Please advise me on the value of spending money on these things for my new house...

[Leftoverssandwich]

House is a five bedroom detached house in a very hard water area in England. Old house with a modern extension, surveys say in pretty solid condition.

1. Heat source pump - current boiler is perfectly functional
2. Solar panels
3. Water softener

Thank you!

@CC4712 Air source heat pumps- work ok in new builds with walls 30cm thick with insulation. Don't work well in cold weather and will then kick in using other energy sources to make up the short fall. Plus they are noisy! We have retrofitted insulation, now have double glazing, underfloor heating etc and were advised that it would still be efficient.

So many inaccuracies in this. Countries like Norway, Sweden etc have temps of -20 and they’ve been using air pumps for decades, they do work in cold weather! Modern ones are not noisy.

We have a water softener - game changer, my eczema has gone away entirely. Need the kitchen sink to be unsoftened, softened water tastes gross.

we have solar panels, installed by previous owner and on a FIT. We also have a solar thermal hot water system, this is excellent in the summer months and between the two we barely pay for energy in summer. We are also in a conservation area and there don’t seem to be issues with installing round here. Lots of houses have them on rear and side aspect.

I would not entertain an ashp, our house is too energy inefficient, but some neighbours have one, on a modern house and their electric bill has been £££

I’d be reluctant to go down an ASHP route until you’ve insulated the heck out of your house. Most people I know who’ve retrofitted them haven’t had a great experience (most likely due to crap installation) and have found them expensive or not up to the job.

We've just renovated and installed ASHP and solar panels. We don't have a battery as not enough panels to generate 'extra' to store - we'll use what we generate immediately. We mostly WFH and use appliances (laundry etc) in the day.

The ASHP is lovely, really pleased with it! Don't know cost of running yet though. We would have needed either bigger radiators or UFH (or a mixture of both) and went with UFH. It suits our life style as the house is warm the whole day. We're mostly at home so this is great but if you work full time outside the house it might be less great! It made sense in our context as the old boiler was old and poorly maintained so we would have replaced anyway. Getting it all installed was quite disruptive due to the UFH but we weren't living in the house at the time. We have also upgraded the insulation and added double glazed windows.

The heat pump makes a low whirring noise. It isn't noisy and it's not very noticeable unless you stand next to it. It's not loud enough to annoy neighbours. It's a lot better than our rental house was with a conventional heating system with clanking pipes!

@LizzieSiddal - So many inaccuracies in this. Countries like Norway, Sweden etc have temps of -20 and they’ve been using air pumps for decades, they do work in cold weather! Modern ones are not noisy

Interesting. As said, I'm far from an expert and only going on what the multiple trades have advised, plus info from 2 ASHP companies!

Are the pumps being sold in Norway/Sweden suitable for a house retrofitted with insulation and do they still rely on additional electric to heat in the winter? Any brands you'd recommend?