Heat Pumps: anyone have one/thought about it?

:( still no further on with mine, DNO are really slowing things down. Had a electrician drive about 6 hours to get here yesterday, he was authorised to work on the cut out and metre to see if he could fit the new metre tails so that was ready. But he had the same problem as the previous guy and said the cut out needs replacing.

Been nearly 2 weeks now since the DNO came out, tried contracting them twice to see if I can get an update and been told someone will call me back but they havent.

I think at this rate im just goign to have to get a combi installed, its going to be well into winter by the time they can even start the ASHP install and I cant be goign that long without heating.
 
ryhoper1 said:
:( still no further on with mine, DNO are really slowing things down. Had a electrician drive about 6 hours to get here yesterday, he was authorised to work on the cut out and metre to see if he could fit the new metre tails so that was ready. But he had the same problem as the previous guy and said the cut out needs replacing.

Been nearly 2 weeks now since the DNO came out, tried contracting them twice to see if I can get an update and been told someone will call me back but they havent.

I think at this rate im just goign to have to get a combi installed, its going to be well into winter by the time they can even start the ASHP install and I cant be goign that long without heating.
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Why can't you just have it off of your existing leccy meter? Are you getting a huge one? My nibe has been drawing around 1.6kWe at full load, half that of my kettle
 
ryhoper1 said:
:( still no further on with mine, DNO are really slowing things down. Had a electrician drive about 6 hours to get here yesterday, he was authorised to work on the cut out and metre to see if he could fit the new metre tails so that was ready. But he had the same problem as the previous guy and said the cut out needs replacing.

Been nearly 2 weeks now since the DNO came out, tried contracting them twice to see if I can get an update and been told someone will call me back but they havent.

I think at this rate im just goign to have to get a combi installed, its going to be well into winter by the time they can even start the ASHP install and I cant be goign that long without heating.
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Odd, it’s usually the cut out which is the last part to change.

The tails between the cut out and the meter, and the onward tails to the consumer unit (Via an isolator) all need to be 25mm before they will update the cut out fuse.

You’d usually get the metering guys out first to do both ends connect into the meter up to an isolator, your electrician would need to do the ‘customer side’ from the isolator switch and then the DNO come in last and swap the fuse.
 
shroomz said:
Why can't you just have it off of your existing leccy meter? Are you getting a huge one? My nibe has been drawing around 1.6kWe at full load, half that of my kettle
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It's with it being a looped supply. There's some conflict over if it needs to be de looped or not. When the dno came out he said should be ok with a bigger fuse but the guy that came yesterday said he has never came across that they usually just de loop.


b0rn2sk8 said:
Odd, it’s usually the cut out which is the last part to change.

The tails between the cut out and the meter, and the onward tails to the consumer unit (Via an isolator) all need to be 25mm before they will update the cut out fuse.

You’d usually get the metering guys out first to do both ends connect into the meter up to an isolator, your electrician would need to do the ‘customer side’ from the isolator switch and then the DNO come in last and swap the fuse.
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The way the cut out is it seems they can't fit new tails in
 
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shroomz said:
Heat pump in and on. Few bits of snagging to do and they'll come back to do a flush before handover.

Amazing how much a difference it makes having a tank with nearly instant hot water. Openenergymonitor will be running in a few mins, and maybe even the controls but I'll probably not touch any settings until they're ready for me to.
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Do share a link once you’re on OEM! Although there won’t be much to see until it gets cooler.

Yeah, agree constant hot water is so much better than I used to have when I scheduled it on each morning & boosted for showers/baths.
 
One of my neighbours is having a heat pump installed by AIRA, they've had a team of about 8 guys here all week and i'm doubtful that they'll finish the install by today looking at some of the hardware still outside.

I don't know if my neighbour is having a particularly complex install, but based on some quick napkin maths i don't see how a) AIRA make any money from these installs* and b) how it would be possible to install a heat pump in every UK property before gas boilers are phased out.

*Just did a quick quote on my property and total costs are 13k (with 7.5k for the gov grant). Assuming they pay their guys a 150 day rate that would put labour expenses at £750/week per guy - so about 6k. With the cost of the heat pump itself + piping and any other materials, along with disposal costs of current hardware, including general business overheads - their margins must be real thin.
 
Semple said:
One of my neighbours is having a heat pump installed by AIRA, they've had a team of about 8 guys here all week and i'm doubtful that they'll finish the install by today looking at some of the hardware still outside.

