Buying house with solar & heatpump questions

Possiblyretired

Hello, We've had an offer accepted on a house that has an air source heat pump, 16 owned solar panels and a 6KWh storage battery. We know nothing about any of those things.
If it's relevant, I think all were put in within the last few years and the epc rating is B (86).

Anyway, what would be most important to ask about?
Or if anyone has relevant questions that they wished they had asked pre house purchase?
Or if I pop round for another viewing, what should I be looking for?
Help!

debitcardmayhem

I would ask for the MCS certification and G98/99 for you solar export, I don’t know much about ASHPs but there is a wealth of knowledge on here.

MattMattMattUK

Possiblyretired said:

Hello, We've had an offer accepted on a house that has an air source heat pump, 16 owned solar panels and a 6KWh storage battery. We know nothing about any of those things.
If it's relevant, I think all were put in within the last few years and the epc rating is B (86).

Anyway, what would be most important to ask about?
Or if anyone has relevant questions that they wished they had asked pre house purchase?
Or if I pop round for another viewing, what should I be looking for?
Help!

Can they leave the instruction manuals, what apps do they use to monitor etc. Then ideally look to get yourself into an ToU tariff that makes best use of power at cheap rates, if you get a bit more info on the system then there are lots of people on here who will be able to guide you, you should be able to get to a point where for most of the year you never actually pay for energy. 

Robin9

On a similar vein - who are their present suppliers , who do they export to and how much do they get (bear in mind export rates are falling/tumbling) and their actual annual consumptions.

Possiblyretired

Right, so far -

1. MCS certification and G98/99 for the solar export ( should I worry if that's not available? )
2. What system the solar uses ( is that related to the battery? )
3. Who are present suppliers ( of what? Electric? )

Thanks all, anything else?

sheenas

The heat pump questions would depend on if it’s a new house or not. If it’s been retrofitted I would want someone like heat geeks to inspect it. The problem often starts with the original heat loss assessment which on a new build is relatively easy but quite a bit of guess work on older properties. So if it’s wrong it can be very expensive to resolve. 

Magnitio

A heat pump installation on a new-build is not a guarantee that it has been done well; I've seen a couple of really bad examples.

From what you have said, it sounds like it is a relatively new addition to an older house. It might be worth asking who installed it and whether they have any information on how it is performing. You can then check out reviews of the installer.

NedS

Ask to see the running costs for the last year (at least) as hopefully you would for any property you are considering purchasing. Is it costing more or less to run than your current property (assuming a similar size), and are you happy with the running costs for the size of the property. A poorly installed ASHP heating system will be less efficient and cost more to run, so will ultimately show up in the bills.

There should also be a separate MCS certificate for the heat pump. It should state on the front of the certificate the SCOP value (overall efficiency) for the system, which although not necessarily accurate should at least give you a ballpark indication.