Heat pumps - yay or nay

[AnguaResurgam]

Government heat pump scheme misses first year target - BBC News

This BBC report says that the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (gives £5k grants) has had much lower uptake than expected.

Which left me wondering if that's just because no-one's really heard of the scheme, or because people don't want heat pumps. When our boiler died, I did start looking in to getting one, but was put off because they just don't sound suitable for older properties. Now I hope that the new boiler keeps going for years, so perhaps the technology will have matured by the next time I need to think about this personally.

But does anyone have one, and if so what's it like?

Or others who considered and rejected - why?

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Updated by MNHQ
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The government needs to bite the bullet and mandate air source heat pumps and solar panels in all new semi/detached new builds.

At the moment there is insufficient knowledge of fitting for most home owners of older properties to be comfortable about fitting advice in the way you would be replacing a fossil fuel boiler.

Mandating it in new homes would quickly upskill the workforce and improve the knowledge on how to apply it to second hand homes. I’m honestly baffled the Government hasn’t done it.

Absolutely. My Victorian semi is like this, no cavity, and although it has double glazing, windows have to be opened winter or summer to allow condensation to escape. We have tiny gardens with shared access, and little room for bins, let alone a pump. There’s no way I could afford a new heating system to be fitted to my house. Fit it by all means to newer houses, but until the tech exists to address costs, it’s a no from me.

Victorian terrace here too, our boiler is about 6 years old and hoping to keep it going for a good while yet. We don't have a suitable outside wall to put the big fan unit, we do have modern windows but no cavity walls and underfloor heating would be a colossal job. We have to open windows to control condensation.

Not interested, our oil boiler works well, they are expensive, don’t work well and our indoor plumbing would need to be re-done at vast expense. Our neighbour has one and it is noisy. Not sure how you have one in a terraced house or flat!

Noisy, ugly , and I remember when we were all told to buy diesel cars! Those people now have to pay £12.50 to drive in london.

Got a quote for £20K to get it installed. Even after grants (which we got quoted for more due to location) it wasn't going to save us any money and I've also heard they don't do particularly well in colder climates and could end up costing significantly more due to the electricity price.

We had one in 2008 in a new build rented house. Installed by cowboys employed by a cowboy landlord. In the end he supplied us with oil filled radiators and we used the immersion to survive the winter. That was expensive, but nothing compared to running the heat pump.

It had underfloor heating on the ground floor which got roasting hot, but it never made it to the two upper floors. We got out of there as quickly as we could.

I dread our boiler going, and losing a large part of our tiny garden for one. I suspect it's all in the installation - the one we experienced was a mish mash of different parts, and no one knew what to do with it. Wasn't helped by the landlord not paying bills, so the same person never came twice.

From what I've read they need to be really good spec and installed correctly for them to be any good - and a lot aren't. I've read so many people saying their house is cold and it's still costing them a lot of money because heat pumps use electricity and electricity is so expensive. Someone on our road has one and it makes a constant noise and they have this huge ugly unit in their garden. It might work really well in Scandinavia where companies probably aren't trying to do it on the cheap and are properly trained - but I definitely wouldn't get it here right now.

These are some horror stories.

When I plug the details of my home into the Scottish government website it says that running a heat pump will actually increase my annual running costs. That’s in addition to the outlay that I can’t afford for installation. So there’s just no basis on which to really justify it.

Also I do know of an acquaintance who had to abandon installation mid way due to unforeseen challenges locating the heat pump. That was a ground source one.

We use a green energy supplier and keep our gas heating use to a minimum for now.

Apparently my 30
Year old mid terrace isn't suitable for one. And I have absolutely no space to put it. So it's a no from me.

You’re right that there is not much expertise in the UK, however there are definitely some people that know what they’re doing. If in greater Manchester I can recommend one, who was recommended to me by a mnetter.
a bit of research and provided you’re keen, pretty much all concerns can be overcome.

However they don’t necessarily save money at least not short term.

Can I ask, how old is a 'modern' house in terms of heat pumps? Mine was built in the 1980s. Is that modern enough and also what are the deciding factors in construction? Is it cavity walls? Double glazing?

Modern house I would say 80s is close to what you want. The most important thing is that the whole building is adequately insulated (which principally means the insulation was snugly fit together not just chucked in the gaps) and that there is a relatively good airtight seal. 80s should have cavity wall with insulation and is hopefully constructed decently so it is airtight.

An ASHP will struggle to overcome large air leaks and un-insulated walls and roof (ideally floor as well).

