?

I would love it if Octopus can fit a heat pump here, I'm sure it will be the best option financially, but it does also need to work.

For a start, that means not oversizing, or not by much anyway.

As far as energy suppliers go, I think Octopus are a great company and will eventually have (and already have had) a big role in improving how we buy and use energy.

I haven’t read the whole thread but when I looked at this last year for my EPC B home (probably A with 6.35kWp solar), Octopus responded with ‘no can do - microbore plastic pipes’.

This is their latest stance

It looks like you live in a modern home (built after 1990), where it's very likely you have thin 'microbore' style pipes in all or part of your plumbing, which may make your installation a bit more complex than usual. We're working on quick, low-cost solutions to this now which will be ready in the next month or two - our team will reach out as soon as we can to move your enquiry forward!

The above has been their stance for many months: 'next month or two' is a bit like HS2's start date. I last checked in when the the HP Grant was first announced.

Mstty

[Deleted User] said:

Mstty said:

[Deleted User] said:

matt_drummer said:

ProDave said:

matt_drummer said:

ProDave said:

The grant requires you to use an MCS registered company and then you are suddenly back to inflated prices, arguably you don't benefit from the grant, the installer does.

Where do you buy an air source heat pump and all the stuff to go with it for £3,000?

This is my reference

Midsummer Wholesale

And if it is not done by an MCS registered installer those prices are plus VAT at 20%

I would think that a 7Kw Vaillant heat pump and tank would cost at least £6,000 plus VAT and then theres all the other stuff you would need like pipes, fittings and electrical stuff.

It soon adds up!

Under £3K   https://coolenergyshop.com/collections/air-source-heat-pumps/products/cool-energy-pro-range-air-source-heat-pump-ce-h5-5-5kw

That is just the heat pump, not "all the stuff"  You need valves, pipes, expansion vessels and a hot water tank to go with a gas system boiler, so I was comparing apples with apples, just the cost of a heat pump vs the cost of a system boiler.  A heat pump is more, but not that much more.

P.S I paid under £1000 for mine ebay bargain.

The Octopus deal above looks to be finally a big player charging a fair price, should shake up the marked a bit and force the expensive "specialists" to be more realistic?

I would love it if Octopus can fit a heat pump here, I'm sure it will be the best option financially, but it does also need to work.

For a start, that means not oversizing, or not by much anyway.

As far as energy suppliers go, I think Octopus are a great company and will eventually have (and already have had) a big role in improving how we buy and use energy.

I haven’t read the whole thread but when I looked at this last year for my EPC B home (probably A with 6.35kWp solar), Octopus responded with ‘no can do - microbore plastic pipes’.

This is their latest stance

It looks like you live in a modern home (built after 1990), where it's very likely you have thin 'microbore' style pipes in all or part of your plumbing, which may make your installation a bit more complex than usual. We're working on quick, low-cost solutions to this now which will be ready in the next month or two - our team will reach out as soon as we can to move your enquiry forward!

The above has been their stance for many months: 'next month or two' is a bit like HS2's start date. I last checked in when the the HP Grant was first announced.

Lol fair enough

Mstty

matt_drummer said:

Mstty said:

Octopus standard installation £3000 

Just for reference given their generally good customer service this might be a good option.

Yes, but that's actually £8,000 before the BUS grant and if you had to pay VAT that's £9,600

And that's from Octopus Energy who are probably not looking to make the profit that a small local company would.

They also probably buy the equipment for much less.

I also know for a fact, as they are coming to survey my house on Monday, that they are not interested in anything other than straightforward installations at this time.

So, I would still love to know where you can buy an air source heat pump and all that goes with it for £3,000?

@matt_drummer

What was the outcome of the survey and the cost? 

matt_drummer

Octopus were due to carry out a survey at our house at 10.00 on 13 February 2023.

I received an email at 08.30 on 13 February saying they were not coming as the surveyor had called in sick.

They are now coming on 27 March 2023.

So, to answer your question, I don't know yet, but I will update you in due course.

I have had a couple of other quotes, and more importantly the installers. The quotes are around £15,000 before the grant, so around £10,000 after the grant. Neither of them include radiator upgrades, but they do include everything else required.

I am happy with both of those quotes and they are what I would expect to pay, and I am sure I will end up going with one of these.

I have extended our solar generation considerably, the last part is being installed now along with the rest of the battery storage.

We will have enough solar and storage to be basically free of buying energy, we will have no gas and the electricity we export for nine months of the year will pay for what we need to import for two or three months over the winter.

Of course, none of this is free, its cost a small fortune, but will pay for itself in less than 10 years.

