Air source heat pumps - a bit off putting, or is it just me?

[FolornLawn]

I was surprised to see how big and ugly they are.

This article shows a picture of one, and I wouldn't want it in my small garden. Also the report says people will need room for a boiler and a water cylinder.

I'm quite surprised at how negatively I feel about the new plans. There's something about having to remodel bits of my house and garden that feels like an imposition, when I happily recycle, use washable sanitary pads and kitchen roll, go without a tumble dryer etc. Is it just me?

Our walls were thick but nothing like 1m thick and sandstone, and they really didn't keep the heat well at all. Certainly in our old place there's no way an ASHP would have kept the upstairs warm enough without wall insulation. We'd already done the roof space, and some rooms were double glazed.

The house was such a mix it was, in retrospect, quite useful for seeing the impact of different insulation solutions

@RavingAnnie what will you when your boiler fails and can't be replaced? Would you be willing to pay 3x for your electricity and have direct water heating?

I would like a much more environmentally friendly heating system but a huge amount of information is still needed before going ahead.

The government’s proposal doesn’t go anywhere near enough to help with the environmental problems.

[quote Daftasabroom]@RavingAnnie what will you when your boiler fails and can't be replaced? Would you be willing to pay 3x for your electricity and have direct water heating?[/quote]
I don't know tbh. I am really hoping that technology will have moved on by then.

Hopefully in the next ten years something better will come about, not wise to rush into something like changing the whole heating system just because the government is pushing it, it could turn out to be a Betamax moment.

Our walls were thick but nothing like 1m thick and sandstone, and they really didn't keep the heat well at all.

Ours walls aren’t a uniform thickness but probably average a metre. They do seem to keep the heat in though. Probably due to the rubble infill construction. The house certainly isn’t as hard or expensive to keep warm as the apparent lack of wall insulation would suggest.

My previous house was Victorian with solid brick walls and that was terrible. The heating needed to be on the whole time to keep it warm.

it could turn out to be a Betamax moment.

Or even a diesel car moment. It doesn’t seem very long ago we were all being encouraged to drive those for environmental reasons. That turned out well…

@Ihaventgottimeforthis does the air source one heat your water ? Is it completely contained in the loft. I thought they had to have a unit outside too?

1970s house in Sweden. It originally had an oil powered system changed to an air/water pump about 15 years ago.

Minor issues, no more than I have had with a gas boiler.

It heats a 250 square meter house with temperatures going down to minus 20 Celsius.

So I call bollocks to much of the ill informed misinformation being spread on this thread. They have their issues and are not as good as ground or mountain heating but they are much better than most alternatives currently used in the UK.

Interesting read here

www.iea.org/reports/heat-pumps

"In the United States, for example, the share of heat pump sales for newly constructed buildings exceeds 40% for single-family dwellings and is near 50% for new multi-family buildings."

I had no idea so many new homes used heat pumps here.

@Pelouse

1970s house in Sweden. It originally had an oil powered system changed to an air/water pump about 15 years ago. Minor issues, no more than I have had with a gas boiler.

It heats a 250 square meter house with temperatures going down to minus 20 Celsius.

So I call bollocks to much of the ill informed misinformation being spread on this thread. They have their issues and are not as good as ground or mountain heating but they are much better than most alternatives currently used in the UK.

Thanks for posting your experience. Ours has only been installed for 15 months, and whilst we are really impressed with it so far, sometimes it gets hard to ignore all the negativity and then they doubt sets in.

Hopefully ours will never get tested down to -20C though!

Yes, me too We had a few problems earlier this year when both DS were back here and WFH, as the system was set up for bedrooms to be cooler during the day, as was our old oil boiler.
Some of the comments on here about air tight houses and levels of insulation are laughable.
It might be a close call if I were replacing a gas central heating boiler tomorrow, but oil or bottled gas systems would be no contest for me. Oil has nearly doubled in price in the months since I last bought some.

