17,000kwh per year?? Nutty parents!

[katie279]

Hi all,

Just trying to get my head around this - parents have just renovated a house from top to bottom and insulated it thoroughly to have an air source heat pump installed.

They don't have an EV and just the two of them living there. It's a fairly large place - about 3000sq feet, but was amazed when they said that their bills were 17,000kwh per year...

I can't believe this is normal for an air source heat pump system???

They've had the electricity firm check that their meter is reading correctly and all seems fine apparently, but I just can't believe this?

Am I missing something?? Does anyone have air source heat pump bills to compare

 

[azazl187]

I believe a modern day 4 bed will cost around 19000kw to heat a year so it sounds about right to me.

Heat source pumps are a great invention but they do use a lot of electricity to run in my opinion. It's all about the government attempting to get us away from using fossil fuels to hear our homes so they have pumped millions into companies that sell heat pumps to get them out there and promote them to replace normal oil and gas boilers.

One of the big pushes to sell them is that they cost less energy to run and are better for the environment but the reality is that these days they are actually much more expensive to run, are noisy and if not installed correctly or in the right place are not that efficient either.

Just take a look at the EDF energy website to see how out of date the predictions are on how much it costs to run annually.

I work with installers on new builds and I am not a fan personally.

 

[SDK^]

I believe a modern day 4 bed will cost around 19000kw to heat a year so it sounds about right to me.

Air source heat pumps have a COP of 2.5 to 3.5 so surely that kWh heating requirement (19,000) should need 7600 kWh to 5400 kWh of electricity?

 

[theone8181]

I believe a modern day 4 bed will cost around 19000kw to heat a year so it sounds about right to me.

Heat source pumps are a great invention but they do use a lot of electricity to run in my opinion. It's all about the government attempting to get us away from using fossil fuels to hear our homes so they have pumped millions into companies that sell heat pumps to get them out there and promote them to replace normal oil and gas boilers.

One of the big pushes to sell them is that they cost less energy to run and are better for the environment but the reality is that these days they are actually much more expensive to run, are noisy and if not installed correctly or in the right place are not that efficient either.

Just take a look at the EDF energy website to see how out of date the predictions are on how much it costs to run annually.

I work with installers on new builds and I am not a fan personally.

Nice pun. Seems ironic that you get penalised for something that's meant to be more efficient as electricity must be 2-3 times more than gas at the moment.

 

[SDK^]

- parents have just renovated a house from top to bottom and insulated it thoroughly to have an air source heat pump installed.
amazed when they said that their bills were 17,000kwh per year...

If your parents have just done this how do they know the yearly use?
Surely estimating a year based on cold weather temp use will skew it very high for the year (in summer they won’t need to use as much if at all)

 

[1pudding1]

We've got a mid sized (180m2) 3/4bed house, uses a GSHP for most heating (A2A for 2 rooms in an extension so still electric heat pump) and our annual usage is about 7000kW. Thats for a famliy of 4 with other half working from home. So either the insualtion and renovation is shocking, the setup of the heating and DHW and heat pump is shocking, or your parents use of the house is shocking.

 

[azazl187]

Air source heat pumps have a COP of 2.5 to 3.5 so surely that kWh heating requirement (19,000) should need 7600 kWh to 5400 kWh of electricity?

Ah yes you are right, I read the original post incorrectly.

 

[azazl187]

We've got a mid sized (180m2) 3/4bed house, uses a GSHP for most heating (A2A for 2 rooms in an extension so still electric heat pump) and our annual usage is about 7000kW. Thats for a famliy of 4 with other half working from home. So either the insualtion and renovation is shocking, the setup of the heating and DHW and heat pump is shocking, of your parents use of the house is shocking.

Agreed, it is on the high side. This is either down to poor insulation in the house or the pipework running from the heat pump or the location of that heatpump ( in the shade for example)

 

[tonys]

Just looked at my estimated usage for the year and it's 7,700kw. That's all electric, in a partly insulated, extended 1930's semi detached with 2 adult's.

 

[SpellowHouse]

Heat source pumps are a great invention but they do use a lot of electricity to run in my opinion. It's all about the government attempting to get us away from using fossil fuels to hear our homes so they have pumped millions into companies that sell heat pumps to get them out there and promote them to replace normal oil and gas boilers.

One of the big pushes to sell them is that they cost less energy to run and are better for the environment but the reality is that these days they are actually much more expensive to run, are noisy and if not installed correctly or in the right place are not that efficient either.

Just take a look at the EDF energy website to see how out of date the predictions are on how much it costs to run annually.

I work with installers on new builds and I am not a fan personally.

Indeed! Heatpumps are not something to save money. They don't generate power, they simply move it from one place to another and that costs money. They do reclaim energy at a rate of about 3:1 ish but even that depends on how well positioned they are. Thing is when they are running they get cold. Very cold. And when they get cold they need to stop and allow or force themselves to warm up. Silly thing is that they are even less adept in cold environments because they are less able to warm themselves up again. So the colder the weather is the less efficient they become. They also of course have a high initial cost which is important if its a retro-fit. And by the time you factor in maintenance you are basically saying that they are to save the environment, not so much cost less.

 

[Mickie]

Make sure their immersion heater isnt on 24hrs a day as its used to top up the hot water, heat pumps only get to about 45c.

 

[keyser van someone]

I'm reading up on this recently and might one day get a heat pump, mostly to get away from gas. Heat pumps generally work at lower temps and the aim there is they might be on nearly 24/7 in a sort of 'low and slow' mode, either with radiators or under floor heating. There are also higher temperature heat pumps models that would output closer to a gas boiler. Ideally the home should be insulated as best as possible first because most houses from pre-90s (and post 90s!) leak heat by a lot and for some reason we are only just realising how important that part is.

If the OPs using a heat pump and is still using 17,000kwh / year of electricity that means we should times that by 3 (51000Kwh/year) to get an idea of how much heat that house apparently is using. Maybe they left a loft window open? lol

 

[dirtychinchilla]

Air source heat pumps have a COP of 2.5 to 3.5 so surely that kWh heating requirement (19,000) should need 7600 kWh to 5400 kWh of electricity?

If you operate them properly, yes. If you're expecting to deliver 80C to the house then the COP will be way worse than that.

So either the insualtion and renovation is shocking, the setup of the heating and DHW and heat pump is shocking, or your parents use of the house is shocking.

I suspect that might be part of the problem. Heat Geek do seem to know what they're doing - might be worth getting in touch with a company like that to review what the setup is.

As others have said though, is this really an annual profile you're looking at for 17,000 kWh? If I look at my current energy consumption and assumed no demand profile on the heating, I'd be looking at about 9,000 kWh/year for a small 3 bed (900 sqft). But the heating consumption will drop dramatically very soon, so I suspect it'll be more like 6,000 kWh for the year.