Today's thrilling thread - air source heat pumps. Anyone got one?

[Feedingthebirds1]

We're thinking the government is going to make it a necessity (or some other renewable) in the near future as they phase out gas central heating.

We've had the rep round, asked him a lot of - to him - awkward questions, but if anyone else has a heat pump system what do you think of it? Is it worth it in the financial long run? Was it a lot of disruption to have it installed? Does it get the house warm enough in winter? Does the pump make a noise, and if so how much?

It sounds good in theory, but our boiler is only four years old and it's a lot of money up front. I know I've asked a lot of questions, but if anyone has one, I'd be grateful for your thoughts.

We’ve had ours for 10 years now, it’s on an outside wall, so unless you’re next to it you don’t hear it. Our central heating system was new (renovation) so I don’t have any idea of retrofit costs.

It is very efficient, saves us money, works to -15 degrees and we’ve never had any problems heating our (big) house. We had cast iron radiators fitted which retain the heat when the system switches off. I think this saves us heating costs too. We have remote sensor setting so heating will come on at a certain temperature and the whole system is programmable. I think it was one of the best investments in our renovation costs. I would definitely recommend one.

Thank you. The system we're looking at is also for a big house, and has the programmable elements too.