I’m in HA in Scotland so will be interesting to see what I get, won’t be for a while hopefully though as gas boiler and new radiators just fitted in 2017. I think my house is well insulated, I have a nest smart thermostat and with the gas heating being so intense and hot the house heats up quickly and maintains the heat so the heating is not on often at all during the winter unless it becomes - temps

Interesting discussion about the future of heating in the U.K - it's quite long but worth a listen.

I don't think there's anything wrong with people discussing the issues and challenges. Some properties would be pretty easy conversions, others will be more challenging. For some that will make changing over prohibitively expensive so it's natural they'd be concerned, I'm not sure that's worthy of mocking.

We're pretty happy with our ASHP and I've said as much so I'm not opposed to them but having lived in a range of properties I can see the challenges they might create for some.

Combi boilers have probably changed. I swopped kitchen gas boiler and water tank in the loft back in the 90s and gained an upstairs shower and loo for guests. BUT I lost all the water pressure for the first floor shower, and the delights of an airing cupboard and had a bath and shower running cold. Wouldn't do it again. Renewed combi boiler in the 2010s and same old though marginally better.

The reason to another poster that Scandinavians go big on air/ground heat pumps is that most of their post war housing stock is highly insulated and at least double glazed so suitable. They also outside cities have a tad more space.

The other problem is maintaining triple or double glazing properly especially south facing where direct heat expands the internal gas and pops the frame.

If the solar panel industry could have made the panels more attractive, and hadn't used snake oil salesmen to punt them out in the first place, I suspect more of us would have had them.

@RedRiverShore @FlouncingBabooshka heat pumps are not new technologies - fridges are heat pumps. We can't wait ten years to decarbonise our economy, and we can't wait until some imaginary organisation invents some imaginary new technology.

I shall wait as long as it takes, I'm not really bothered about value of house as it was only £65k so I've had my value out of it if it devalues, boilers won't be obsolete for a few years yet.

@RedRiverShore ASHPs are not some evil beast, climate change is the evil beast.

Thanks for posting @Pelouse that's really heartening.

Of course they are not an evil beast, just bloody expensive, our boiler is only 4 years old, I'm hardly going to rip that out, in about ten years time I will re-evaluate as the boiler will be older then

It will be interesting to revisit this conversation this time next year. I don't know about the UK, but natural gas prices in my part of the world have doubled recently.

@ZZTopGuitarSolo

It will be interesting to revisit this conversation this time next year. I don't know about the UK, but natural gas prices in my part of the world have doubled recently.

It has in my part of the world too (currently capped for domestic users). But my gas bill was only £30 per month before. So even if it doubles and the electric only cost what I paid in had before, I'd have to get 17 years use out of a £6k installation to pay back the additional cost. And there's no way it would be less than 6k because my entire house is single skinned. I'd also lose the entirety of the only cupboard to the hot water tank, and about 5% of my room space to extra insulation. It's just really not an enticing prospect without major changes.

£30 per month to insulate a badly insulated house sounds like a bargain.

@Pelouse

1970s house in Sweden. It originally had an oil powered system changed to an air/water pump about 15 years ago. Minor issues, no more than I have had with a gas boiler.

It heats a 250 square meter house with temperatures going down to minus 20 Celsius.

So I call bollocks to much of the ill informed misinformation being spread on this thread. They have their issues and are not as good as ground or mountain heating but they are much better than most alternatives currently used in the UK.

Swedish building standards in the 70s were on a different planet to the UK's with respect insulation and temperature management. Use of heat pumps is also more established.

Solid brick or block walled housing stock built when insulation standards were largely non existent is not comparable when it comes to cost of the associated work needed for a heat pump. For us it was tens of thousands.

When we were looking for quotes we struggled to find properly qualified fitters and even those had minimal track record. I'm in the London area. There is nothing surprising about people reporting difficulties finding technicians and services. Its also not surprising if the quality of fitting is still at a stage which leads to some problems.

The industry is very immature in the UK. My boiler probably has another 5+ yrs in it. That is when I'll be getting new quotes, in the hopes that the industry has matured a bit.