Heat Pumps: anyone have one/thought about it?

When the grant goes, its going to be a heck of a hard sell.

Around 1200 to get a brand new boiler installed


Around 12,000 for a heat pump. And you hear horror stories, people wishing they’d stayed put.

Around 10k more to take on that risk?

I’m sure a happy customer can make a case for it being worth the extra to get one. I’d be interested to know.
I’m a happy customer but we changed from oil as there is no gas in our area (rural) and our house is modern and well insulated. We’ve really had no problems and it’s been cheaper than oil. Last year I used to ChatGPT to optimise the parameters and now I don’t even need to think about it. House just heats up, to the right temp, when it needs to.

We picked a Grant G1 installer to spec and install the Grant Aerona R32 13KW and external volumiser with 3KW backup.

Would I ever have done it without the gov grant and interest free loan? No.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: TNA
When the grant goes, its going to be a heck of a hard sell.

Around 1200 to get a brand new boiler installed


Around 12,000 for a heat pump. And you hear horror stories, people wishing they’d stayed put.

Around 10k more to take on that risk?

I’m sure a happy customer can make a case for it being worth the extra to get one. I’d be interested to know.

No, the price of heat pump installs is inflated by the grant. As hardware a heat pump is not more complicated than a modern gas boiler and shouldn't cost more.

 
No, the price of heat pump installs is inflated by the grant. As hardware a heat pump is not more complicated than a modern gas boiler and shouldn't cost more.

That product looks like junk tbh.

Compare vaillant/ daikin pumps to equivalent gas boilers rather than cherry picking the cheapest you could find. Then factor in most gas boiler swaps are done in under a day while retrofit heat pump takes several days (labour costs) and has a lot of other associated costs with moving pipework, installing new cylinders, radiators etc and its not hard to see why its a lot more expensive.
 
Last edited:
And this is why both Heat Geek and Octopus are moving towards quicker, cheaper installs with minimal changes to the existing infrastructure.

Valiant and Daikin are a lot cheaper in other markets compared to UK and in no way cost 4 or 5 times more to make than a budget heat pump.
 
No, the price of heat pump installs is inflated by the grant. As hardware a heat pump is not more complicated than a modern gas boiler and shouldn't cost more.


Thanks for that.

I’m sure the market can just operate normally if it’s just left alone.

But as it stands getting a juicy grant sure helps.
 
Seems Octopus now have a heatpump that would do the job for my house (Cosy 12). Shame it was not ready or at least they didn't get in touch when the 15% discount was available a couple of months ago. I probably would have gone for it.

Right now I am slightly concerned we may get a bate a switch from the government or at least the potentially incoming one and they start getting in cheap gas or electric price shoots up further and i am left thinking wtf.

I am already annoyed they want to charge us EV users 3p per mile (which would likely keep going up with time). It is annoying as charging the car up costs £4.50 yet they want £9 tax on top. So double the charge it costs to fill.

The geek in me wants the heatpump, but my brain says my boiler is likely good for another 10 years. Why the **** you want to spend the money? Would be different if boiler was on its last legs.

Going to chance it and wait until they drop i price further. At first they wanted 7.5K then that dropped to 5.3K both for eco 50C. Can go 65C for 4.5K. If they can get that down to 3K or under I might bite I suppose.
 
Last edited:
The charging electric cars 3 p per mile is at the moment speculation. It’s also not due until 2028. It’s also unclear how the government will implement this.. in terms of how they will actually get people to pay per mile.

I’m a little bit disappointed. Last summer Octopus offered 15% off and I would also have qualified for Halifax to give me £2k back towards a heat pump because I had a mortgage deal with them . I am not eligible for that now.

With all those deals it would have been potentially a big saving.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TNA
Sometimes you’ve just got to go for it if you see a good deal.

That said the 15% off wasn’t a ‘real’ 15% as they had just raised their pricing a few weeks previously.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TNA
Last edited:
If you are in flat rate electricity at the price cap and mains gas it will be marginally cheaper or about the same.

