Air source Heat Pump

[Flimingo]

“Air source heat pump”—any good.?issues? Benefits?any personal experience to share please?

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Updated by MNHQ
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Yes, they’re good. They’re widely used in much colder climates than ours. However, they’ve become a victim of the culture wars in the UK, so strap in!

We really like a house to buy but this has heat pump that we have never used.we have apprehensions for future—noise/high electricity bills/slow to warm/need to keep it on always???etc

They are good if its a well insulated house they will be comparable to cost of gas heating, they use a third of the energy of gas boilers so its only electricity costing so much more than gas at the moment that stops them giving you a saving.

Yes you just leave them on and use a thermostat, they take longer to heat up than gas heating so you cant 'put it on for 30 mins' they neee to be on then controlled by the thermostat.

On the right tariff, they can be cheaper to run than gas boilers. Yes, they run for long periods at lower heat levels. Gas boilers are more efficient if operated this way too, assuming the property is well-insulated, but many people don’t realise this.

Recently stayed in a new build holiday let with one and found it really annoying. When it was too cold indoors for comfort, I turned the thermostat up. Nothing happened for a day or so, then it kicked in - at which point the weather turned a lot warmer and the room was way too hot so I had to wait again for it to adjust, with windows open!

The “boiler” was enormous and ran all the time, making the adjoining bedroom noisy.

Why would the room end up too hot? Did you set the thermostat to the temperature you wanted the room to be, or did you whack it up to maximum?

We had one installed in February. The house has been a comfortable temperature ever since and our fuel bills are slightly less than before. We added insulation in the roof but it's not an exceptionally well insulated house. Thirties semi-detached bungalow with a room in roof that was bodged before us.

No, not the max. It was set to 15 degrees when we arrived (this was March) and I turned it up to 20 degrees. Each room had its own thermostat, it was a ground floor bedroom with french doors which was freezing.

At home, we have oil and upstairs/downstairs thermostats. We rarely go above 18 degrees when we turn the heating on.

yes! we got one in December to replace our boiler.
The heat pump is definitely quieter and the house is much warmer - possibly in part because of the larger radiators they fit with it.
But house stays at a fairly constant temp throughout the day, so it’s great when i’m wfh.
On top of that we’re saving money too - our total electricity bills for march and April were £110 each

Can you ask to see the owners electric bills - they can decline of course but the fact they want to decline would raise an eyebrow.

Heat Pump installations are really technical and not easy to get right.

I would want to know if they bought the home with the ASHP already installed or if they paid to have it put in by themselves. They take a long time (if ever?) to pay-back and that might beg the question as to why are they moving now.

What other eco features does the home have - solar, batteries, under-floor heating, etc.

If it's been well installed then it'll save you 10-15K having one fitted later if that's what you want.

For me, the tech is too new and too flakey to be of interest. I'd like to see a good 10 years of general use in this country to see how they perform and how reliable they are.

We had one installed in Feb.
We have a well insulated house, and it’s been great. House is warm, water is hot. It’s quiet. And we’re saving money.

(we also have solar panels and a battery, just bought an EV and our combined energy bill for April was £4. It was very sunny!)

I had mine installed late January to replace a 30 year old combi boiler and oil tank. I needed a couple of new radiators and upgraded the loft insulation, the house stays bang on the desired temperature.

I’m happy to recommend HeatGeek. A lot of systems in the early days weren’t designed or set up as well as they should have been, which I think has led to a lot of the negativity you hear about.

https://www.heatgeek.com/

Dats really good idea.

It’s new build house(2018).claimed to be very well insulated.Current owner works in energy company so I guess must had it on reduced price.we are being told that it’s really work well(on a lighter side when dad was saying it’s good—their 8 years old sweet girl said “ no it’s not good”😊 (my eye brows raised)….kids don’t lie thing

We really like the house with all tick boxes but this ASHP thing confused us

What's confusing about it? Properly installed they are super efficient and very quiet. Much better for the environment than gas. We in the process of getting one installed.

Confusion and doubt we have if they really work around December/January time?.Do they take for ever to start heating? Will there be sky rocketed electricity bills?

We got one installed over two years ago. It’s wonderful. House has been toasty warm through two winters. The bills are lower than for our previous house (which in theory should have been cheaper to heat as it was more modern and a terrace).

You do need to understand how they work, as it’s very different to a gas boiler. They take a long time to increase room temperature so you run them “low and slow”, so you can’t do like a gas boiler and just whack them on twice a day for a few hours. They are excellent at maintaining temp (assuming reasonably good insulation) and work fine in cold weather - but if you let your house get really cold then it will take a long time to get up to temp! Ours was installed as part of a house reno and so there had been no heating on in the house at all over one winter. It took the heat pump a couple of days to get up from near freezing to 18 degrees. But since then we have never had the house temp lower than 18! They’re particularly good if there’s someone at home most of the time as you really benefit from consistent temperatures rather than peaks and troughs. Have found this to be much better for lung conditions like asthma.

Heat Geeks are good. And there’s a U.K. heat pumps Facebook group which is helpful.

There are quite a lot of anti people who have read negative media about them or don’t understand how they work so watch out for that. I would definitely look out for a future house with one, wouldn’t want to go back to having a boiler.

Oh and it makes about as much noise as the fridge. That’s also at times of year when it’s coldest and windows are closed so I’m only aware of the noise when standing right next to it.

I'd ask to see their electric bills.

Personally I'd be wary (and I live in an area without gas). They can work well. But I know someone with a house of similar era and it costs them £15 to £20 a day in winter.

And they run a wood burner

We are a cold location, the house is quite large with a double height area but was built new and should have good insulation (although probably not as high as it could be).

I'm not saying this is the same for all of them but it can certainly be the case. They've had it looked at and made slight improvements but it's still a bit cost (and they have solar).

See if you can get the costs over a year. Ours is about £15 a day during the very coldest months. Since April it’s been about £1-2 a day. Yesterday we spent about £1.50 and that’s with the oven on a lot cooking a roast, heat pump came on first thing to bring the house up to temp and it’s heated the hot water tank.
Ours is a big house (6 bedrooms) and a lot of external walls.

We've had ours for nearly two years now and it's great. You do have to manage them differently to a gas boiler (I.e. run it at a lower temp all the time etc.) but our house is lovely and warm, even in the depths of winter.

Ours is on the wall outside our lounge and the noise is barely noticeable. I only really notice it when powers up to run a defrost thing on itself in the middle of winter and that only last a minute or so.

We're on a specific heat pump tariff with Octopus and it's not notably expensive to run compared to a gas boiler.

If you otherwise love the house I wouldn't let it put you off (to be honest I would consider it a positive, not negative).

£15/day—😳.its too much.i don’t think that would be sustainable for me.!!
what range of temperature we r talking to cost it that much more n the day?

My neighbour has one, I never even noticed until he pointed it out - no noise.
We are both in very old, poorly insulated houses and his house is a lot warmer than mine.