Heat Pumps - Our 'Ugly' Truth!

[@RichardOzanne]

Glad to see you made the switch! We're now 9 years into heat pump ownership having come from an oil boiler. Same as you, our boiler was end of life (it had actually died in our case) so we took the plunge a few months earlier than planned. Ours is a 12KW Panasonic and heats water up to 65 degrees. We run it at 55 degrees in winter, although it adjusts itself for weather conditions. Payback was a little over 5 years so we're well in profit now. Best thing we ever did! It plumbed straight into our existing radiators and cylinder. The only additions were an expansion vessel near the heat pump and a small tank in the return pipework which moderates the return temperature so the HP isn't switching on and off all the time. Efficiency, as you say, is not as good on older HPs and, like MPG claims for cars, doesn't match the quoted numbers, but the savings are clear to see. Looking forward to updates on this project as time passes and you learn more.

[@edc1569]

What did you have before the heat pump?

[@RichardOzanne]

@@edc1569 A Camray 5 oil boiler.

[@robertjohnston8690]

You sound like an infomercial. 🤣😂💀☠💩🤠

[@TonyOrc]

An excellent, well-balanced video. Many thanks. I am already using first4solar (halfway through installing solar+batteries) and my experience with them is top notch. EDIT: The replies to this are correct. 8 months later and still nothing installed. Nothing but a total lack of communication and missed install dates.

[@simonstewart872]

It must be April Fools day . First 4 Solar are the WORST in the business-zero customer care and a couldn't care less attitude means we cancelled our order after 4 months of zero respones!

[@fishfienduk]

@@simonstewart872 I would have to agree, worst customer care ever...their install however was top notch..and I always over investigate all my purchases, so I end up knowing more than them..if you want something done..do it yourself!

[@felixreali7101]

We've had our HeatPump for 4 years now and we wouldn't change it for the world. Clean efficient heating. We will be installing solar panels soon too (with battery) and we'll almost be bill-free! Our HeatPump installer is absolutely brilliant; very knowledgeable and honest from the start. He did mention that we would have to look at improving a few things to get it to run even better, but these were things that we knew already and that we were planning to do anyway (like installing a new front door cos ours is basically cardboard and also insulating our attic a little better) But as I say, we're super happy to have installed it. And just to let you know, I had to fight with my wife, my dad and my father in-law for 3 years before being allowed to have it installed, cos they all thought it wouldn't work.... (we're in Ireland btw)

[@BrianWrenn]

🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪

[@effervescence5664]

As someone that fits all types of systems this was a no brainer for your property, it isn't suitable for everyone or all properties though. Good job on getting a Vailant though they're some of the nicest on the market with probably the best warranty support. It's nice to see a balanced video of get your property sized up for one (hopefully by competent engineers and not sales reps).

[@andytaylor6893]

Hi EVM. Yes, your pump might be nice and quiet in summer when it’s not really doing much. However in winter when it’s near freezing, the pump is working hard and possibly doing a defrost cycle, please report back! Ours is occasionally very noisy. This is why it’s still important to site the pump carefully and to isolate it from the house - ie not attach it to the house but to have it free-standing.

[@A2Z1Two3]

@@coldlyanalytical1351 Are you sure it’s switched on 😂

[@briantarby675]

We live in Denmark and have had a heatpump for 3 years without any problems. The house is from 1934 and we upgraded one radiator. The water temperature for heating is 38 C in winter and between 30-32 C in summer. But I wouldn't buy it to small. Some companies said we should have a 6 kW and some said 11 kW. Both would probably be able to heat the house but the small one might use to much energy from the electric heater and make it inefficient. The electric heater is used to raise the water temperature for tap water to the right level. We went for a 11 kW but one of my friends went for a 6 kW (cheaper to buy) in the same type of house. Their heatpump is not as efficient as ours and therefore much more expensive to run. In short... Make sure that your heatpump is the right size. Not to big and not to small

[@Chris-mh3vf]

I would recommend going nowhere near first for solar, i ordered a battery from them with six to eight week delivery in February they still have not installed it, i have had install dates given and then cancelled at the last minute i must have spoken to almost all of their staff including the MD. All with no result., read their reviews i am not alone, there is a reason they want 50% deposit its so you cant run away , i have never used such a terrible company , and i work in construction, engage first for solar at your peril, you have been warned!

