You got mugged off, i pay 14p per kWh and use 7.5K kWh a year total. No way a heat pump would pay for itself before i died of old age.

This is all very interesting, however, is CO2 killing us? If so how? I need facts NOT projections. If, as a country we expend 1.2/1.4% of CO2, your contribution to that is ....well my computer is unable to find such a low number. If on the other hand, if you are doing it to reduce your cost, which has a direct effect on your life, then you MUST add in the cost of purchase, conversion and installation. Yes I understand that me, the tax payer, gives you that sub, but how long will it take you to recover that outlay against the savings. Your presentation is useless without this comparison! My estimate is 17 years?

My Octopus install starts on Monday. Looking forward to it.

are you calling your wife a heat pump or do you mean she is like a airco. cold on the inside but hot when you are going out.

I got this, I dont find this useful esp. if you have smart meter installed for gas as well. If you had just electricity, then this may be good. I am using the visual Geo Usage monitor. It also converts gas readings from hideous m3 to kwH. If I had to pay for this, then I would not buy. On hind sight I would not have registered to get this device.

Bravo Tom! We need to find a way to get those basic messages out and help people make informed decisions about what to do.

We've had our Mitsubishi Ecodan R32 heat pump for about a month now and I can say for sure it is much quieter than the oil boiler it replaced and doesn't spew condensation and oily smells. The pump sits right outside my home office window about 5m from my head and I regularly have my window open. I can just about hear it if I listen very carefully but only because we live in a cottage 400m from our nearest neighbour and on a very quiet road. My office ambient noise is 33dB according to my Apple Watch. Even when I can hear the pump, it's just a soft sound of airflow so is not objectionable.

Good message which sadly i feel will be heard mostly by the converted but even so, well said! We shall see how the Labour government does in this field what guidance, education, initiatives and help etc. I feel that many if not most people will only change their habits either when forced to or when they personally feel the impact of continued fossil fuel use. I have tried to do my bit, last week i scrapped our last gas appliance, the cooker, and happily having the gas main capped off on friday. We have evs and an ashp installed last year, they all work really well. This has been achieved over 9 years of change and investment, the solar panels will have paid for themselves this year.. not everyone will be able to do this or as quickly but its good to make some sort of start, even if its in attitude. Keep it up!

Low carbon goals are absolutely rubbish. You exhale CO2... So exactly how are YOU going to become Carbon Neutral? There is only ONE way... You simply must stop exhaling CO2. It is the ONLY way for you Hewnmans to reduce your personal CO2 outputs.

You’re a vegan I bet.

Keep It Simple, Stupid! (KISS) is a concept that works well in many engineering disciplines. ASHPs of the air-to-air type are much simpler, quicker and easier to install, and less expensive than the air-to-water type. Why am I not seeing them promoted by the government and the thinktanks?

Brilliant. I'll be sharing this. Everyone needs to hear this message!

Interesting exercise in the pros and cons of a HP installation. The room temperature (18) is a bit low which would have been particularly unpleasant in the evening just sitting especially if anyone is elderly. Also I assume the HP was running 24/7 so if the house was empty during the day this was a waste of electricity. The main problem of a HP is its inability to respond quickly

Bang on

try a classic heat pump... the one without the inverter board you replaced 3 times already

Great video Tom.... and very insightful. I am like others here trying to make a difference in our families impact on the environment, but circumstances dictate that I cannot make fundamental decisions on our household due to renting.... That said, this is why we have invested in community owned platforms for electricity generation [Ripple Energy] with the intention of reducing our oil consumption during the winter using infra-red heating panels instead of having whole house heating and am actively looking to replace fossil fuel vehicle with an electric vehicle instead, which I will charge at home. Baby steps... But do not lose hope, yes, the task is monumental, but the signs of change are getting brighter.... and we have yet to reach the inflection point.... But by 2030 we will be producing way more oil than we are consuming and that means prices will fall to make it less viable for new investment..... That is when real progress will be made

I find the process of changing my personal world difficult, I have watched videos, read articles until my head wants to explode.Having a small budget and living in a mass produced 1960 house means that every decision becomes overwhelming, which technology to go far, dealing with the nightmare heat loss in our badly built kitchen, solar or heat pump, can you trust the installer / company. It all becomes overwhelming. My experience with local trades in the northeast has not been a good one, having lost money fixing problems created by people who are really not invested in doing a good job. So, for me I am stuck in some strange stasis of inaction because the risk is high and there is no room far second chances because the fund and time to retirement will not give me a second chance. Sorry this is a ramble, but I cannot be the only one feeling this way. Loved the video by the way

I have a limited budget but I have managed to sell my diesel car and change to an EV. I also had solar panels fitted last year and I agree, they have absolutely no impact on the amount of gas I currently use for heating. The panels save me money and reduce my reliance on the grid, but if that decarbonises then I am not helping. I have invested in two Ripple Energy coop projects, one of them a wind farm. Sadly the way the country is dragging its heels over heat pumps has meant that when I needed to replace an old boiler last year my only option was another gas boiler, despite being eager to swap to a heat pump.