We will be pretty much immune from any future price rises in electricity prices and have no gas, so no gas standing charge.

Best of all, we will generate all of our own energy during a 12 month period, and burn nothing, so about as environmentally friendly as we can get.

This was never my plan or interest in life, but moving to a house with panels already installed has woken me up to the possibilities, and I'll be the first to admit, it has become a bit addictive, a bit of a challenge and a bit of a hobby!

matt_drummer

Here's my story with this so far and how I ended up doing this.

We moved to this house in September 2021 and it had a decent 4Kwp solar system installed in 2014, so we inherited the FIT payments which are around £800 pa.

When we moved in we had smart meters installed as it was really difficult to understand what we were generating and exporting at any moment in time. That really helped but its difficult to manage when it's cloudy, sunny, cloudy, sunny etc. We could just sit and watch the IHD showing us what was going to the grid that we could have used.

We are not big electricity users, in our old house we used around 2,200 Kwh pa, here we imported around 1,650 Kwh in the first year but I didn't really know what we were using, it was impossible to know. I wasn't too concerned with any of this as the cost was manageable and we were on a two year fix with Octopus.

The price rises over the last year or so really scared me, not so much the money, but just the unpredictability of it, where would it end up?

So, I decided that battery storage was a good idea, it would help with minimising our electricity use.

But, the batteries cam with 20% VAT unless we bought at the same time as panels, then VAT was 0% so I added more panels last month.

Now we are in the position where I early have enough electricity to consider electric heating, so I bought more batteries, and of course, more panels so VAT was 0%.

Now we have enough solar generation to run the house and a heat pump and pay no electricity or gas bills.

All I had to do was buy the stuff!

We are not poor, obviously, but we are in no way rich.

I borrowed in order to fund this, over seven years it will cost me about 133% of what our electricity and gas would cost on the SVT.

So, for the next seven years our energy costs are fixed at 133% of what they are now, after that they will be zero.

The solar panels will last decades, the heat pump will last at least 15 years (and the replacement cost will be mainly just a new heat pump, not the full installation cost, so not bad I would expect) ad the batteries will last at least 10 years, in reality much longer as they have an easy life in my setup.

For a bit more cost now, we are protected, we are improving the environment a tiny bit and we have a much more comfortable life as we can turn stuff on when we like and not try to arrange it around when the sun is shining.

Overall, despite what looks like an horrific initial outlay, over the next twenty years we will have spent less than if we had no solar and just a normal domestic electricity and gas supply.

I'd rather not have the bank loan, we are not rich as I said, but I do feel really good about not burning anything anymore.

matt_drummer

Mstty said:

matt_drummer said:

Mstty said:

Octopus standard installation £3000 

Just for reference given their generally good customer service this might be a good option.

Yes, but that's actually £8,000 before the BUS grant and if you had to pay VAT that's £9,600

And that's from Octopus Energy who are probably not looking to make the profit that a small local company would.

They also probably buy the equipment for much less.

I also know for a fact, as they are coming to survey my house on Monday, that they are not interested in anything other than straightforward installations at this time.

So, I would still love to know where you can buy an air source heat pump and all that goes with it for £3,000?

@matt_drummer

What was the outcome of the survey and the cost? 

I have had my survey today.

It took around four hours.

The heat loss calculation gave the result I was expecting, just under 7Kw.

I only need one radiator replacing, it's forty years old and in our hallway, all of the rest are big enough.

It all sounds good so I will keep this updated with what happens next.

matt_drummer

Even the radiator in our conservatory is ok, I am glad we don't need to change it as it is 2.2m long and probably cost a small fortune!

Mstty

matt_drummer said:

Mstty said:

matt_drummer said:

Mstty said:

Octopus standard installation £3000 

Just for reference given their generally good customer service this might be a good option.

Yes, but that's actually £8,000 before the BUS grant and if you had to pay VAT that's £9,600

And that's from Octopus Energy who are probably not looking to make the profit that a small local company would.

They also probably buy the equipment for much less.

I also know for a fact, as they are coming to survey my house on Monday, that they are not interested in anything other than straightforward installations at this time.

So, I would still love to know where you can buy an air source heat pump and all that goes with it for £3,000?

@matt_drummer

What was the outcome of the survey and the cost? 

I have had my survey today.

It took around four hours.

The heat loss calculation gave the result I was expecting, just under 7Kw.

I only need one radiator replacing, it's forty years old an in our hallway, all of the rest are big enough.

It all sounds good so I will keep this updated with what happens next.

Fingers crossed the quote won't cost an arm and a leg