Heat pumps

QrizB

oliver1951 said:

Hey Matt, now we’ve hit cold weather I’d love to hear how your heat pump is working out. 7 months down the line I’m still waiting for planning permission. It’s very cold and frustrating.

Matt hasn't been active on the forum for several weeks. You might have a long wait.

MultiFuelBurner

QrizB said:

oliver1951 said:

Hey Matt, now we’ve hit cold weather I’d love to hear how your heat pump is working out. 7 months down the line I’m still waiting for planning permission. It’s very cold and frustrating.

Matt hasn't been active on the forum for several weeks. You might have a long wait.

He does look in but doesn't comment unfortunately.

I too am very interested as to how he is getting on with his Octopus supplied and fitted heatpump and setup given the recent local weather where we are near to him.

@matt_drummer any chance of an update?

Reed_Richards

I'm sorry, that's my fault.  Both @matt_drummer and I have heat pumps and take an interest in exactly how they work and how to get the best out of them.  I enjoy debating with others here but Matt didn't enjoy debating with me and, when when I continued to try to debate with him, he said he would refrain from commenting further.  I promise not to write anything more on this particular thread if @matt_drummerwould like to come back with an update.

matt_drummer

Thank you @Reed_Richards

You can post whatever you like and you are welcome to add to this as and when you want to, I have no problem with constructive input or debate.

My Octopus journey was easy in the summer but the last two months have been a challenge once heating was required.

It is a very long story that I can keep as concise as possible but is more than I have time to do justice to right now, I don't want to post a load of tosh in haste.

It has been difficult and I cant say I am a happy customer but neither can I say that it is entirely their fault.

My expectations were higher than theirs and my initial thoughts on system design have proved to be correct.

It has taken a lot of anguish and work to correct the `errors' and I have benefitted from the assistance of lots of smart people in other places.

What I have now is not perfect but I don't think many heat pump installations are perfect as too many compromises are required in most cases.

I will detail my experience and findings over the next few days when I have time but I wouldn't be scared of an Octopus install, it's not bad for what you get for your money, it just might not be what you were hoping for, but it is all fixable, it just depends how deep your pockets are.

So much for my last post!

This may really be my last but one as I probably think it is good that we get to a conclusion of the Octopus heat pump journey.

We'll see how it goes.

I don't want to argue with @Reed_Richards and I hope it is over.

To give a flavour of how it is going I am currently sitting in our conservatory which is almost all glass, it's 3c outside and the house 21c upstairs and 23c downstairs. The heat pump in consuming 900w which is about as low as it will go, the flow temperature is 33c and the return temperature is 28c. The COP is around 4.20 at the moment and the best I can do as I cannot reduce the electricity input any further.

A clue to my problem, the heat pump is too big for the house

One more thing left to do to resolve the problem as much as I can, the aim is a COP of 5.0 at 7c outside.

QrizB

Whilw we wait for Matt to collect his thoughts, you'll find he has several threads over on the Open Energy Monitor community. If you want to re-live his trials and tribulations, you can do so there.

Netexporter

Here's a thorough video on a microbore ASHP retrofit:

Highly Efficient Micro Bore Heat Pump. How does it work? - YouTube

oliver1951

Matt, thanks for that update. I wasn’t expecting that. What size (kw input ) did they install? You obviously have the thermostat set, so doesn’t it switch off when you’ve reached your set temperature? How is it working out cost-wise to run.

oliver1951

QrizB said:

Whilw we wait for Matt to collect his thoughts, you'll find he has several threads over on the Open Energy Monitor community. If you want to re-live his trials and tribulations, you can do so there.

Can you point me in the right direction , I’ve looked for the open e m community , but just get to many results to be able to find it. Thanks.

matt_drummer

These are the topics

https://community.openenergymonitor.org/t/thank-you-openenergymonitor-octopus-daikin-ashp-monitoring/24589/461

https://community.openenergymonitor.org/t/my-heat-pump-is-too-big-what-should-i-do/24706/170

https://community.openenergymonitor.org/t/daikin-9kw-ashp-application-discussion/24848/159

You can view my heat pump performance here, it is the Octopus install in Ipswich

https://heatpumpmonitor.org/

oliver1951

Matt thanks for all that. I’ve read through quite a lot, can’t be sure I understand why you are doing some of what you are doing, but I noticed two things. 1. You said , cost is not an issue, which I am assuming is a temporary thing? 2. You run everything from battery. I recall you have a. Solar system so that must be providing really well, or do you top up the batteries from the mains. 

What I am unsure about is why your thermostat isn’t cutting the heat pump off when the house reaches the set temperature. Also I don’t understand where you have your thermostat. Mine is always located in the sitting room ( at least it would be if I had one) so that when that’s at temperature no where else gets any more heat. And I use that to adjust all the other rooms.

But my biggest take away is costs seem to be enormous and the whole thing seems even more complicated than I thought and for those of us that have no technical competence at all, should we even be considering heat pumps? My anxiety levels are high as I have my contract, I don’t yet have my planning permission and I’m cold.