To absolutely hate heat pumps?!

[Rosesandstars]

We moved into a house with a heat pump already set up. It is awful- it takes ages for the heating to get to any reasonable temperature and the hot water runs out after a 15 minute shower, it then takes over an hour to heat up again. Does anyone else find the same or AIBU?

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Updated by MNHQ
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I love our heat pump, we have one bill and its not bad!

But you need everything that goes with a heat pump. We have a new build (few years old) so we have geothermal heat pump, we have underfloor heating, airtight house with the fresh air heat recovery system and lots and lots of insulation. Our house is always warm and we have the bedrooms between 18 and 20 depending on the person and downstairs on 22. We don't turn heating on or off as it is supposed to be a steady heat but it does go off itself in April/May and this year it didn't come back on until the end of October.

As for hot water we always have lots and the one time we didn't there was a fault with the system.

One problem I do have with the super insulation, air tightness etc is that I can very hot upstairs in the hottest part of the summer!

Oh and in the snow I miss radiators for drying wet gloves, hats shoes etc but not enough to ever want radiators back!

Have you got it set up properly? Ours is wonderful but you don't use them the same way as a gas boiler with two periods of heat during the day. Run long and slow.

I moved into a house with one.
I did lots of research the heat geek videos are good on YouTube and there are some useful facebook groups.
mine is old and take 45 mins to heat enough hot water for a few showers but leave it on and it heats a lot of hot water. They need to be left on all the time ideally. I don’t do that because I can’t afford it and we have a large log burner that heats the downstairs. So I keep an eye on the weather forecast and turn it on 3 days before a chilly spell.
Ive got underfloor heating which I hate but I’ve found it’s better to run it at a lower temp suck as 15 and then if we feel cold it doesn’t take long to get the room temp up to 20 if I turn the room stat up.

The actual outside unit does need servicing and there are aspects of the system such as the expansion tank that need servicing as well.

Are you trying to run it like a gas boiler with heating only on morning and evening? That doesn't work with heat pumps as they take a while to get up to temperature.

Ours is set to between 18 and 21 degrees depending on room and time of day but it never goes below 18. It's cheaper to run than an old combi was in our previous house. Have never run out of hot water so maybe your cylinder is the wrong size or the heating settings wrong?

You just set the temperature for your house and let the heat pump click on and off as needed to maintain temperature. Barring extreme weather, it will just run for brief periods of time throughout the day and night. You never want to let the house get very cold and then need to bring it back up as that is really inefficient and expensive.

we do use an electronic thermostat with a timer that lets us drop the temp a bit at night. Then it is programmed to bring the house back up to temperature before we get out of bed in the morning.

Unless you are going to be away for several days, don’t turn off the heat.

if you are running out of hot water very quickly you have one of three problems. 1) your tank is undersized for the house 2) the tank has built up sediment and needs to be drained 3) the tank has outlived its life expectancy and needs to be replaced

ill be honest and say we got tired of trying to balance multiple people wanting to shower in a row, while someone was also washing dishes. We put in a tankless water heater.

@jujitsugrant My house is super insulated, I basically live in a 15cm kingspan box. It's very cool in summer, it's like walking into a cooler. Insulation works to keep in heat, but also to keep it out. (and I have huge south facing windows)

Why is your house so hot in the summer? That doesn't seem right.

If you have a family having successive showers then you need more then 15 minutes of hot water!

Sibling has one. Have to take half our clothes off in their house because it’s constantly roasting hot. No issue with hot water at theirs, family of 4 and 3 of them females, all with really long hair.

@Rosesandstars have a look at the Heat Geek channel on YouTube. There are so many badly installed heat pumps. They will help you trouble shoot.

I love ours. There are 4 of us, including two teenage/ early twenties daughters,in a 2000sq ft house,with 3 showers.
When we had the system designed,we opted for a larger hot water cylinder than average and it was well worth it. We never run out of hot water,and it's always very hot,the house is always lovely and warm. We have underfloor heating all the way through,no radiators apart from the ones on the towel rails.
DH was only saying tonight,how nice it is that the house is always a constant temperature. We've had Gas central heating and storage heating in past houses and this knocks the socks off them.

It would take me about 15 minutes to run a bath so that wouldn't be ideal. I think you should consider fitting a power shower that heats the water right there and then as you need it.

I love our heat pump. You just leave the heating on all the time but at a slightly lower temp. We're toasty warm with plenty of hot water. Speak to a specialist about what settings you should have it on.

Only 15 minutes in the shower? What if it’s and Everything Shower?!

Me! 20 minutes if the water is warm enough.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. We do keep the house at 18-18.5 overnight and 20-21 in the day so that's okay. I wonder whether it is just under-sized!

Oh regarding the heating- I meant that it takes forever to go from 18 overnight to 21 in the day. The hot water issue is the main problem though and we are a family that often takes showers one after the other.

Sounds like it was set up badly. My mum has one and keeps her house at a stifling 21 degrees and never runs out of pupils g hot water.

I was thinking the same - we're in an airtight South facing house with lots of glazing and it never gets hot in Summer.

4 minutes? If I was washing my hair I wouldn't have even finished the first shampoo in 4 minutes!

Blimey 18 degrees overnight? We don’t have it that warm during the day, and thermostat is set to 10 degrees overnight

That does sound hot OP

Are they noisy? I cant stand noise but we are looking into getting one fitted.

20 minutes? Wtaf

You've got it set too high. With the freezing air outside, the heat pump will struggle to heat your home to 21. We have ours set to 16 upstairs and 18 downstairs. Got to keep doors closed and need well sealed windows.

Unfortunately loads of people have been missold heat pumps. They need to be installed and designed by proper engineers that know their stuff and know how to size them properly in accordance with how much insulation the building has.

It’s such a shame that heat pumps are getting a bad name. There needs to be more regulation about who can specify and install them.