Buying a property with a Fischer Future Heat Aquaefficient system installed

thetcutkid

Hi,

I'm seriously considering making an offer on a property I've seen - it's a 200+ year old, grade II listed cottage with mains water and electricity but no gas supply.

Heating is supplied via electric radiators, there is no pipework for a wet system and hot water is supplied via a Fischer Future Heat Aquaefficient system. I understand that these units are very heavy and can't be wall mounted but this unit has been installed in the kitchen in a space where an under-counter washing machine or tumble dryer might go but it doesn't fill the whole space and frankly looks a bit ridiculous.

The little bit of research I've done about Fischer shows many negative stories, not least the hours of hard selling to get you to sign up which obviously I haven't had to deal with but I'm trying to work out if it's worth keeping the system.

The negative stories extend to running costs and also its ability to actually supply sufficient hot water…altho it would only be me living there.

On my second viewing I stuck my head in the loft and there appears to be a hot water cylinder in good repair, the vendor has confirmed this was made redundant when the Fischer system was installed in 2021.

In all honesty the kitchen needs to be taken back to bare walls and starting again and when that happens, do I take the opportunity to junk the Fischer system?

I'm sure running an immersion and hot water cylinder isn't cheap but will a Fischer system be more efficient or are they more hassle than they're worth?

Woodstok2000

Have you considered a heat pump? Systems like Daikin do hot water as well as heating/cooling.

thetcutkid

Thanks for the quick reply, I'm working on a very small budget tbh, I think the install cost will be prohibitive.

MEM62

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82110374#Comment_82110374

Then you probably do not want to be buying a Grade II listed building.

thetcutkid

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82110385#Comment_82110385

The building is actually in excellent condition for it's age but I take your point.

Section62

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82110374#Comment_82110374

You also need to think about the constraints/quirks that come with a "200+ year old, grade II listed cottage".

Your lifestyle will also impact on relative costs - for example if you are out for much of the day then your approach to CH/HW might be very different from someone who is at home most of the time.

Having a hot water cylinder in the loft is OK from a maximising living space point of view, but even well-insulated ones have some residual heat loss. Losing that heat into an otherwise unheated loft generally doesn't make sense, so if you were going to revert to a hot water cylinder and immersion heater you might want to relocate it into the heated envelope of the house.

Swipe

It's not the water heater you should be worried about per se, but rather the cost of heating the place with electric panel heaters. Assuming the house is not on economy 7, you are likely looking at an annual bill north of £2500 unless you don't mind heating one room and sitting around in heated throws.

Section62

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82110443#Comment_82110443

If they are simple panel heaters rather than storage heaters then being on E7 probably won't make much difference, or possibly push costs up through higher day-rate charges.

Swipe

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82110444#Comment_82110444

Either way, if they enjoy living in a warm home throughout, the cost of heating is going to be astronomical, especially in an old house like that.

ComicGeek

The whole point of the Fischer Aquafficient is that you're supposed to plug other things into it to create the 'efficiency' - eiher solar PV panels to use electricity to heat it up, or a heat pump to use heating water to heat it up. Without these other efficient technologies, all you have is a hot water generator that happens to be smaller than a traditional cylinder and very limited running cost advantages over that - it probably does lose less heat than the original cylinder in the loft, but that's going to be about £100/yr saving.

If nothing else has been sold to the homeowner alongside the Aquafficient, then they have absolutely been conned. There are very, very few instances where this would perform as well as a traditional cylinder system, and is never going to perform better IMO.

But the electric radiators (probably sold at the same time as the Aquafficient as part of the con) are your real problem.

QrizB

The whole point of the Fischer Aquafficient is that you're supposed to plug other things into it to create the 'efficiency'

That's kinda secondary, IMHO.

The Aquaefficient is a phase-change heat store. The advantages over an immersion heater tank are

• it's smaller, so you don't need an airing cupboard, and
• you can feed it direct so you get mains-pressure hot water without all the issues of needing PRVs, tundishes and annual inspections by a competent person.

Similar products are available from other sellers, including Sunamp and Tepeo (I have a suspicion that the Fischer unit is simply a rebadged Sunamp).

If the property still has Economy 7, the Fischer heat store is likely to be just as useful as a wet HW tank.

But the electric radiators (probably sold at the same time as the Aquafficient as part of the con) are your real problem.

I agree with this. If the property still has storage heaters, great; they plus the Aquaficcient will give you the least-worst form of direct electric heating. However if they've been replaced by Fischer's proprietary electric radiators, which aren't storage heaters and which need to use daytime-rate electricity, you're looking at probably the worst of all worlds.

There's a link in my signature to a post that compares heating costs with mains gas, storage heaters and direct electric heating. It's not quite up to date but hopefully will be useful.

Edit: judging from used examples being resold on eBay, it seems Fischer charge £5800 for their "Aquaficcient 6" which is, based on visuals and rating, a rebadged Sunamp Thermino 150e that currently sells for £1800. This is of no immediate relevance to the OP (it's already instaled in the property) but might be of interest to others in the future who read this thread.