Buying oil heated house - check suitability for heat pump

FreeBear

ProDave said: The big difference with heat pumps is they won't get the water as hot as an oil (or gas) boiler, so the system has to work with lower temperature water.  If you have radiators, that might mean swapping some or all of them for larger ones, if you already have under floor heating that is perfect.

Some of the pipework may need replacing with bigger stuff too. Much of my old CH plumbing was 15mm, and as part of the "ready for heat pump" thinking, I've replaced most of it with 22mm. Also fitted larger radiators and made allowance in some rooms for a second one.

Improving the insulation where I can (walls & ceilings), but that is more to reduce energy consumption now rather than in <mumble> years time when a HP gets installed.

locationx3

The main problem with assessing the suitability of a property for a heat pump is knowing what the heat losses are. That requires a lot of in-depth knowledge of the building construction (and ideally a record of yearly heating oil consumption) and you really aren’t going to get that before you own it. 

EPCs can be very misleading, or just plain wrong so can only be a rough indication.

My own house, which I bought recently, is on oil and all I did before buying is make sure it had cavity walls, double glazing, a hot water tank (or room for one) and a sensible possible heat pump location. Handily the current oil tank is in the perfect spot.

I’d be happy to have a heat pump when the time is right, but it can wait for now.

strawb_shortcake

I live in a street that has oil central heating, some of the homes that are still HA have started to be upgraded to ASHP. They've had mixed reviews by our neighbours. Prior to installation the only changes the HA added was cavity wall insulation. 

However, if you look at the wall cavity suitability map, our area isn't recommended due to the rain - I don't know how accurate or trustworthy that map is. 

The amount of cracks that have now appeared in the render and remain unfixed since the wall cavity insulation, would make me concerned that the damp will get in and cause issues later on.

Our oil is very cheap to run. We spend around £700 on heating and hot water. Servicing is pretty reasonable and repairs to the boiler over 13 years have been very inexpensive. Our biggest cost to date was replacing the oil tank at £1600. 

ComicGeek

It really depends on the size of property, the current insulation levels, what you are planning to do re extensions/repairs/improvements. The answers are going to be vastly different depending on the answer to each.

The right answer is not to rush into anything, there are a lot of dodgy companies out there (moving from windows to conservatories to solar PV systems and now into heat pumps) with questionable sales tactics and poor technical knowledge.

If it's been recently refurbished you really aren't going to want to replace pipework etc. There are also new products coming available each year, so high temperature heat pumps might be more achievable in a few years time as a direct replacement. Or using air-to-air heat pumps (air con) to key rooms might work out cheaper.

Your choice should be whether you can live there with the oil heating for the foreseeable future or not. Any quote/information you get now is likely to be out of date in a couple of years time, due to the speed of the market.

mongoose2009

heat pumps are fridges the other way round

so insulation is the paramount

imagine a fridge with no insulation and no door seal the pump would be running flat out trying to heat the whole world