UPDATED: Air Source Heat Pumps/Air Con - Full Info & Guide, is it cheaper to run than mains gas?

wrightk · 8 December 2017 at 3:10PM

Thanks, currently on prepay which we will be looking to change (previous tenants left but we have kept for the last 6 yeara)advantages are budgeting,and its so easy to top up via smart phone these days. Our immersion dhw tank is only a year old as we had a system change but was told to leave immersion on constant by installer so this prob accounts for the bulk of the cost if im honest. We have a power shower but its only used around 1 day a week.baths are the choice here unfortunately. Sounds promising with the heat pump. Will it be very invasive work ?

matelodave · 8 December 2017 at 3:57PM

wrightk wrote: »

Thanks, currently on prepay which we will be looking to change (previous tenants left but we have kept for the last 6 yeara)advantages are budgeting,and its so easy to top up via smart phone these days. Our immersion dhw tank is only a year old as we had a system change but was told to leave immersion on constant by installer so this prob accounts for the bulk of the cost if im honest. We have a power shower but its only used around 1 day a week.baths are the choice here unfortunately. Sounds promising with the heat pump. Will it be very invasive work ?

It depends what they are actually going to do and how much replumbing of your internal system is required.

You might end up with a different hot water tank as most heatpumps require a higher flow and bigger coils inside the tank.

The Heatpump unit can take two forms, a split unit where you've got a hydrobox on the wall that looks like a conventional boiler with the fan-unit outside with refrigerant pipes between them. I've seen split units where the hydrobox and hotwater tank are all in one casing but still with the outside unit

Alternatively there's a monobloc, where all the gubbins is in the external unit and you've got hot water pipes between the two.

Have a shufti at the Daikin Altherma website for some piccies

https://www.daikin.co.uk/content/dam/dauk/document-library/Brochures/Heating/Heating%20Homeowner%20brochures/Daikin%20Altherma%20Low%20Temperature%20Split%20Heat%20Pump_homeowner_brochure_English.pdf

or here for monobloc

https://www.daikin.co.uk/content/dam/dauk/document-library/Brochures/Heating/Heating%20Homeowner%20brochures/Daikin%20Altherma%20Low%20Temperature%20Monobloc%20Heat%20Pump_homeowner_brochure_English.pdf

Or here for their High Temperature unit which isn't quite so efficient as it runs at a higher temperature and is more suitable for retrofit/boiler replacement without too much disruption of the existing plumbing - it's effectively a heatpump feeding another heatpump to increase the flow temperature.

https://www.daikin.co.uk/content/dam/dauk/document-library/Brochures/Heating/Heating%20Homeowner%20brochures/Daikin%20Altherma%20High%20Temperature%20Heat%20Pump_homeowner_brochure_English.pdf

I don't know what they are proposing for your situation although I'm guessing that you can keep your solid fuel if you dont want a heat pump.

I did note that you mentioned a large ceiling unit for the kitchen - that sounds suspiciously like an air-air system.

That would consist of units that look a bit like fan radiators and would have fans in them all connected back to an external unit with refrigaraent pipes - I've no knowledge of them except for places that have air conditioning.

You can look at the Altherma Air-Air website to see whats available but there are a multitude of internal units, from posh to very basic. All the external units look very similar - it's how you get the heat into your home that differs.

https://www.daikin.co.uk/en_gb/product-group/air-to-air-heat-pumps.html

Please keep us posted when they come and make you an offer

zeupater · 8 December 2017 at 4:26PM

Boxergy_FW wrote: »

Hi, you're right. In fact we will use ASHP as the title of the forum, but with a different and new technology that will improve the utilization of the asset.
But for the moment what we need most is to understand from you ASHP users or prospective ones, wich are your main concerns and problems you have encountered.
We are not selling anything yet and don't want to be spam. We just want to understand your opinions guys.
As the need for the survey.

Thanks

Hi

If your solution is a heat pump of some kind you'll be going head-to head with some major international players with huge R&D resources, so unless there's considerable financial backing (£hundreds-of-millions) and the COP betters 6 you're probably looking at the wrong sector for a start-up ... if you can achieve a COP of around 2, the price would likely need to be less than one of those overpriced panel heaters which are sold with 'dodgy' claims on efficiency ...