We're in the middle of building a new (small) semi. The grant has now increased to £7.5k and we are paying £4.5k on top of that - so much of a muchness were we to have bought a standard gas boiler/cylinder.

Shockingly no mandate on having to fit one on a new build. We had to provide energy calcs to building control before commencing - we weren't allowed an electric boiler however an ASHP or gas boiler were permitted (gas cheaper than electricity was their justification for failing an electric boiler).

As it's new, the house is extremely well insulated. Bringing older houses up to the standards requested to be eligible for the funding would be extremely costly/not viable in most cases I should imagine as they are rather stringent.

"airtight house"

this part unsettles me. I like opening windows sometimes and I don't want to stress out if the front door is open for more than a micro-second. Anyway, we are moving soon so couldn't get investment back if we got heat pump now, and I won't tear out a perfectly good heating system in next house, either. DS has installed / is installing GCH. He will have underfloor heating & good insulation. Sounds good for heat pump but... because his building work is happening in stages, the house won't be airtight until he's nearly done. His home started with only a fireplace backboiler, he didn't want to live there 12+ months with no heating or hot water. Went for Combi instead.

I'm a huge fan of insulation, got right on at DS to increase his, but not at expense of no fresh air.

As I live in a 130 year old stone built house with draughts galore I am pretty confident a heat pump isn’t for me. We’re on an oil fired boiler so, while we are slowly working through our renovations and making our home as insulated and efficient as we can, I wait for something new that will work for us.

The issue for uptake is price even if you get the grant there is still a lot of money to pay. They also don’t necessarily save you money on energy costs- solar with air source is best and all properties need to be well insulated first. Gov need to get their arse in gear with hydrogen but as a recent trial has been cancelled its
not looking good.

I wouldn't want to live in an airtight house either.

They can't literally mean airtight, else you'd risk oxygen deprivation over time, but I don't think living where there is a rise in indoors air pollution, plus whatever your family or visitors exhale, is a good thing at all.

industrial air pollution from your own furniture, flooring, paints, cleaning chemicals, perfumed products, laundry soap, decor? Those are things that generate the most VOCs.

You don’t have to not have fresh air.

its not about panicking about opening the window or the door for a microsecond either.

insulation works like your duvet- if there are gaps you won’t be particularly warm! something is better than nothing, but a blanket that covers your entire body and comes down and touches the bed on either side of you allows your body heat to be trapped and to warm up where you are. Insulation is the same- if you have wind blowing at the walls and there’s an air leak, it’ll be like a leg stuck out of the duvet- allows air to come in and cool down.

you get your home good and airtight, and then have mechanical heat and ventilation installed. Basically it’s a big fan that pumps fresh air from outside into your house, and passes that air through a heat exchanger which captures the heat from the old moist air leaving the building. That way your house has a constant flow of fresh air, but it’s warm and comfortable. In such circumstances an ASHP is ideal. Otherwise the people who report that ASHP don’t work, or aren’t any good etc. are typically the consequence of people whose homes are not sufficiently insulated or sufficiently air tight.

MVHR is what it’s referred to as for those who want to have a Google- mechanical vent and heat recovery. I’m currently getting it put in my parents place along with ASHP with UFH.

We live in an older house.

1.That grant is nowhere near enough in relation to the cost of installing a heat pump relative to the savings it could bring. We'd have a net financial loss and a big one at that.

1. We would have to spend a huge amount to get our house to a state where it would be suitable for a heat pump.
2. The heat pump technology needs to improve. There's a second generation of heat pumps coming out which is capable of traveling higher temperatures.

Our house is 00s and it has turned out well. It’s not at all “airtight”, still some draughty bits which we have sorted the main ones- regardless of how you heat your home it’s a good idea to do that.

In terms of overall price you’ll be likely looking at 10-12k plus but then there is 7.5k grant which obviously is helpful. Ours was installed last spring and this winter so far ours running costs are lower and the house is warmer. We have solar installed too which isn’t really doing much at all at the moment but did mean that in May and June last year (both very sunny) our electricity running costs (including the ashp which at the time was only doing hot water not heating) were extremely low. It’s great if you can have solar connected up to your system but not all rooves are suitable.

@AnguaResurgam they pretty much do mean airtight! However a mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery (MVHR) s generally specified as well. This extracts stale air and transfers the heating to fresh air which is then blown into the house. Ours is set to replace all the air in the house every two hours on trickle mode, then all the air in half an hour on boost. It is much healthier than a standard trickle vent, and much more efficient than opening a window.

Hydrogen for domestic heating and hot water is a non starter. It's energy density is too low and it is very leaky.. A properly specified ASHP will be 4x as efficient.