I presume you know that your “lapel” mic is not working on this vid? A lot of room echo. Not like your other videos. It’s just very difficult to listen to. We need this message out - loud and clear!

Can't believe your videos have so few views... where are you based? Did watch to the end btw ;) interesting what you said about GSHP vs ASHP

Some good points Tom,but when people change from gas to a heat pump the water flow is much cooler so the pumps are on and using more electric, so for a lot of people at this moment when electric is dearer than gas getting solar can offset this difference so getting solar is a good positive step, Then insulate then heat pump, There’s great satisfaction in seeing how much a system generates and lights the interest in renewables

It's interesting that hp has an increasing benefit on emissions as time goes on, whereas pv has a decreasing benefit. But with pv making something of value the whole finacial payback thing takes over meaning people who don't care about yhe environment instal pv. Hopefully ashp can get like this. Great video.

How does it get more efficient over time?

I've just been quoted £1100 by octopus to install ASHP system, in 4bed/4storey semi detached house. We have an EV, currently on the octupus intelligent tariff. no solar or battery storage... Work from home most of the time. Is it worth making the switch at this price? House is 4 yrs old, well built as part of a small development of 6 houses and well insulated. Is it likely to add to the value of the house of put off prospective buyers?

using the cost per kwhof heat isnt best or true comparison as gas power compared to elect effective ability to heat water to 65 of 75 degrees bto actualy heat the home quickly enough for the system to modulte down where the air sourse even with its enhanced coo figures has to run longer to achieve the same comfort temprature provided by gas i have done true comparrison on two nieghbouring properties with temp and timing set identically with both homes being used by 2working adults and one tennage child whose gas bills were within £140 per annum of each other from month one of installing a heat pump to month three the customer with the pump had lower tempratures in the home at every comparison and the pump ran for for an average of 4 times that of the boiler and on calculating actual units used in £s and pence not only was the property incapable of reaching the previous set temprature it cost almost35% more to do that now we deliberatly did not add to the insulation particualy due to the home being under 15 years old or added any larger radiators or pipework to compare like for like as had we done so we would have had to do the same to the other propertyto be fair. after doing this we removed the pump and replaced the gas boiler and i used the pump on a new grannie flat100m2 built to near zero loss?? standard as possible where we found it would run all day and not reach the 21 % temp required for the 84 and 87 year old inhabitants fortunotly when built we not only put in the underfloor pipe work as suggested but we also ran a circut for radiators to suit we gthen connected the rads to the main hose on its own zone and found the propety reached teprature in under an hour from cold and required no more than two hours totall running time a day to maintain it so despite wishing for a better outcome its clear that like for like it was not even close in running cost and as for the gentalmen saying the paybaack even his figures would be 31 years wasnt important im sorry but to most people i know it is

I've got this on a government grant coming to install soon

An interesting watch and read. I dry lined my four level victorian semi house in multiple occupancy bubblefoil and battened air gaps myself a lot of work but has proved very effective. Simplest is best,all considered has proved correct at 81 :-) Heating we have Baxi balanced flue gas wall heaters no maintenance cost one in my accomodation forty years old pass annual test every year. The two Brittony 2T water heaters for the two kitchens and three bathrooms twelve years old gas use and registered gas fitter costs maintenance significant probably replace with condensing gas water heaters. Old brittony then scrap? no they will sell on ebay cost of electrical safety distancing changes to baths to pass regulations is I guess why they sell as they do not need a powered flue. Living in Vancoouver in late 1970's we had sawdust burning gravity warm air central heating system,lovely pine smell when it did not go out in the middle of the night! some of these the flue accumulated pitch residue and caught fire fortuntely ours did not. Now virgin forest trees in BC are gound up to make wood chips shipped more than ten thousand miles to burn in Yorkshire how can anyone make sense of such nonsense?

Update: As of July 2024, Octopus are introducing a third cheap period on Cosy - from 10pm to midnight - and the cheap price is dropping to 11.48p. I think Cosy is an underrated tariff. We moved to it from Agile as it's much easier to manage for a family and dead easy to program if you have a battery - even a small one because you can top up three times a day. It also means that everyone knows the cheap times for running the dishwasher, washing machine etc. We managed to get the average kWh price on Agile down to about 14p, but that involved a lot of 'management' - Cosy just sets a figure and a time and we run with it. I'm confident that, with the battery, we can run 95% of the time at 11.48p. As you mentioned, a heat pump tends to work best when constantly on, but I understand you can tweak it to make use of the cheap periods. (I'll do that when I've figured out the most complicated manual I have ever seen...)

Low carbon should mean low cost but the greed of losing money hurts them so they'll up the price

I bet if we find any kind of low cost energy greedy companies would up the price... So you never win

I'm gradually gaining an appreciation for Mechanical Engineering! I didn't realise councils took such a professional view of reducing their impact, I had thought it was more ad-hoc.

