Air Source Heat Pumps

[BlackAlys]

We're renovating and extending a 150 year old property which includes a loft conversion (room is being lifted). I'd really like to consider an air source heat pump teamed with UFH in the extension, but DH isn't convinced it'll provide enough heat and hot water for a 3 storey house for 5 people.

I've done a search on my local area for people to advise us but they're all fitters and DH feels they'll have a vested interest in selling us one.

Where can I get advice on this - face to face? I've shown him MN threads and YouTube, but he's not budging. He wants to show our plans to someone to get accurate advice.

Help! I see ASHP's as a no brainer because our only other options are oil or LPG.

I wouldn't do it. The house has to be very well sealed/Insulated (a 150yr old house won't be either) & UFH throughout for it to approach being effective, and also ideally occupied all the time- you don't switch it off in the day when you're both at work for example.. Add onto that, the high cost even considering any applicable grants, maintenance issues when the unit freezes up, poorer performance on bitterly cold periods right when you want maximum output, the space needed for the outdoor unit & noise etc etc...I feel it would be a poor decision.

My in laws just had one fitted. Agree with everything the above poster stated. Also the radiators are bigger so take up more space.

We’ve taken ours out, we had to run the boiler higher to get the house up to 21 degrees due to conservatory/old radiators/inefficient windows and our first electric bill for almost 3 months was £837!!! We’re back on oil! I think they work best for houses built with that type of heating planned into the build itself.

Watching as we are in the process of buying a 150 year old house that currently has an oil boiler. I'd like something a bit greener.

It can be done, and there are still quite generous subsidies available BUT the system designer/installer definitely needs to know what they are doing. If you are keen to pursue this:

1. find an installer who can point you to a satisfied customer in a similar house, so you can ask them direct.

2. consider improving your home anyway (eg draughtproofing plus a ventilation system, new windows, or wall insulation) - this will make any kind of heating more efficient & effective, and makes most old houses a lot more comfortable too. (We did all of these and the house is utterly transfomed. Got rid of the mould too)

Heat pumps can be put in all sorts of houses including very old ones. But if you make your house more efficient, your pump can be smaller, run for fewer hours, and will cost less to run.

Thanks MN! I can always rely on MN for info and advice. This is invaluable 👍

We had a heat pump coupled with a new oil-fired boiler. It worked well, combined with a 4-oven electric aga in the kitchen. No gas. We had a stone-built house with 5 bedrooms and 2 large receptions, and a full cellar. The footprint of the house was a 100sq m.

The only problem we had was that we were at the end of the network for an overhead supply and our voltage was outside the range guaranteed by EDF which led to a fight between EDF and erdf. Eventually in a - 15 winter the pump froze and we had to repair it. About 2 years later they hooked us up to another substation and we didn't have any more problems.

Btw I live in a rural area 400m above sea level (in France)

We had one put in 3 years ago and it's brilliant. Our house is 50 years old.

However, we were warned by the installation company that our electricity costs would go up, and they have. We had to upgrade our HWC and a few of our radiators. Our house was already very well insulated and has CWI but we still needed to put extra insulation in the roof.

The company we used were very upfront about the challenges of retrofitting in an older property. We're glad we did it and our house is lovely and warm through winter but we probably wouldn't have gone ahead if we had a much older property.

We had quote from 3 firms and went with the one we felt were most transparent and knowledgeable. They also put us in touch with people who had used them before we made a decision

I saw an article the other week saying no good in houses pre 1950s...or possibly 1960s. That the houses wouldn’t be able to be insulated enough to make. It worthwhile.

My house is over 100 years old with no cavity wall so I’m worried that the govt are going to ban gas boilers and where will that leave me? I can’t afford extortionate electric bills and using loads more electricity is hardly green.

You can have 'green', cheap or comfortable. The first excludes the others.

Something we are all going to have to accept - but meantime I'm sticking with oil and wearing jumpers when needed.

agree with all others. I'm putting a lot of these in properties now (newbuilds) but theyre only really good for exceptionally well insulated houses.

We have one and the running cost is very low. However our house is airtight, very well insulated and only 5 years old. We have under floor heating and a heat recovery system as well. The air pump hardly ever needs to come on to heat the house (as it is pretty much passive) and is mainly used for heating our water.

I can't imagine it would work well in an older draughty house. We spent a while doing airtight testing to ensure optimum conditions for our system.

Another thing to consider is the annual servicing/maintenance costs as these were much higher than we expected (so we'll stick to a service every 2 years instead).

Our house ranges from 170 years old to 10 years old. It’s large. 4000 sq ft. We have two air source heat pumps. We have 5 large bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. We have an orangery kitchen. Lots of glass. We are warm! The house is well insulated and we have partial underfloor heating and part radiator heating. We have slightly less hot water and that’s fine by us. It’s not cheap to run but the oil alternative was a big issue for us. Our access couldn’t accommodate the tanker. But we would not change anything.

Thanks everyone - lots for us here to mull over. Meeting our builder shortly so will have some questions re insulation for him.

That should have read that we have a slightly lower temperature for hot water. It’s safer in my view.