Air Source Heat Pump & Underfloor Heating

[chillibeansauce]

I've bought a doer upper & just about to invest £10K in an air source heat pump + underfloor heating in soon to be built extension + radiator system throughout rest of house. I'm hoping the green homes grant will cover the other £10 k needed.. Has anyone had a similar system put in ? Did you ultimately save on heating costs ? This will be my forever home.

@chillibeansauce just done a search as we are in the same position, and your thread has come up. Have you had yours installed yet and any comments?

We've got air source heating and it's fab. We don't have it to warm the house as such, just to stop it getting cold, if you get me. It's very cheap to run; the only cost is the pump running.

@SuperSange thanks for this. On some of the older threads I’ve found, the main complaints seem to be it’s noisy and repair/maintenance costs are high because plumbers aren’t familiar with the system. Have you found that?

Also interested, I've got one bit of my house to do (an 80s extension) in terms of retrofitted insulation / new windows & the next step will be to sort the heating. Looking at ground source heat hopefully but not certain my garden will be suitable.

Yes, you need someone who's familiar with the technology or it's a pain in the arse. We used TSG, they seem pretty good.

You can claim RHI for air source heat pumps.

www.gov.uk/domestic-renewable-heat-incentive

If you do claim RHI make sure you have a copy of heat calculations, invoices, and commissioning paper work for auditing purposes.

We’ve been wanting to install an ASHP for some time. Our current heating is fine, we just want to make the house more green and reduce our carbon emissions.

It’s been a real struggle to find trustworthy advisors (not salesmen) willing to tell us how we can make our house more green. In desperation we’ve hired heating consultants who will do a survey of our house and recommend the best solutions, including insulation and ventilation as well as heat source. They are starting this week.

It’s not cheap, but it’s cheaper than installing a heat pump that doesn’t work.

@SuperSange what sort of hot water tank do you have with your system? Is it an extra large heat storage tank, or a regular sized one?

I've also been looking at modern 'single burn' biomass boilers - my current CH is woodburner based - but the need for a giant heat store cylinder is tricky. (Plus I'm a bit worried about future regulation of woodburners even with ultra high efficiency ones)

We have both. House was built a year ago,a 2000sq ft eco house,with underfloor heating throughout. It is amazing,I'm never cold,and after years of living in draughty,chilly houses,I'd never go back. Ours is the only source of heating and hot water,it's a Nibe ASHP and we had an extra large hot water cylinder fitted as we have two teenage girls who love their showers. It isn't noisy,Dd1 sleeps above the outside unit and can't hear it. Our total electricity costs ( no gas or solid fuel) are about £80 a month. They work most efficiently in conjunction with high insulation levels,which we have and we also have a whole house ventilation system that runs continuously in conjunction with it. DH has allergies and these have vastly improved since we've lived here.
We get about £600 a year back from the RHI,if you go through them to claim the rebate,please make sure that your address details are EXACTLY the same on each piece of documentation,as they are unbelievably picky and we had a lot of hassle because one of our documents had the house name and number,and the other had just the number.

We have one in the house we bought 18 m ago. Ours was fitted to existing radiators so not ideal but a start. Our bills, including heating a pool using combination air source and solar in a big 5 bed are around 120 a month. This is ofset a bit by RHI. I think when we rennovate we will switch to underfloor heating if that will make a difference. The big disadvantage is that if it goes wrong, your choice of repair people is very limited and they can get very busy. So we were without heat and relying on immersion hot water for 2 weeks in November. Turns out I'm rubbish at chopping logs! Noise wise it whirs, but we don't notice it much at all as it is sited cleverly away from main living areas. Round here choice is oil or renewable so definitely the better option environmentally. I want a turbine next, and solar panels and a decent battery!