[@williamarmstrong7199]

I do not know this company so cannot speak about it specifically, however all installers are suffering from supply and cost issues. I have been looking for an expansion to my house battery (5KWh to 15KWh) and it is taking many months to get supply. Each delivery to the wholesalers is being delayed and when it arrives the price has gone up. I have been quoted prices 50% higher from some supploers than others. Fully paid mine now but still waiting for delivery. Wish me luck!

[@jamesbarnes2623]

Couldn't agree more. Solar and battery bought and fitted by F4S. Price and sales were great but everything else sucked big time. Mislead time and time again about installation dates.....such a shame as they would be a great company if they just told me the truth.

[@kiddwong4186]

@@williamarmstrong7199 I had a similar experience. We ordered our GivEnergy battery in Feb 2022 and it finally came in July. Had to wait another month for the WiFi dongle that was needed to commission and actually run it. Supply is massively delayed for all domestic renewable systems

[@solarenergy4u]

@@jamesbarnes2623 Gives me a little faith they may actually get around to me then!

[@stuartburns8657]

That is why you buy things like that on your credit card. Then call the CC company and submit a section 75. They'd chase the company and get your money back

[@banquo46]

I 'm a pensioner living in a 1970s detached house with 12 large windows, solid uninsulated floor and cavity walls. For myself and probably most of the house owning population (UK) it's all about cost/benefit. To insulate my house up to Scandinavian standard (triple glazing etc), replace the whole pipe system (microbore) new radiators and underfloor insulation would be not be cost effective...Quite frankly I could not afford to use my savings for something that isn't a benefit. Like electric cars they are a great idea but only for people who can afford them-Good Luck

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

You wouldn’t need Scandinavian levels. Not sure where this comes from. As for insulation, that would make the same sense with any heating, gas especially.

[@jacko791]

I have to admit, I'm a heat pump sceptic. This system does look a lot better than most of the others I've seen so far though and I can see them catching on if the market moves towards self contained units like this. You said you're going to wait for the usage data before you can comment about how well the system works but it seems you're already pretty sold on how great they are. For a sceptic like myself I'd be more likely to believe your figures once you have them if you hadn't made so many claims about how they will work in any property, any climate, etc when you don't yet actually have any experience to back up those claims. I can watch heat pump expert videos to get their opinions about how good the tech is in broad terms, as an end user it's probably best to stick to your own experience once we get in to winter.

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

If most of Scandinavia uses heat pumps and has for years, and lots of different houses in the UK also have them, that’s all the evidence needed to prove they can work anywhere. What mine does doesn’t provide proof they’ll work in other climates. If no one can comment without experience, how can anyone be a skeptic?

[@jacko791]

@@ElectricVehicleMan I'm not saying you're wrong, it was just a point about your style of presentation. Obviously one approaches the video knowing you have some bias towards the tech (since you've invested your money installing it) but the way you made statements of fact about how they will work anywhere, then later pointing out you're not an expert in the tech made your bias seem larger

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

I can make statements of fact from research. The moon orbits the earth. See it’s easy. Otherwise if you’re saying only an expert can comment, then that means journalists are all bias as they’re not experts in whatever they’re reporting. If an expert (heat geeks in my case) states something, it doesn’t mean no one else can.

