To think low take up of heat pump grants is due to more than just poor advertising.

[overitt]

There's a BBC story today about low take-up of the £5k grants available for heat pump installation: www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64710225. The criticism focuses on poor marketingnof the scheme and difficulties in funding installers, both of which are true. But I think there's more to it than that. I managed to find a potential local installer and had a telephone conversation with him. He told me about the size of the pump, the restrictions on where it could be installed in relation to neighbouring properties, and the internal infrastructure that would be needed. The picture on the BBC article illustrates it well. I would need to rebuild my kitchen to accommodate it. He also said that for the system to work effectively I would need to install interior or exterior wall insulation on my solid brick house, plus either underfloor heating or bigger radiators in all the rooms. All of thus would cost many £££££. The installer told me that for these reasons he was mostly installing heat pumps in new build homes or complete refurbishments.

Aibu to think these factors are probably a much bigger part of the reason why the scheme has low take-up than "poor advertising"?

Same as others - on paper ideal candidates (detached, garden space, undergoing full renovation including ufh)… and it still seems like an expensive option, initially and ongoing.

Why would you lose your bedroom? Surely ASHP systems are outside? When we had ours installed they said we could put it almost anywhere in the garden. It actually ended up being on the back of the garage, which worked really well

@EmmaGrundyForPM there is infrastructure inside too. If you look at the picture in the op, the heat pump is on the left, the interior infrastructure is on the right.

I had top-of-the-range air-conditioning (Daikin) installed throughout my house when I bought it last summer, as it’s one of those mad mid-century houses with lots and lots of glass (Like the Eames house, but less expensive/ stylish). It was 45 degrees upstairs in the heatwave. I’m using my air-conditioning as heating this winter and it’s both super efficient at warming the place and cheap to run. Best thing I ever bought. I do have an ugly condensing unit outside my front door, though, which does look quite like a heat pump. However it runs virtually silently and bothers nobody.

Bottom line for most people is that heat will cost more to run than gas boiler. They don't tell you this. Big cover up me thinks. Had a quote, not only had to replace all our radiators will fool to ceiling ones, but huge noisy pump, and ridiculous price. Plus high service cost. Not new technology, just a new way to flog them to people. If you are going to spend that much money, get solar heating and power, not this con from the cons. Electricity still costs 4 times more than gas. Heat pumps at most give 2.5 x energy. You are going to be paying nearly DOUBLE compared to gas !!!

Bear in mind that electricity bills are subject to much higher levies than gas - despite electricity in the UK being much less carbon intensive than gas (because renewables and nuclear make up the majority of generation). So the government plans to move some of the electricity levies gradually over the gas.

So the difference in cost will narrow over time.

I have an air source heat pump - mid 1980s compact 2 bed terrace with small back yard. I have replaced the crappy single glazing with double but would have done that anyway.

This is my first winter with it, having replaced gas, and it has done really well. You do need to engage with it and learn how to run them - it's not like a a gas boiler. But my house is a very toasty 21C right now at 10pm while it is 3C outside, and my entire energy bill today so far is £3.20 and that includes running the dishwasher and boiling something on the hob.

Water cylinder got squeezed in the loft space. You can also get options like Sunamp heat batteries which fit under a kitchen worktop.

I've also now got solar - just a few panels - but I set it to heat the water cylinder whenever the sun is out so it is done for free. You can't do that with gas!

Only downside is the heat pump is a bit ugly, like an air con unit. You can get vinyl wraps in the colour of your wall/fence and then they blend in a bit more.

No, they aren't for everyone but a well designed, correctly installed one can work really well, even during the cold spell back in Dec.

Yanbu

we’ve just had ours installed, it’s great but it has cost us about £8k over and above the grant. We’ve had to find £13k and will get £5k back in a few weeks.
(we did need to replace the gas boiler anyway)
dh is committed to reducing our carbon footprint, our house was suitable, he had a bonus through work that paid for it.

it also made a fair mess as most of our radiators and some pipework had to be replaced.

our (excellent) installer said he is moving towards new builds and full retrofits only as just not realistic for the vast majority of families, not to mention the fact that many houses will just not be suitable.

it won’t save us money long term unlike the solar panels which definitely will (and were infinitely less faff). You need to be properly committed and WANT to do it.

re size- yes is quite big. But no bigger than the gas boiler which has now gone.

i’m a fan but atm it’s not a realistic option for the vast majority of families regardless of advertising.

It would cost over £50K to install a heat pump at my home. I have solid stone walls which would all need to be dry lined.

Totally unaffordable and a £5K grant is pointless.

