Air source Heat Pump

[Flimingo]

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

---

Updated by MNHQ
Landed on this page in search of heat pump advice? Find our guide to installing a heat pump in your UK home here. HTH!

I see lots of people have solar panels and batteries, along with a heat pump.

I don’t have anything like that , my house is 25 years old , just standard insulation as the regulations of 25 years ago.

I don’t have solar panels, so would my electric bills be sky high? I also think a water tank in the loft or garage could be a bit of a pain on reflection..

We’ve had ours for 3 years & it’s great - very much as @Clearinguptheclutter says. We added solar panels , a battery & charging point for our car. Solar & battery calculated to pay for itself in c8 years. Heat pump will be pretty cost neutral, may be 12 years payback. Only regret is that we didn’t get air pump that also does conditioning, at the same time!

I can’t afford to get solar panels. I also don’t plan on living here forever, maybe ten years max. Is it pointless getting a heat pump if we don’t have solar panels ?

Not at all no. It brings the cost down a bit though. In summer we barely pay anything because the solar heats the hot water via the heatpump

in winter the difference is on sunny days only

Well I’ve booked Octopus to do a survey ,nothing to lose in listening to what they say. Apparently if they don’t feel it’s right for the property, they’ll be honest about that.

I think they are usually sited close to where the pump is.

So it is unlikely that it will be efficient to site it in a loft.

Not always. We have heatpump outside ground floor and water tank in loft as it’s the only place with space for it. Not ideal, takes a bit of running water to get it hot but totally doable

Is your loft fully boarded ? Who fitted your one ?

Omg that’s worse than storage heaters!

This doesn't actually sound like an ASHP though

Had one retrofitted 3 years ago. Love it.

It might be a really shit one

but modern ones are waaaaay better

The property was a purpose built holiday let, built around three years ago.

Are you sure it was an ASHP then? They don't have boilers like you describe?

Oh I’m sure. I know what an ASHP is. It wasn’t an actual boiler per se, but I have no idea of the correct term for the monstrosity. It was a huge system built behind doors (three floor length) near the bathroom, which you could hear always running in one of the bedrooms. Outside a bedroom was the usual heat pump unit, whirring away, ugly as sin and louder than the hot tub. The house was reverse level, with all bedrooms and bathrooms on the ground floor. Instructions in the house pack were, do not adjust the temperature at any cost.

We were considering looking into the grant deal but it put us totally off the idea.

Fair enough. I have never come across a system like that. Normally there is a tank inside which doesn't produce any sound at all and the fan is not very loud. They also don't take days to decrease in temperature Normally so it all sounds quite peculiar.

I have no idea what that is. But most of us happy Ashp owners don’t have one!

This doesn’t sound at all like an AHSP? Ours has a water tank inside the house but that doesn’t make any sound at all. Ours is a big house but our ASHP set up sounds nothing like you’re describing.

Could it have been one of those air flow heating systems that can both heat and cool?

100% ASHP. Just asked DH in case it’s me going insane here 😂

Is there underfloor heating? I bet it's the control system

It was def underfloor. The floor of the bedroom where I was staying was really warm all the time.

Yeah that's what it'll be. It's all the valves and controls for the ufh. Ours is fairly noisy but isn't near enough to the bedrooms to be a nuisance