Air-to-air multi split heat pump - bungalow without boiler/radiators

_Sam_

Our bungalow is (was) heated by a gas warm air heater (no radiators, instead there's ducting underneath the floor and vents in the floorboards, where the warm air is coming from).

This heater has finally packed up - I tried to use it in the recent cold spell and it couldn't get going and flashed a red light. It may need a service to get it working again, or it maybe a more costly repair, but I'm thinking to replace rather than spend any money on it, as it is so old anyway.

I was looking into perhaps installing an air-to-air multi split heating. The water is currently heated by an instant gas water heater up in the loft, which we would also replace (with something?) and disconnect the gas supply entirely. The bungalow is two-bed with insulated cavity walls (about 1950-1960 construction).

I had a look and there are quite a few names on the market that do multi-splits, LG, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Daikin, Fujitsu. They have "find a dealer/installer" info, but could anyone recommend which of these would be more suitable for a domestic project like this? I understand there are no grants for this type of heating system, even though from what I've heard it is one of the most efficient. 

mickyduck55

Cannot comment on comparisons but my LG split system, main living area and bedroom works very well.  They give almost instant heat and easy to control

zxzxzx

No comparison here either, my son in law is a plumber and he recommended I speak to an aircon specialists he knew in our area. 

I was looking at Daikin but they recommended Midea as they are cheaper and manufacture for the known name brands as well. I have had no issues since May install and am also impressed in the speed of heating, scop of 4 so efficient electric use. 

catclaires

I have air-to-air multisplit (Panasonic) recently installed in a bungalow and am very pleased with it - it sounds ideal for your use case. It was much cheaper for us than installing air-to-water, even without the grant, and as said above, it is cheap to run and quick to heat. Government support for air-to-air may actually be on its way early next year, although I've not seen any details yet - see Warm Homes Plan and heat pumps – MHCLG in the Media

Not sure about brand comparison either - but if you use Facebook, there's a useful group on there (Heat Pumps UK and Ireland) with a lot of customers as well as helpful installers as members. There's obviously a lot of discussion about air-to-water heat pumps on there, but a lot of info about air-to-air too. It's how I first found out about it and subsequently (after deciding to have one fitted) found a recommended installer!

mk555blue

Just resurrecting  this to see if anyone can help? I’m also looking at air to air, no mains gas here and storage heaters need replacing. Is it an air conditioner installer I need to contact? Air to air seems no where near as popular here as abroad, but no particular reason why. 

This that use air to air, how do you heat up your hot water?
do you use a blower unit in every room? Like you would a radiator?

matt_drummer

Not popular partly because you need planning permission.

If you don't get it there is always the risk that a neighbour reports you to the local authority and then you either get retrospective planning permission or remove it.

FreeBear

matt_drummer said: Not popular partly because you need planning permission.

PP needed if the unit also does cooling. Heat only falls within permitted development as far as I'm aware.

As for hot water, two options - Use an old fashioned immersion heater or instant water heater. Expensive to run... Or fit a second HP just for the DHW tank, but then you would need planning permission.

Reed_Richards

FreeBear said:

matt_drummer said: Not popular partly because you need planning permission.

PP needed if the unit also does cooling. Heat only falls within permitted development as far as I'm aware.

As for hot water, two options - Use an old fashioned immersion heater or instant water heater. Expensive to run... Or fit a second HP just for the DHW tank, but then you would need planning permission.

Since it's an air conditioning unit I doubt that you can get one that doesn't do cooling.  And you would also need Planning Permission to install more than one unit, air-to-air or air-to-water.

You can buy ASHPs that are dedicated to just servicing a hot water cylinder. 

matt_drummer

FreeBear said:

matt_drummer said: Not popular partly because you need planning permission.

PP needed if the unit also does cooling. Heat only falls within permitted development as far as I'm aware.

As for hot water, two options - Use an old fashioned immersion heater or instant water heater. Expensive to run... Or fit a second HP just for the DHW tank, but then you would need planning permission.

The actual wording is `used solely for heating purposes'

Are you aware of any air to air heat pumps that don't do cooling @FreeBear?

I'm not.

The only possible get out is that they are only used for heating.

QrizB

I can think of four all-electric options for hot water:

1. A conventional immersion heater HW tank.

2. An instantaneous electric water heater.

3. A heat pump hot water tank (eg. Tesy AquaThermica).

4. A multi split that also does hot water (eg. Daikin Multiplus).

catclaires

@mk555blue, a few answers to your questions:
1. Yes, it's an air conditioner installer you need to contact
2. I think the hot water heating question has been answered comprehensively already (we're going down the immersion cylinder route for simplicity - we don't use much hot water anyway with only two of us in the house, and we also have solar panels from which the generation fully covers our immersion usage for around 8 months of the year)
3. Yes, you have indoor units in most rooms as you would radiators - high wall-mounted ones are common, but there are other options such as floor-mounted ones or grilles. Depending on the layout of your house, you may not need one in absolutely every room if you are fairly open plan and the air can flow from one area to another (not the case with my house, so I'm no expert, but I'm sure an installer could advise). A slightly different option, if you have a bungalow with loft access or for the upstairs of your house if you don't, is to have a ducted system where there is one indoor unit in your loft with a ducting system feeding into several rooms - we looked into this for our bungalow as we had the loft space in theory, but it turned out to be more expensive and a bit more complicated for various reasons than the multisplit with separate indoor units