[@jacko791]

@@ElectricVehicleMan sorry I wasn't trying to start an argument. Just pointing out that to someone like me who isn't sold on it, you seemed to be overly biased towards the tech. The point is you're not a journalist, you're a youtuber and I'm sure most people are here to hear about you're learned experience. If you want to preach to the converted that's cool, but it would probably be more powerful to convert people who aren't yet convinced.

[@anthonyschofield7807]

But where in most houses with combi boilers and therefore no cylinder cupboard would you be able to accommodate that huge tower?

[@edc1569]

You can't, people who have got rid of their cylinder cupboards and have no loft space are in a difficult space, stuck with combi's for now. I suspect eventually they'll bring out a large outdoor unit, but for many that won't be a great solution either.

[@geoffnewman3109]

Its not huge, its about the size of an upright fridge freezer or a wardrobe.

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

You can get separate smaller components, this is just an all-in-one solution.

[@Swwils]

You'd not bother with wet hearing at all and simply have A2A cassettes.

[@entropy5431]

Seems to be a lot of negative comments. What I'd like to know is how much was the install and how much does it cost to run a month? I'm fairly certain they work if installed properly but at what cost?. (Please don't include solar and battery as most don't have that yet and would be purchased before a heat pump).

[@ralger]

I live in western Canada . Our house is 1400 sq feet above ground with a 700 sq foot basement all heated by forced air and one small fan coil running off a storage style gas hot water heater . In a city of over one million people I could only find one reputable firm who installed heat pumps . Our weather goes from +35C to -40C so I was prepared for some high quotations , the contractor said $31500 CDN which included a backup gas furnace as they had no system that could handle our climate even though I know some exist nobody here sells and installs them 😮 I found one manufacturer in Winnipeg called Arctic Air they make an air to liquid heat pump but even it had to have auxiliary imbedded electric immersion heat rods to work in my climate . They quoted me $65000 USD plus they had no local installer who could help me. I gave up at that point installed a high efficiency forced air gas furnace for $8600 CDN . I’m 64 so there’s no way I’ll live long enough to make this practical. I have 1500 watt solar grid tie system on my roof and it’s generated 15 Megawatts in total over the last 9 years so I guess I’m just going to leave my house as is for now. Canada does not seem to be ready for this type of heating at least not in extremely cold temperature zones like I live in. Hello from Calgary Alberta Canada thanks for the informative videos 😊

[@pravda999]

My concern is the complexity of a heat pump system. How many years do they continue to support their systems with spare parts? How quickly will they ship a spare part? Do they keep all spares for all their systems in stock? Any Corgi certified engineer can fix any gas boiler but what choice do I have about who will service and fix this heat pump?

[@clivepierce1816]

We installed a Daikin Altherma 3 heat pump in June. The peak power output is slightly more than yours but we have a larger, detached property. Flow temperature 46 C; SCOP 3.8. We opted for a Mixergy water tank which is programmable to make the most of cheap overnight electricity, though we also have solar PV and a home battery to offset the running costs. At current and projected electricity prices it will pay for itself within the warranty period.

[@solarenergy4u]

Hope they come good for me!

[@hamshackleton]

Interesting, but of absolutely no use to me. Why? My house is pre-war, with no wall cavity, so therefore no insulation - and - I don't have a garage to put that enormous rack of whatsits in! Factor in my age, and I'd probably die before I broke even on the installation costs - if I could afford them!

[@tourbike]

When I lived in Denmark. Our home had the joy of using wood pellets. I would dump a sack in the hopper in the morning and it was seriously toasty all day long. The burner lived in the cellar with some creative pipework to warm every room. It's going to be nice to see how you get on with the heat pump. Good luck

[@davidsundquist1845]

NOT the future

[@kiddwong4186]

Great to see you've made the leap to ASHP. You've got the right setup with solar PV and batteries to cut your costs down. Last winter on the old Octopus Go tariff we spent £100 a month with solar PV but no battery. We just got our 8.2kwh GivEnergy battery commissioned and running and about to move to the more expensive Octopus Go tariff (similar to your rates). We'll see how quickly the battery gives a ROI.

