Heat geek design consultation worth paying £250 for?

michaels

They quoted me £6k after the grant for a 7kw (which they said could do 8.5kw at -3 and costs about 4k) with a 5m pipe run to where are current boiler and thus HW and Heating pipe loops are with basically no other changes which I thought was too much even if I hadn't been worried about the unit size given our demand including hot water is close to 8.5k so no leeway for defrost cycles.

Magnitio

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82108023#Comment_82108023

Our heat loss calculation was 6.1kW and we were recommended a 7kW heat pump as 5kW would be marginal when taking into account defrost. Installation included a new cylinder, 4 radiators and a crane to lift the heat pump. Total £5,300.

LessImpecunious

They're offering the design consultation for £99 until the end of the month, according to an email I received today…

https://www.heatgeek.com/99-dc-august-offer

winspiration

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82109822#Comment_82109822

Thanks very much indeed for that LessImpecunious - I have an Octopus survey booked and was humming and haaing about the £250 Heat Geek fee, but have booked it now, with the code. I had been in touch with them, but hadn't received the offer email.

ic

There's actually nothing to lose going ahead with the design consulation:

https://www.heatgeek.com/design-consultation-terms-and-conditions

14. After your Design Consultation has been conducted, you will receive a detailed proposal for the works to install a renewable heating system at your home. This proposal will override any estimate provided to you before this stage and be customised with your specific needs, home archetypes and any other constraints. Up to 30 days after you have received your proposal, if you do not wish to proceed with the installation, you may request a refund of the design consultation fee. We will process this request within 20 working days from receipt. We may restrict access to the outputs of your design consultation if you choose to request a refund.

Netexporter

That's interesting. I assumed the fee was to discourage people from getting a detailed quote and then getting Joe Bloogs down the road from cribbing off it.

prowla

Well, I had the survey and the quote came out at £11,750 on top of the £7.5k grant.

All of my radiators are single-pipe, so it included re-piping and new radiators.

I don't think there's a payback in my lifetime.

Netexporter

Why do people expect a payback from a heat pump but not from a gas/oil boiler?

Nobody has installed domestic single pipe for at leat half a century. Maybe the system needs replacing anyway?

Also, you can't run a gas/oil boiler off solar or get ToU tariffs.

NedS

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82119813#Comment_82119813

I agree, when attempting to calculate payback you'd need to at least subtract the cost of replacing the existing system with a new gas boiler, including a full re-plumb of that ancient single pipe system, and new radiators?

A heat pump is also significantly cheaper to run. A well installed system with a SCOP of 4 on the Octopus Cosy tariff costs me around 3.25p/kWh to run. Gas is 8p/kWh and a gas boiler is going to give 85-90% efficiency making the running costs closer to 9-9.5p/kWh, so around a third of the cost.

By going electric, you are also insulating yourself from volatile gas prices, as much of the volatility in electricity prices has been mitigated by locking in the CfD price of renewables, so large fluctuations in natural gas prices have less and less effect on the electricity price. We have seen this recently, with gas prices rising by ~9% this October whereas electricity prices have largely stayed flat as the increase was offset by the removal of VAT.

You also no longer need a gas supply so can save over £100/year on gas standing charges - that's £2,000 (plus inflationary increases) over the 20 year lifespan of a heat pump.

Netexporter

The comparison should be against the cost of fitting the most efficient condensing gas/oil boiler on the existing system.

Then reflect on how much money you have wasted because the boiler is only about 60% efficient, like a non-condensing boiler, because single pipe system will give return flow temperatures incompatible with condensing.