I don't know if my neighbour is having a particularly complex install, but based on some quick napkin maths i don't see how a) AIRA make any money from these installs* and b) how it would be possible to install a heat pump in every UK property before gas boilers are phased out.

*Just did a quick quote on my property and total costs are 13k (with 7.5k for the gov grant). Assuming they pay their guys a 150 day rate that would put labour expenses at £750/week per guy - so about 6k. With the cost of the heat pump itself + piping and any other materials, along with disposal costs of current hardware, including general business overheads - their margins must be real thin.
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I had aira round and a chat with their sales guy in Scotland. They're going after the octopus market so they're running at a loss at the moment to build backlog. I didn't go with them in the end because their design includes a 4-port buffer that's always piped up with 4 ports so it seems a risk of baking inefficiency into the system.
 
It depends how it’s plumbed in.

The one on my installation is a volumiser, meaning it’s simply there to add water volume to the heating circuit. It’s extra water it needs to heat but it also makes sure that there is enough water in the system to defrost the heat pump at all times (say all your TRVs closed on your rads).

It may be plumbed as a buffer where you effectively have 2 water loops in your system and they mix in the buffer. One between the heat pump and buffer, the other between your radiators and buffer. There are two pumps on the system one pumps heated water to the buffer from the heat pump and the pumps water around the rads which takes heat from the buffer.

The latter bakes in more inefficiencies than the former.

We probably don’t need the buffer, we have TRVs on most rads but they are all fully open and we have a lot of them despite only having a sub-6kw heat loss. That said we do have 10mm plastic micro ore which is not ideal for flow rates and reduces water volume.

They install it as the manufacturer requires it, once the warranty is done, I might fit a bypass and some valves to ‘delete it’.

There are scenarios where a buffer is needed so it’s best not to dismiss it out of hand.
 
Had Aira round yesterday, nice enough person to talk to about things but as expected, was not technical and thus unable to answer questions about the logistics of the install or design specifications.

Have been quoted a smidge under £5k for a 6kW Pump and a 250L cylinder and they seem extremely keen to get business, offering a potential install first week of September and a Technical Survey the week after next.

I guess I will only find out the specifics once I have agreed to a technical survey, but so far I'm pretty impressed with how they have operated. Far more efficient and keen than Octopus are/were and the less said about local plumbers the better. None want to call back, which means they are either very busy or very disorganised - either way, hard to muster the enthusiasm to keep trying.

Any suggestions on other options to explore?
 
Yes, their initial quote came in more expensive and they were set on a smaller water cylinder (150L) which I felt wasn't ideal. Aria is not without their own 'issues' such as the baked-in Weather Compensation Curve, but they are absolutely mustard when it comes to answering questions thus far - although you would expect that of them, as they want my money.

Perhaps I am in a weird situation here as my desire for a Heat Pump is more borne out of reducing the size of my current system install (I want the hot water tank in the upstairs landing cupboard and the cold tank in the loft gone) and spending money on an ASHP setup seems more sensible long-term than replacing my gas boiler with a modern one and getting an unvented cylinder installed.
 
my saga continues but hopefully a little closer.

When I was trying to ring the DNO for an update and having to explain the situation over and over one of them arranged for a contractor to come out and do the cut out change.

It turned out there are 4 houses in the loop and not just 2 like they had originally thought.

So the contractor had to arrange for someone to be in all of the 4 houses at the same time to schedule the works. They came out on fri and changed the cut outs in 3 of the houses, one of them had already been done previously. They also upgraded my fuse to 100amp.

The weird thing was the day before they turned up another contractor from a different company came out knocking on doors. He was talking about de looping and digging up my neighbours gardens but he didnt know that the supply came into my house. He had no idea the other contractor had been scheduled to come so he said let them do what they want to do and if we need to do more we will arrange it at a later date.

Speaking to the DNO afterwards they said things are good as they are and no more works currently need to be done. The power company also came out yesterday and installed the new metre so that is out of the way.

Just waiting for the heat pump installer to get back to me now.
 
Was just speaking to my installer today (Heat Geek partner) as he visited with Vaillant for a random site audit. They are very happy with the install, so reassuring for us. He did mention that there have been a lot of issues with DNO and certification of installs. The basic gist I got was that lots of installers are incorrectly specifying the rads/pipes, oversizing the heat pump to 10kw-12kw, when 5kw is sufficient with proper design in most residential 3-4 beds. The result is that you have a 40a heat pump and more recently constraints to domestic fuses of 80a. Add in an oven, induction hob and you can get peak demand over 100a. Nobody will sign off the jobs because they should have either had a smaller heat pump, or an upgrade to 3-phase before proceeding.
 