Yanbu at all. The majority of housing stock built more than a few years ago is totally unsuitable to be retrofitted with this technology. To have it in this house we would lose at least 10% of the usable space in the house from each room getting a bit smaller due to additional insulation and radiators, and having to remodel to create a space that the infrastructure can sit in as it takes a lot more space than a combi boiler, plus would have to totally redecorate once all that is done. It simply cannot be done as a project on an occupied house. It could be done as part of a total back-to-bare-bones renovation but that would be a massive waste of money that wouldn't ever pay itself back either in reduced running costs or in increased value.

YANBU, they're too expensive and people are still cold.

Now if there was funding for air-to-air heat pumps (blown air) that would take off, they're a fraction of the price, but currently un-funded as they can be used in air-con mode which isn't very eco.

Did you really mean £80k and not £8k ?

How many supertankers of oil can you buy for £80k ?

We had one costed up and the amount of electricity to run.it would cost the same as the gas we use currently- on top of the £6k cost +£5k grant to have it fitted plus possible extra replacement of radiators etc and faff - not to mention chucking a 5 year old boiler - not.worth it - I want hydrogen power personally

Neighbour has one, very noisy in the winter. Not suitable for houses close together. They are building hundreds of new houses near me, no solar on roofs and imagine no heat pumps (would put the house price up probably)

We looked into this, performance reviews put us off, alongside the cumbersome size of the units. We did install solar with battery back up though, pound for pound a better investment.

A heat pump is literally just an A/C unit that is put in backwards.

It produces the same amount of heat as the the mesh at the back of your fridge. The theory is that a constant supply of this "heat" inside a hermetically sealed room will gradually (over a number of days) bring the room temperature up to 1/3 of where your gas boiler would get it to. So not hot, but not really cold either, put a jumper and socks on and you might be OK, just don't sit around too much.

All this can be yours for 10k, well more like 30k by the time you pay for all the extra insulation, and new radiators, and pipes and triple glazing, and loft insulation . . .

Where do I sign up?

I had one fitted for free last year, due to my health & the house only having storage heaters it was fully funded. They did a few in the area at the same time after going door to door to speak to people.

It replaced the old water cylinder & the rest of the internal bits are fixed to the wall in the airing cupboard so it doesn't take up much space. The outside box is no problem on the drive either, we've lost about a foot of the drive.

For the first time in years we were cozy all winter 😊 it does cost us more in electric as we only used one oil filled radiator, but for us it's worth it.

I meant we only used one oil filled radiator before we had the heating fitted 😊

They are prohibitively expensive to install.

New builds won't install them.

Says it all really.

This is how I think about it:

• How many gallons of 50-60 degree water does a house full of radiators take?
• How much air would a fan need to suck in and extract heat from to get that kind of heat? How much now when the air is 12 degrees? What about winter when the air is near zero? Air is something like 800 times less dense than water.
• To suck in and process that volume of air, that's surely going to take a lot of fan work and processing? Which all uses electric.

I'm not an engineer so I can't do the calculations, but I can't get it past my common sense filter. Maybe I should stop thinking and just trust the salesmen experts................?

@pussycatinfluffyslippers ·
Have you noticed a big difference in performance/fuel cost with your new gs boiler? what sort did you go for? We're thinking of doing the same but the service engineers says the old one is better than many new models and we should run it till it dies.

There was an informative article in The Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago about heat pumps, solar panels and other measures to reduce energy use, covering performance, price etc. It was in the Home section, I think. The cost of heat pumps, even with the grant, seems steep.

The cost is prohibitive for most, as are the practicalities of installing but we have one (new build) and it heats our house absolutely fine. My thermostat sits at 20/21 all the time and it maintains that no problem

The loops installers have to jump through to get the funding are ridiculous and very little of it based around actual training in installation of the systems.

Plus I don’t think they are the way forward long term for this country.

Ruining Victorian house with insulation.

Ugly humming box in garden. (Maybe two from what I’ve read as the house has attic and basement!)

Losing space inside to a massive tank and other apparatus.

Huge radiators.

Less warm.

More costly to run.

Seriously - they couldn’t pay me to accept the above, let alone have me pay for the pleasure. A relatively small amount off the huge outlay is almost a joke.

I lived in the US as a child and we had big central air units that seem similar to the outdoor pump units. The difference was that houses and gardens there were far bigger so everyone had them down the side of the house where they weren’t a nuisance.

I’d consider a heat pump here if I had a similar set-up: plenty of space and modern house. I don’t and I just pray the technology moves on.

My parents made use of the grant and got the heat pump Installed etc. I think they also got some kind of loan grant to repay as well as the 5k grant
But anyway on total it was more like 20-30k to Install I believe.

"Average" People (including me) just dont have that kind of money so it's never going to work.