Best to open a new thread specifically to ask what you need & discuss opinions while keeping all of the conversations together, probably on the G&E forum as there are quite a few with heat-pumps frequenting that board, but expect to be asked for far more information than you've provided here before anyone takes the potential product seriously ... there's been far too many scams or sales ploys attempted around here in the past, so don't expect a smooth ride!

Anyway, as a business you'll will need to follow the 'forum rules' in the page header and request permission to post as a business soon(ish), so as you're now aware, it might as well be done straight away!

HTH
Z

MsMWS · 9 March 2018 at 11:47AM

Please note for Mitsubishi EcoDan they use man made greenhouse gases in their system.
"Our heat pumps contain fluorinated greenhouse gases R410A and R407c"

zeupater · 9 March 2018 at 2:08PM

MsMWS wrote: »

Please note for Mitsubishi EcoDan they use man made greenhouse gases in their system.
"Our heat pumps contain fluorinated greenhouse gases R410A and R407c"

Hi & welcome to the forum ...

Yes, that's true, but your concern needs to be placed into context ...

In theory, R410A has an environmental impact which is 1700x higher than CO2, so is this horrendous or not? ... well, that 1700x only applies if the refrigerant gas actually escapes to the atmosphere, now considering that if this happens the heat-pump wont work, this is a condition which all manufacturers and installers attempt to prevent.

Okay, let's look at the worst case scenario and say that there's a major failure and all of the refrigerant escapes and place this into context ...

(i) A 5kW.t heat-pump would typically be charged with <2kg of R410A (eg Ecodan 1.7kg), this being the equivalent of 3.4tonnes (1700x2) of CO2 ....

(ii) According to BG,

Gas
CO2 Emission = Consumption(kWh) x 0.185
So, for every 10 kilowatts (kWh) of gas you use, approximately 2 kg of CO2 is emitted

.. Therefore the 1.7kg of R410A in the heat-pump can be balanced to a gas equivalent of ~18400kWh (3400/0.185) of gas usage, which roughly equates to the average domestic gas usage in the UK for a 5 bedroom house ....

As can be seen through the above example, by placing context to an issue we can balance the pros & cons ... if the average heat-pump doesn't dump all of it's refrigerant contents to the atmosphere every year-or-so (which they don't!), they're better on CO2 environmental impact balance than gas boilers ...

HTH
Z

matelodave · 14 March 2018 at 10:17AM

MsMWS wrote: »

Please note for Mitsubishi EcoDan they use man made greenhouse gases in their system.
"Our heat pumps contain fluorinated greenhouse gases R410A and R407c"

Have you looked to see what's in your fridge, freezer or car air-con system - there are a lot more of them about than heatpumps

BMSNT · 3 April 2018 at 7:03PM

What is the preferred air source heat pump make?

House is a three bed semi.

I like the look of the Striebel Eltron

I also like the look of Mitsubishi eco dan but some one said it is just a repurposed air con unit not a purpose built air source heat pump.

matelodave · 3 April 2018 at 7:30PM

Mine's a Daikin and I'm more than happy with it. I chose it over the EcoDan as it was less complex.

Jeanbuchan · 2 May 2018 at 9:33PM

We paid a lot of money 5 years ago to install an Air to Air heating system. When we tried to switch on after last summer, it didn't work. In October we were finally visited by company workmen and were told that the outside unit needed a new compressor which would have to be ordered from Hitachi. I ended up writing a letter which has since been returned stating no access to the premises. I found out online that the company has gone out of business. There is another 5 years of guarantee to go but as ours was fully paid at the time of purchase I don't believe there will be anything we can do. I'm now looking for someone who can repair this sort of heating. I was surprised when Hitachi wasn't on your list as I thought a famous name like that should prove reliable. The company who sold me the system was Superseal Home Improvements and I wish we had never heard of them.

Cardew · 3 May 2018 at 8:54AM

Post above is from USA and doesn't seem to realise this is a UK forum.

SaraR2018. In UK the vast majority of Air Sourced Heat Pumps(ASHP) heat hot water that is circulated to radiators and a Hot Water storage tank.

UPDATED: Air Source Heat Pumps/Air Con - Full Info & Guide, is it cheaper to run than mains gas?

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