Small update on my Aira install, also known as the Muppet Show.

Currently sat in a house with no heating or hot water as they have spectacularly failed to commission the unit, leaving me stranded until someone, somewhere can figure it all out. Have had a procession of idiots working on the install, every one of them incapable of working with the others and happy to **** off their colleagues as being useless.

A small selection of my issues thus far:

- Paintwork and carpets in and around the installation area completely ruined, despite them laying down protective covers.
- Deep scratches and large dents in walls from pipes being left to fall onto them and/or lack of care being taken when moving parts around.
- Black dust from chasing out walls for cables ground into uncovered carpets and footprints walked into uncovered/protected areas.
- Hand and finger prints of the same black dust on every single door, door frame, skirting board and even the ceilings and carpets in and around the install area.
- A patch job of fixing the holes cut in walls/ceilings/etc to route cables and access areas that Stevie Wonder would be proud of.
- Water marks on my ceiling where the idiot removing the old HWC let it drip through the flooring and forgot about it.
- Pipework to my existing shower having been capped off by the same idiot as the previous point, leaving a total bodge needing to be done in a hurry by the Last Plumber Standing on-site to get it working before they bailed.
- Garden covered in rubbish, litter and the casing from the old HWC where they spent more time prepping to sell for scrap than they did working on my install.
- None of the old hardware from my loft removed (despite having this promised) as with it being plastic it has no scrap value therefore no interest to them.
- Zero contact from Aira throughout the process, total radio silence despite me asking the on-sites for someone senior to call me.
- No idea when they are coming back to try and fix things, but 'perhaps Monday if Sweden can work it out'.
- Buffer Tabk hanging off the wall at a weird angle as one of the installers seems to have leant on it and bent the brackets.

Here's an example of the 'quality' of their work.

- Cutting holes in my walls and ceilings did not need to be done, but they were too lazy/unwilling to lift carpets and floorboards to route cables.
- This is supposedly their 'making good' and the finished job.
- What you see here (minus the holes cut) is the state of my decor in and around the install area. Every surface, from floor to ceiling has marks like this.

nvy1hF2.png
 
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glitch said:
Small update on my Aira install, also known as the Muppet Show.

Currently sat in a house with no heating or hot water as they have spectacularly failed to commission the unit, leaving me stranded until someone, somewhere can figure it all out. Have had a procession of idiots working on the install, every one of them incapable of working with the others and happy to **** off their colleagues as being useless.

A small selection of my issues thus far:

- Paintwork and carpets in and around the installation area completely ruined, despite them laying down protective covers.
- Deep scratches and large dents in walls from pipes being left to fall onto them and/or lack of care being taken when moving parts around.
- Black dust from chasing out walls for cables ground into uncovered carpets and footprints walked into uncovered/protected areas.
- Hand and finger prints of the same black dust on every single door, door frame, skirting board and even the ceilings and carpets in and around the install area.
- A patch job of fixing the holes cut in walls/ceilings/etc to route cables and access areas that Stevie Wonder would be proud of.
- Water marks on my ceiling where the idiot removing the old HWC let it drip through the flooring and forgot about it.
- Pipework to my existing shower having been capped off by the same idiot as the previous point, leaving a total bodge needing to be done in a hurry by the Last Plumber Standing on-site to get it working before they bailed.
- Garden covered in rubbish, litter and the casing from the old HWC where they spent more time prepping to sell for scrap than they did working on my install.
- None of the old hardware from my loft removed (despite having this promised) as with it being plastic it has no scrap value therefore no interest to them.
- Zero contact from Aira throughout the process, total radio silence despite me asking the on-sites for someone senior to call me.
- No idea when they are coming back to try and fix things, but 'perhaps Monday if Sweden can work it out'.
- Buffer Tabk hanging off the wall at a weird angle as one of the installers seems to have leant on it and bent the brackets.

Here's an example of the 'quality' of their work.

- Cutting holes in my walls and ceilings did not need to be done, but they were too lazy/unwilling to lift carpets and floorboards to route cables.
- This is supposedly their 'making good' and the finished job.
- What you see here (minus the holes cut) is the state of my decor in and around the install area. Every surface, from floor to ceiling has marks like this.

nvy1hF2.png
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:eek:
 
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