[@ecoterrorist1402]

My case with batteries have been Summer battery use 4 Kwh avg Winter battery use 6 to 8 This summer saving £50 Winter saving £80 Yr saving £860 Solar Panels still have the best ROI, but every little energy saving nibbles at lowering

[@universeisundernoobligatio3283]

In Canada put in a ground source heat pump, went from $3000 propane to $300 electricity. With grants payback was 8 years. Preheats the hot water to 45degC in a storage tank, then an electric hot water tank. Put a timer on the hot water tank to only heat at the lowest electricity rates. Summer air conditioning is almost free since I'm dumping the heat into the cold ground which is around 5degC

[@infinityNmore]

Thanks for sharing your experience 🙂. I had also installed a heat pump in my 50 year old house (12 years ago). And it was the best decision I could have made. It was expensive as it is a geothermal heat pump, but it's very economical. To add to your experience, here's a few points I noticed or learned: - a heat pump also saves money in maintenance, as it doesn't need that (contrary to gaz heaters) - best would be to use a heat pump at low temperatures (like floor heating) as the higher the temperature, the lower the efficiency - in any case, a heat pump will always be much better than traditional resistive heaters In my case, in ten years, I have saved more money in my electricity bills than the cost of the heat pump itself. So yes, it can be expensive, but it remains a good investment 😉

[@Robert-cu9bm]

So you don't have gas mains?

[@infinityNmore]

@@Robert-cu9bm No gas. Just electricity as energy.

[@Isclachau]

@@infinityNmore That’s some speculative outlook. I will be better off in 10 years time Hmm 🤔 Here’s my prediction ( far likely to happen). Gas is now being considered Green again at an amazingly fast rate by those that called it the devil just a few years and months ago, funny that hey. (Even Greta has been thrown out of the gang) Therefore once the artificially created carbon zero demand loses support due to actual reality which it will, Gas will reign supreme and be cheaper than even 5 years ago. Gas boilers will once again be the tech of choice and heat pumps resigned to the looney tunes brigade. If I’m wrong I’ll be very,very, very surprised.

[@infinityNmore]

@@Isclachau it's not speculative. I have installed and I have saved money over the last 10 years compared to the previous heater. And if I compare to my parent's house which is heated with gas, including maintenance cost, my heat pump currently costs 1/4 of their gas burner in running costs. And gas prices are increasing more than electricity prices over here.

[@Isclachau]

@@infinityNmore Well we would need to know your old setup and what type of inefficient heater you were running. And clearly your not in the UK. But either way gas will come down significantly when the looney tunes running the show get their act together. Like I said you will start hearing gas is green again in the coming years,. It has to be a very very specific setup with almost perfect installation for heat pumps to be better than traditional (ground source like yours is obviously better) and from what I’ve seen they are not. Even EVM’s setup looks horrendous and is onto a loser.

[@hughmarcus1]

The minute you mentioned Scandinavia I almost switched off. This is a false comparison. Yes it’s colder there. (There’s actually energy to be harvested until you hit absolute zero -223’ or thereabouts) Why the comparison isn’t relevant isn’t temperature, it’s moisture. The U.K. & Ireland derive our temperate climate from the Gulf Stream. We are actually on the same latitude as Moscow where it’s routinely 30’ in summer & they have a metre of snow all winter. Why is any of this relevant? In the winter when the ambient temperature drops to around 4’ or less the moisture in the air that’s all around the heat exchanger in a heat pump begins to freeze. At this stage forget a coefficient of 3-1. The thing needs to thaw itself out. Depending on the model it will either go into reverse cycle (it extracts heat from your house to thaw itself) or it will have a ‘boost’ mode (that’s usually a 6kw immersion shoved up its bum). If you think 3-4’ is rare, in many places it’s not. It hung around 4’ in my area for a fortnight last winter & it was actually a mild winter. I used to work in renewables. The business was owned by a very bright engineer (who also had very high personal ethics). One day he said “guys we’re not selling any more air source heat pumps”. “I can’t, in good conscience sell a customer something I wouldn’t put in my own house”. He had done all his homework & came to that conclusion. Yes, if you’re in the midlands or the Home Counties & have a reasonably energy efficient house, then you might just get away with it. Though I’d never recommend fitting one without a thermal store & I’d advise fitting low temperature radiators. Final quote from a guy who’s fitted heat pumps for 30yrs. “ most ASHPs on sale are just glorified air conditioners” Grant’s hybrid is worth looking at as it uses a conventional boiler as a backup when the heat pump is struggling. At least they acknowledge there’s an issue.