If you have a time of use tariff of will be a bit cheaper. There are time of use tariffs specifically for heat pumps.

If you have solar and batteries, it will be anything from a lot cheaper to considerably cheaper.

If you get rid of your other gas appliances (e.g. hob) you can ditch gas connection entirely and save on the standing charge.

If you are on LPG or oil, the starting point is more expensive than mains gas so savings will be bigger.
 
Last edited:
Will a heat pump perhaps reduce condensation on windows? I turn my heating on when I need to, although not when no one is home, it’s turned right down to 14c.

I also get black mould on my window sealant, having to wipe it off.

But also I open my windows to allow fresh air in aswell, but obviously that lets heat out.

So are you supposed to keep windows closed in winter to keep all heat in? with heat pumps I mean
 
There are perhaps two things going on here.

Generally you get condensation because water is getting in or failing to get out quickly enough. You can have thermal bridging which creates cold spots which gather condensation.

Heat pumps don’t deal with humidity any more than a gas boiler can. Humidity should really be controlled through passive ventilation (or MVHR) rather than opening of windows etc.

It’s not abnormal to get some condensation on windows but if it’s not clearing naturally and then going mouldy, that’s not normal.

Wings in temperature can exacerbate humidity issues and a more consistent temperature may help that but that isn’t something which is unique to a heat pump.

It matters more why the actual temperature is and relative humidity than that the temperature is set to on the thermostat as it takes a long time for a course to cool down to temperatures which as low as 14c, particularly when it’s 10+c outside at night like it is now.
 
If you dry your clothes in the house that is a prime cause of dampness and mould. As is poor ventilation in bathrooms and kitchens when cooking, you need extractor fans that move enough air.
 
We’re only really coming into winter season now , being mid November. In terms of heating , I usually put my heating on in the early hours before the school run. The ln turn the heating right down , to maybe 14c. No point in heating an empty home as the saying goes.

Then I turn the heating on again when people are at home with the Hive app, usually for a few hours to warm the house up.

So it’s a case of turning the heating on and off , instead of leaving it constantly on. Otherwise my heating bill would be very high.

With heat pumps, is the idea to leave them on continuously to keep the home warm ? What about opening windows to let fresh air in ?

Aren’t we told to open windows for a few minutes a day? What about the loss of heating?
 
If your house has adequate passive ventilation and effective extractor fans, you don’t need to randomly open windows to ventilate.

Likewise most of the heat is ‘stored’ in the fabric of the building, not the air within the building. If you open a window or door and the air temperature drops, as soon as you close it, the air temperature quickly equalises with the temperature of the building fabric.

If you pulse your heating like you do, the fabric of the building never gets up to temperature which is why the air cools down really quickly, it’s being grabbed by the building fabric.

It’s entirely possible to spend more money by blasting your heating for short periods than leaving it running for longer at a much lower output. Boilers have an efficiency range and when they are at a high output, they are the least efficient, way lower than what’s printed on the rating sticker.

You need good controls which tell the boiler to modulate its output depending on the heat demand to get anything close to the rating of the boiler. The basic on-off controls fitted to 95% of houses don’t facilitate this. Most boilers are also grossly oversized for heating and set at too high output which also reduces their efficiency.

Once your house is up to temperature, it loses heat in proportion to the difference between the inside and outside temperature. This means you can trickle in heat slowly in a highly efficient way to just replace the heat that’s being lost. That’s how it can be cheaper, YMMV though.

The heat pump for my entire house is only 6kw at it’s maximum output and that is more than enough to keep the house warm on the coldest days of the year, most of the time it’s running on its minimum output and that’s more than enough at this time of year.
 
With heat pumps, is the idea to leave them on continuously to keep the home warm ? What about opening windows to let fresh air in ?

Aren’t we told to open windows for a few minutes a day? What about the loss of heating?
The heat energy is in the budling fabric so the heat loss is insignificant. Apparently a very common practise in central Europe (Germany = Stoßlüften) where they have been years ahead with heat pump installations.
 
Back
Top Bottom