heatpumps anyone?

[Frazzled2207]

My husband is very keen on the heatpump idea, I'm not against it in theory but from my understanding it's a lot of money and disruption and the cost saving is not all that significant. We would be doing it mostly however to reduce our carbon footprint - we would like to get off gas entirely. If it makes any difference our house is 15 years old and fairly well insulated and having just moved here we don't currently intend to move again, ever.

Interested to hear if anyone else has done it. The firms we have approached seem to be keen to put us off unless we're building an entirely new house or doing a major renovation job (i.e. moving out during the process).

In very old houses with very thick walls the walls will act as storage heaters and give out heat after the heating is turned off.
I imagine that people who find it cheap to run mean that it isn't running often as have houses that hold the heat.
Running the pump constantly because of poor insulation or design, whether its the ASHP or the pump that circulates the water round the house is likely to be more expensive for electricity than twice a day with oil.

@MrsJamin the article is pretty out of date and doesn't actually support the argument, it kind of does and doesn't. It also applies to ASHPs that use R32 refrigerant, there are a few heat pumps that use either CO2 or propane and can operate efficiently at a much higher temperature and are suitable for retrofit. See my previous posts.

@EmmaGrundyForPM I do understand how heat pumps work and the physics behind them (Boyles law). It is a common falacy that keeping a home at a constant temperature is more efficient than heating as and when needed.

Assuming no change of state, heat/energy flows from a warm location to a cold location, the greater the temperature difference the greater the flow of heat/energy. The heat/energy need to maintain or raise temperature is independent of the method of generating that heat. Considering a Worcester Greenstar is a small gas boiler and is rated at 24kW but an average ASHP would be around 9kW the larger capacity is obviously going to heat up quicker but it will also be using 8x the energy to do it.

@raindropsarefallingonmyhead

I'm looking at heat pumps for my 5 bed 60's renovation. It needs to be quiet so as not to disturb neighbours and not ridiculously pricey to run. Anyone who is happy with their ashp, who you mind telling us the make and model please? Very grateful 😊

We have a 4 bed 1960s house and used AOS Heating to install ours. We had a brilliant experience with them, and the house is really warm.

you were replacing oil which might work better but replacing a gas boiler with all the convenience and instant control does not work

yes indoors they are not too noisy but the noise is outside for the neighbours to hear - replacing oil and electricity heating it might be better but replacing a gas boiler - gas is far superior, quicker and cheaper

lh

My new build had one when we moved in and I love it. I'm always warm and my energy bills are super low - put it this way, when they gave out the energy payments I was profiting because my bills were so low they were lower than the grant iyswim- but my house is a) new b) tiny and c) insulated to the nines so I'm sure those factors contribute.