Heat Geeks

thevilla

I'd seen many of the Heat Geeks videos and got taken in by the hype.  Despite having 8mm microbore I'd seen the videos which indicated this isn't a deal breaker so I paid £375 for an assessment.

The engineer arrived and verbally told me this would be a straight forward installation.  The house has a heat loss estimate of 5kW @ -3.

Two weeks later the formal proposal stated the house needed completely re piping and added £5k to the initial estimate.  A touch gobsmacked I put together a couple of questions e.g. why wasn't hydraulic separation considered (see, I'd watched  the videos!).

Tumbleweed!  No response to my questions.  Apparently £375 doesn't pay for a two way consultation.

Heat Geeks claim their assessment could be used by other suppliers but Octopus insist they need to do their own - another £200 up front.

So, unwilling to shell out more cash I'm now stumped.  I've got the EVs, solar and battery and was hoping to decarbonise our heating.  What do I do now?

Reed_Richards

Cross quoting from the Octopus thread:

stripling said:

Folks need to understand that Heat Geek Assured is different from a Heat Geek trained heating engineer. Everyone also needs to understand that Heat Geek is a "brand" not a saint. Plus Heat Geek training is online not practical. There's nothing wrong with that but you want on-the-job experience too. 

Heat Geek Assured gets you a guarantee of sorts but note that British Gas provide similar - a definition of efficiency/capability that they guarantee. You may or may not pay a lot more for this with HG Assured than a HG trained installer may offer. Also, in my area at least 2 of the installers on the local Octopus team are HG trained that I know about. 

Take note, by Adam Chapman's own admission, HG Assured has only done 200 installs nationwide so far. I'm sure they'll get many more but understand the nature of 'Platforms' and 'Branding' and don't be mesmerised by hype.

The independent HG trained (and promoted by HG) installer who I dealt with thinks HG's heat loss software is as clumsy and too 'tick box' as most of the others so he designed his own software in lockdown. 

HG is lucky to have Urban Plumber - a heating 'genius' if ever there was one (check his YouTube channel for useful videos) - promoting their brand but not every HG installer is going to be Urban Plumber. 

Urban Plumber btw has a video online of a heat pump install he did with no radiator changes even though they were little K1s. Not the most efficient on the planet but a lot better than you would think. (The householder was waiting to renovate so he didn't want to change any rads). 

I bet the engineer who came to visit was not the person you see on the video.  If I were you I would try to contact the video guy (Adam Chapman?) and complain.

Edit: Put another way, if Adam Chapman makes a YouTube video promoting an idea he's had or borrowed, is it then up to every engineer trading under the Heat Geek brand to make it work?  Apparently not.     
 

john-306

I contacted by email a local ish heat geek saying I'm interested in a heat pump, could you do me a survey.
They replied 5 days later saying they could, I replied when could you do it?
6 weeks later i still haven't got a reply. 
In between I went on heat geek website for a quote, they had my EPC incorrect, you can't ring them it has to be fill in form on website and they'd reply within 10 days. 
3 weeks later they replied. 
I gave up and went with octopus.

NedS

Given ASHPs work on an often cited dT of 5C (and often less - I'm typically at a dT of 2.5-3C at lower flow temps) and you know your approximate heat loss, can you achieve sufficient flow through your 8mm piping to transfer the required amount of heat (is that an internal or external measurement? - I ask as when we ripped out our 10mm microbore piping to be replaced with 22mm copper, I was surprised to measure the internal diameter at only 6mm)?

Even some of our 22mm legs are marginal and 28mm would not have been unreasonable for the first run in the leg at the flow rates we have.

tacpot12

I think you have not fallen foul of any hype, but rather to an inexperienced heating engineer. Any experienced professional knows that the client only hears the first number you tell them, so if you're going to back to the office to do some more calculations, DON'T give the client a number or even an opinion that their job will be easy.

I don't know if you have seen this video, but it goes some way to explaining what calculations would have to have been done on your house to determine whether 8mm microbore pipes would be sufficient: https://youtu.be/QFbx7qhqOqc?si=aOuV2muljq9cJoyt

I agree that trying to approach Adam to get the engineer to have a two-way conversation with you is a good idea, but if you want them to apologise for getting it wrong or give you a lower quote, then it's not going to be a fruitful conversation. I agree that for £375 you should be able to ask questions, but you can't know if the assessment was done correctly without having the skill to review all the data. Adam might do this for free, in case the quality isn't good enough. If he thinks there is a problem, he might help you highlight this to the engineer, but you have to focus on what do you want out of this? You paid £375 for a detailed assessment and got a detailed assessment, it just wasn't the assessment you wanted or the one the engineer thought they would be able to give you when they attended.  

It's not Heat Geek's fault if Octopus insist of doing their own quote. Even another Heat Geek is going to review the data and confirm the calcualtion are are correct before give you a quote that is potentially going to cost them at lot of money.

thevilla

I was prepared to accept 8mm piping is a problem and walk away if that's the case.  I actually suspect the company providing the quote decided they didn't want the work as it's some distance away.

According to HG documents 8mm pipe is good for 750w.  Two rooms have heat loss of 1kw but both have two emitters.  I just looked for a reason why 750  + 750 < 1000 !?  Also why the two rooms couldn't be repiped rather than a complete re pipe.

Not much to ask for £375.

Reed_Richards

What do you get for your £375?  I presume there is a heat loss evaluation room by room?  And suggested radiator sizes to meet the needs of each room?  If the latter, it's worth looking at to see if there is room for improvement.

Maybe Heat Geek Central (if there is such a thing) could find you another installer who is prepared to cope with your narrow-bore pipes?    

thevilla

Yes, room by room and required radiator upgrades. All good there.  A complete re pipe is too much upheaval especially as we're all laminate flooring upstairs so that would likely all go in the skip.

It may be that the quote is perfectly correct but I'd expect some two way interaction.  The video above and other HG videos acknowledge the upheaval but also say it's not normally necessary and there are workarounds e.g. buffers.  I just want to confirm the workarounds are not applicable in my case.  I can't keep paying for quotes until someone actually communicates!

Edit: I've emailed HG and will wait for any feedback.  Not holding my breath.

tacpot12

Perhaps anyone else proposing to use a Heat Geek should require as part of the contract that all the data and all the calculations are delivered at the end of the assessment.

thevilla

The data are delivered.  It's the thinking behind the proposed design which is completely opaque.

Specifically:

Full re-pipe required

Pressure loss too high for adequate flow and heat requirements

New 22mm main circuit and 15mm to radiators

My existing system is based upon 22mm main circuit which is capable of supplying 6kW according to HG documentation (0.9mps@DT5).  The whole house loss is calculated at 5kW.  

Several radiators are in small spaces with < 300w heat loss.  Why do they need 15mm pipework?

So why not upgrade necessary radiators.  15mm to the two spaces with greatest heat loss maybe with their own dedicated 22mm tee.  There's also the option of a buffer if needed.  None of this appears to be considered and or ruled out.  The conclusions appear to be a simple copy / paste.  Not value for money.  Not contributing to de carbonisation of my heating system.

matt_drummer

How is a buffer tank going to help?

A lot of Heat Geek trained installers like Vaillant heat pumps. These, and many others are designed to run at higher flow rates.

You won't get high enough flow rates through small pipes and it will be noisy.

At a flow temperature of 30c or less, even a small space requiring only 300W of heat will still need a large 3kW radiator and adequate flow of water.