Air source heat pumps

[UniS]

Air source Heat pumps, any of you got one? Its something we are considering , the house in question has no distributed heating system, just elec rads. It needs something to keep it warmer than it is now, and I'm inclined to go for as cheap to run as possible.

Do they work? are they REALLY cheap to run?

I've heard of some in commercial buildings that work well and are fairly cheap to run. not sure how quick your return on investment would be for a house.

Try giving the energy saving trust a call, I was chatting with a someone there for work the other day and they've got some good advice, eg don't splash out on expensive things (were talking about solar water heating at the time) till you've at the very least got decent loft and wall insulation.

We had an air source heat pump installed about 3 months ago. So far it seems great - my main concern was the water not being hot enough but its fine - plenty hot enough. We have only had the heating on a couple of times, but it is fine and the house gets nice and toasty warm.

You can get a govenment grant of around £900 towards it. We got our cavity walls done too which helped with the insulation.

we have been told it will cost us around £150 - £200 per year in elec bills, but havent had it long enough to see if thats true..

Um, I'm finding out that with out good insulation its a bit of a non starter. So thats that house off teh list( as it is stone built, single skin, with other structure issues and its all going to cost toooo much to deal with). Have another one to consider.. just need to look at the HIP and see if we can find out what going on in the roof.
I've been given 12k as a ball park figure for air source pump and radiator system, sound about right? also about 5k for solar hot water.

I guess it depends how big the house is. We live in a 3 bed semi and the total cost was just over £7000 which included all new rads, the pump & new hot water tank etc. I think if you have underfloor heating instead of rads its more expensive. It only ended up costing us around £6,200 with the government grant..

My Tutor, is pushing this with us. It's the same as air con but in reverse. It's defo the way forward.

Underfloor heating is by far the best, however intially more expensive to lay. In th long run, it should be cheaper to run. Logic, heat rises, so from the floor level you'll feel it quicker, from rad level, it has to work harder, and most rads are under windows. So the bulk of the heat goes....

Ground source heat pump I know a very small bit about but I haven't looked at Air source ones

Good luck (I love stuff like this)