Anyone changes their heating system to a heat pump?

[Makemineacosmo]

From gas central heating? Pros and cons?

I have but not from gas central heating, and tbh if I'd been on gas mains I wouldn't have bothered.
That being said, we're very happy with it, it's saving us a fortune and keeping us cosy but that's compared to the storage heaters that the house came with.

Yes, we’ve had it just over a year.

Pros: House is warm, water is hot. It’s a lot quieter than the gas boiler, no risk of carbon monoxide.

We then switched the gas gob to induction and capped off the gas entirely. So no standing charge.

Important context is that it’s a well insulated 15 year old house, and we have solar panels and a battery. All told we’re paying less each month even when you factor in the loan payment for the solar/battery (3 more years on that). Oh, and that includes running an EV too.

I couldn’t pick out whether the heat pump is cheaper in itself, but all together it’s cheaper.

Cons: It was cold the week in February when they were installing. They provided fan heaters, and I think we didn’t have any break in hot water, and it was disruptive to have a week of men going all over the house. But that’s the only con I can think of.

I would do it again. (And especially the solar system)

Sorry for my ignorance, but what do that have to do in your house when it's installed, can they use existing radiators or are they completely different? Is there a lot of mess afterwards?

Yes but my house is an old french farmhouse with 2ft thick walls.

I have loads of space on our terrace for the machine and in the summer the cold air it chucks out when doing the water is a welcome relief.

I would not have one in the UK if the walls were not really well insulated or the space for the outside unit wasn't ample.

Cost and heating and hot water wise it is marvellous. And it uses the old radiators that were here.

You need decent sized pipework and radiators for the heat pump to be able to run economically ie at low flow temperatures. We have 22ml pipework and radiators that are much bigger than those commonly used for a gas boiler system.
This enables our system to keep the house warm at a flow temperature of around 30/32 degrees even when it's around 0 outside.

Replacing all the plumbing would be a bit disruptive, yes, as the pipework will be in the walls or floor.

Using a heat pump with existing pipework and radiators would probably mean it's expensive to run or won't heat the house properly.

I think 15mm pipes are ok for radiators if moving to ASHP not sure about the 10mm pipes though.

The advice when I looked into it 6 months ago was if your gas boiler is running fine, don’t change. Wait until you need to change the gas boiler and spend the money converting to ASHP.

I read on a recent MN thread a suggestion that if you wanted to get an idea of the home insulation and radiator capacity, turn your CH boiler temp down to 50C and leave the CH on for two days at the room temperature you prefer.
If the house doesn’t warm up enough then either/both the insulation or the radiators will need money spent when converting.

Its an interesting idea, can’t vouch for it’s science.

OP, there’s dozens of YouTube channels out there but the one I’d recommend ( family of 5 living NE ) is Everything Home.
Particularly the small series of videos dealing with the conversion to ASHP. They saved thousands getting the right company.

Yes it depends on the house - a modern, well-insulated house could probably run with smaller pipework for instance. A good installer would do the heat loss calculations for the OPs house and then she'd have a clearer idea of how much hassle and expense the change would be.

I would say that running a heat pump at 50 would potentially be quite costly, although I appreciate there are other variables.

OP another good youtube channel is Heat Geek and they have accredited installers all over the country as well.

@SpaceRaccoon

OP another good youtube channel is Heat Geek and they have accredited installers all over the country as well.

The family in the Everything Home video went with a Heat Geek accredited installer.