Ground Source Heat Pump - anyone have one?

[Fridakahlofan]

Does anyone have any experience?

Please tell me everything I might need to know. I am not sure where to start...

We live in a large, old, drafty house with oil central heating. Garden is quite big but has a lot of trees.

Interested in cost of course and also if anyone has views from an eco perspective? Did anyone use a company they recommend?

Hopeful thank you in advance!

Bump. Our oil boiler has gone on the blink and has decided to work when it feels like it. Doesn't like firing up when it is cold! We are hoping for a short term repair while we decide about alternative energy sources.

From what I recall (did a bit of reading into it, out of interest) wouldn’t you need to remove the trees to lay the pipe system?

We went to a huge gallery that was heated using this and it was comfortable, but it was a fairly new building with great insulation and I believe they were using underfloor heating (no radiators, etc).

I'm not an expert, but I always thought heat pumps were better suited to newer, well insulated properties. And with underfloor heating rather than radiators.

I think it would be very difficult to install retrospectively. (I don’t have it; neighbour does).

I live in a very old farmhouse, and have Air Heat Source Pumps, rather than Ground source. They were here when we moved in, so no idea on the cost, but we have to units out at the back of the house with giant fans in that suck in the air. Running costs are much cheaper than oil, but maintenance costs when needed are quite high as it is quite specialist kit.

Yeah, my concern about ground source is that it appears to be best for underfloor heating a good insulation. Our house is 20 years old and we will probably replace doors and windows soon. I don't fancy having all the floors dug up though.
@GoldenRuby Does air source heating radiator system feed into a "traditional" heating system, and it is noisy? We are rural but have fairly close neighbours.

We are rural two. There is sometimes a faint hum, no more than you sometimes get from a fridge really. We have underfloor heating in our Lounge, radiators everywhere else. The radiators don't get boiling hot like with gas central heating, rather they work on the basis of constant gentle heat. The only time we find the heating lacking is if there is a sustained spell below freezing, so we top up with a log burner. We on have single glazing in the property (listed building) so they do really well considering it is a big, draughty house.

The pump has to circulate the warmed water for more hours than oil heating as the temp of the circulated water is warm not hot. So the electricity bill for the pump can be high. The bigger the house the more the radiators the more the pump has to work.
I think they are really meant for modern insulated houses where they would switch off regularly when the required thermostat temp is reached. They use cheap rate electricity but ours has still proved expensive. Also depends on price of oil which varies.

Hmm. Maybe I need to look at a wood pellet burner instead of oil.

We have got a wood pellet boiler. It's good, but takes up a lot of room - we needed up getting a shed built to house it and for the pellets

I get the RHI from the government, and although it was expensive to install 5 years ago, it's almost paid for itself now.

It has also gone wrong a few times, and you have to clean them periodically which is very messy - so we usually gets someone in to do it when it has its service.

Also pellets aren't considered as 'green' as they used to be. Ours are all locally sourced though, from fast-growing wood.