Air Source Heat Pump - Breakdown cover

nxdmsandkaskdjaqd

Just moved to home with a ASHP which is our only source of heating.  Do ASHP engineers provide breakdown cover service agreements? Do other owners of ASHP feel the need to have breakdown cover?

MP1995

Mitsubishi do but you have to know and prove serviced every year by them to keep the plan going.

Other manufacturers may offer the same.

Reed_Richards

My ASHP broke down after approximately 3 years of use.  It was still under warranty and my installer managed to get me a replacement on the basis that a repair would have more costly because of the time involved.  So perhaps you should establish if you still have warranty cover? 

matelodave

We had a service deal for the first three years when we had ours installed 14 years ago and since then had it checked over at about three year intervals. In all that time the only problem has been a sticking flow switch which happened on Xmas day about seven year ago, which I sorted out myself.

Its happened twice since then but apart from draining the hydrobox (ours is a split system) it takes around five minutes to remove it, clean it and replace it.

I work on the principle of self insurance by saving what I'd spend in premiums in a separate savings account.

In fourteen years we have had the mains water supply pipe to the house replaced*, a new tumble dryer* and fridge* and the account is still in profit with a sizable chunk available for the heating system if needed (it also pays for the heating check). All that money would have been spent in insurance premiums and wouldn't be earning interest, apart from the fact that sods law says that the appliance that dies isn't the one that you've got insured.

I'm not saying that insurance doesn't give you peace of mind but you can spend a lot on premiums with no return if nothing goes wrong, whereas if you save it all yourself you can get some interest and spend it on what you like.

BTW the old fridge lasted fourteen years and the tumble dryer around sixteen (although it was probably fixable if I could have been bothered) so the insurance premiums would have bought around two of each in that time.

We might have just about broken even on the water pipe, but they would have just repaired it. For the cost of the insurance premiums we got it completely replaced (12 metres from water meter to internal stop valve with all the ground properly reinstated) and a 25 year warranty