Fool..Just stop oil campaigner

You are a superstar, Tom. I am really nervous about getting a heat pump. I am hoping that my decision to go ahead with Octopus will be trouble free. Help from you and other people on KZbin has helped me enormously to get this far. Jean

Not available to busy, but another low carbon option is district heating

Good idea Tom, definitely be looking at those tonight 👍

Great work! Well done Tom! 👍

Thanks for highlighting this! I agree with your conclusion. A good friend of mine is a sustainable energy manager for a large housing association. He is being strangled by bureaucracy and is lacking support from his senior leadership in his attempts to decarbonise the thousands of properties they oversee. At every turn, hundreds of gas boilers are still being reinstalled and dont even get him started on district heating solutions 😢 ASHP are the solution right now and we need to continue to speak up and make our voices heard to effect change at a better pace!

Good looking as well as logical,what more do you want 😉

I agree, decarbonize now, and be clear that air source heat pumps are the available technology that already works and is deployable now.

What a great idea! Eventually, these larger district-sized schemes will be part of the full picture. The Gateshead Mine Water Heat Scheme is already up and running, more or less heating the Tyne South Bank stretch between the Tyne Bridge and the Baltic (Gateshead College, the Glasshouse, the Baltic itself, various offices, a few hundred homes, etc.) and is looking to expand, so it's not all downs for this type of GSHP! Handling contaminated mine water might be problematic in the open-loop form mentioned, though, actually pumping the water from within the mine workings. What about sinking a closed-loop heat exchange system down the old mine shafts? I realise that's not quite at point of use, since old mine heads are not conveniently placed... Mind you, ASHPs in the form of AC (especially VRVs) have been used for decades - Daikin, Hitachi, etc. offered very quick and flexible ways to shift heat in or out. My engineering experience from about 35 years back included TSB branch refurbishment that relied on these air-to-air cassette units, connected to the outside by refrigerant pipework running along electrical cable trays for support. The only branch that I worked on which needed something different was TSB Preston, a traditional heavyweight regional central bank building with vaults, stone walls, offices and other features not found in the smaller, more open-plan high street branches that are now mostly gone. It's not new tech by any means, but has been progressively more refined and integrated over the years, hand-in-hand with more efficient buildings.

Please just mow a path that you need to get through it or get right in to it. Don’t mow or storm it all back. It should be “No Mow Summer” instead. We all dare you to just strum or mow a path or two - then show us on your next monthly videos until end of September. Then end of September, if you want to mow then you can - but let it all lie on the ground first for a few days or week or two (as the grass and wildflower seeds need to disperse and settle in to the ground). Then collect up all the big stalks/heads/grass so the ground doesn’t get more nutrients. Done. We dare you to do that !

Lime better

If only they did this. We are in a situation where we are locked into a single provider who can charge as they please. The cost is astronomical. We pay £45 for 30 kW of heat. Our provider's net profit was £2m on 10,000 homes. Ours is the former London Olympics Heat Network.

Hi Tom, I've just found your channel, as we're about to have a re-survey from Octopus, so I've been soaking up all of the KZbin videos on heat pumps that I can find. This is a great video and you're a natural presenter! If we do have a Heat Pump very soon (fingers crossed), then I'll definitely use the excellent advice in this video. Thanks for the information. Phil

Interesting video. In unused rooms, couldn't you keep the panel at a low temp, like you would leave a rad on a low setting? Its looks to be something worth researching for those who are unable to get a heat pump.

I do not know what the cost of solar is in the UK, but in the Netherlands it is at an all-time low. Putting up as many panels as you can install and afford will help you save money for doing more good later, instantly cuts down on fossil power and will help support the electrification process. Next would be to properly insulate your home with the savings on your electricity bill. This will save you money, independent of the heat source. This will be much more disruptive in the home than putting up some solar panels in most cases, so you could do it in smaller steps which suit your budget, time and family situation. When the insulation is good enough, you are also saving on heating, so now more money becomes available for a heat pump. Also, with more insulation a smaller (cheaper) heat pump is needed and with enough solar panels it will be insanely less expensive to run in all but the darkest months of the year. Having completed all of these improvements, you will still have spent less money than a typical EV and it is very likely the grid and battery technology will have improved a lot in the time you needed to do all of this. Currently the grids worldwide just are not able to handle charging this many cars anyway and without a massive amount of extra renewables it would force us to use gas or even re-open coal power plants. This should all improve with time, but de-centralising the power generation is a much better concept than a nuclear power plant which needs thousands of miles of massive cables to get the energy to where it is needed. Also Nuclear is much more expensive than any renewable nowadays, so the solar power will save you a small fortune yearly when Hinkley Point C finally does start producing way too expensive energy in the future. While gas power plants are not that bad at about 60% efficiency, using them to power EV's will not make for a great CO2 reduction, and using coal power plants to charge them is even worse than just keeping your petrol car for now because aside from being at most 40% efficient they emit very toxic particles that make CO2 a relatively harmless gas in comparison.