People Saying Heat Pumps are Rubbish - Are They?

matelodave

BoYaNY73 said:

Inside my house! The « noise » reverberates all round my house. I can’t get away from it !

no point in whinging to us as there's nothing we can do, you need to speak to your neighbour or the council.

grumpypensioner

On noise, yes it can be very irritating when at certain frequencies. I am mid 80's and high frequency hearing is dropping off a bit so that mid to low frequencies penetrate perception and appear exaggerated. Couple this with some tinnitus and even a very low level hum is very noticeable, just you youngsters wait a few more years. Typical low level sources which are noticeable are my bathroom fan emanating a 50Hz hum, my hard disk drives starting up in the night to check, aircraft flying overhead; I conclude that my house rooms have this low resonate frequency which can exaggerate particular noises.
As to advice, internal drapery will help absorb sound, noise cancelling head phones are ideal for these frequencies whilst watching tv, double glazing of course, additional masking sounds from the radio/tv, but predominantly (like advice for tinnitus) is to divert the mind away from concentrating on listening to one particular sound. Our world is full of noise some lovely, so get a device that plays bird song in the back ground, and read the serenity prayer as it helps cope with neighbours!

BoYaNY73

Thank you « grumpy pensioner «  for your reply. I’m so glad for selfish reasons that you too can « hear noises »! I was beginning to feel « gaslighted «  by everything !

matelodave

BoYaNY73 said:

Thank you « grumpy pensioner «  for your reply. I’m so glad for selfish reasons that you too can « hear noises »! I was beginning to feel « gaslighted «  by everything !

Keep banging on about it on this forum will not solve your problem. You might get sympathy but that's about all. No one is gaslighting you but we can't do anything about it, that is up to you to pursue it through formal channels (planning or environmental health)

I doubt whether any of the forumites know your neighbours system, how the system has been installed, whether it conforms to current legislation or even whether any of us would notice or be bothered by the noise.

Many of us have heatpumps and for most of us noise is not an issue. Quite often what constitutes noise ,unless its excessive, can be quite subjective. However, it can be measured using the appropriate equipment, by the local council environmental health officer and actions can be taken to cease or take measures to reduce it if it exceeds the statutory limits. Likewise action may be taken if the units has been installed contrary to planning regulations but that no down to anyone on this forum.

There is nothing anyone on the forum can do, you have had some advice which hopefully you've tried to follow and perhaps you could tell us what you've done, who you've contacted and what was the outcome. 

BoYaNY73

Thank you Matelodave for speaking on behalf of the Forum. I believe I have already thanked people for their suggestions and advice which I am in the process  of following through. I am sure other Forumites will benefit from your careful, considered and thoughtful response.

Spies

BoYaNY73 said:

Thank you Matelodave for speaking on behalf of the Forum. I believe I have already thanked people for their suggestions and advice which I am in the process  of following through. I am sure other Forumites will benefit from your careful, considered and thoughtful response.

Do let us know what the outcome is of contacting the relevant authorities, as I would be interested to know how they handle it

grumpypensioner

BoYaNY73 said:

Thank you Matelodave for speaking on behalf of the Forum. I believe I have already thanked people for their suggestions and advice which I am in the process  of following through. I am sure other Forumites will benefit from your careful, considered and thoughtful response.

Brilliantly erudite riposte. Going technical, if you have an iPad or similar thing you can download a free app to measure ambient noise such as Audio/Spectrum Analyser which after a bit of fiddling will show you a wave form of any sound your device picks up so you can wander around your house checking for hums etc. (choose log display). If you find something in the low frequencies (below 500Hz) you can record it or take a screen shot as evidence for future reference. If it is not on the screen then it is probably tinnitus! Remember your position in any room will change the amplitude because of nodes/antinodes due to resonance. Wavelength of very low frequencies is around 3 to 10 metres so you only have to move half that to locate a noisy spot. Remember also that an external sound source can create an internal resonance which can be more noticeable and that is what you are complaining about. Investigate and obtain factual evidence.

Back in the 70's when my hearing was more acute and I was an audiophile, I helped KEF experiment and found that the positioning of speakers in a room relative to the listener was critical to the spectrum purity of music. All energy waves bounce around and can form standing patterns, low frequencies have a large wavelength but the same happens to radio waves, measured in cms., and everyone must be aware of hot & cold spots for mobile reception, and just repositioning your router wifi can make an improvement to connection. A neighbours noisy unit can have the same result. Think of an organ pipe, you have the noise of the fan generating the air and the reverberation of the air in the pipe, two separate sources of sound. One provides the energy for the other.

BoYaNY73

Thank you Grumpy Pensioner !!

grumpypensioner

I wonder why so many forumites are so defensive about their installation of heat pump systems? Every new technology has problems as well as great benefits. Why don't we list the pros and cons honestly to help future purchasers choose? Opinions?

MeteredOut

grumpypensioner said:

I wonder why so many forumites are so defensive about their installation of heat pump systems? Every new technology has problems as well as great benefits. Why don't we list the pros and cons honestly to help future purchasers choose? Opinions?

Its quite similar to the "EV debate". There's a lot of misinformation that those who have EVs (and in this case, have heat pumps) are able to debunk.

In the case of Heat Pumps, the starting position I hear is that any house can be converted to work with a heat pump with running costs lower than or equivalent to a gas boiler and that any negative reports we see are due to badly spec'd/installed/configured systems.

I'm not convinced it is a simple as that.

What can never be defined without more detailed investigation is what work is needed to get any individual house "heat pump ready" so that running costs are lower or equivalent to a gas boiler.

eg, I have a house with a large floor space with water underfloor heating throughout downstairs and traditional radiators upstairs, but fairly poorly insulated, all powered from a 40kW gas boiler. I know it should be possible to get a Heat Pump working, but there's a lot of work to do to get it there - my (admittedly fairly rudimentary to date) look into this makes me believe simply swapping out the gas boiler for a heat pump would never suffice.