[@ewadge]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I really like your content. Well explained and entertaining.

[@odinnln5694]

Heat pumps are neither good nor bad. It always comes down to "does the design work for the building and will you get a return on investment". Be interesting to see how you get on in winter.

[@JayBrainstorm123]

"don't trust anyone that tells you heat pumps don't work"..... Didn't you tell us heat pumps don't work a while ago?

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

I said they did work but given the resources we had at the time, we’ve decided to do other things first. Couldn’t justify the cost based on what I know know was ‘exaggerated’ install quotes. It’s a journey.

[@JayBrainstorm123]

@@ElectricVehicleMan I will let you off! I just re-watched that video and it was based on efficiency and cost. Hate to be vulgar but how much did the cost come down for you to change your mind?

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

@@JayBrainstorm123 It was more unexpected money than reduced price. Although not repiping anything helped.

[@terryross1754]

For new builds (best situation) or (semi-large) renovations, underfloor heating is a major game changer for comfort, aesthetics, and long-term economy. No need for ugly space-robbing radiators, and no need for 50-degree heating water. 23-25 degrees does nicely. For larger homes or 3-bed semis its a major improvement, but needs up-front investment.

[@ElectricCarAustralia]

Great, informative video. Always good to hear experience from the horses mouth and someone who has spent their own $. Keep up the great work. We've got heat pump heating/cooling in house and recently added a heat pump to our outdoor pool and it's works fantastic. We also had some learnings from our install and will have a video out in the next few months if anyone's interested from an Australian perspective.

[@Robert-cu9bm]

It's also a horse with invested interests in going 'green'.

[@Robert-cu9bm]

Not the same type of heat pumps. These only do water heating, whereas in Australia they're air heaters/ coolers.

[@ElectricCarAustralia]

@@Robert-cu9bm Hi Robert, I understand the difference between the tech. We have 3 heat pump types.1. The domestic/commercial hot water heating type (similar to video), 2 pool & spa water heating and 3 the air heating/ cooling type. Although we use solar evacuated tube heating system for our hot water as it's the most efficient in our circumstances. What do you have?

[@jayferret007]

we had a heat pump installed before last winter form an old oil burner, so happy with it cheaper by miles tons of hot water, very very happy with it

[@DIYJourney1]

Really good to see a likeminded video. This has opened my eyes to heat pumps. We have just had a 8kwh solar panel array installed with 10kw battery. Great video, keep up the informative videos

[@kiddwong4186]

That's a very big PV array! 10kwh battery is not going to be enough to maximize it's capacity

[@DIYJourney1]

@@kiddwong4186 Its absolutely enough, when you have a car with a 74kw battery ti excess in. Our export is very minimal. Even more so when our Hot Water Energy Diverter is installed.

[@zackblack7564]

​@@DIYJourney1 My hot water diverter was one of the best investments I have made in years. Looking forward to getting a battery. An electric car is sadly years asway for me.

[@Ohnonotthecomfychair]

Yes of course heat pumps work! But their economic success is almost entirely based upon the ‘spark gap’ (difference between cost per kWh of gas verses electricity). And air source heat pump efficiency is of course at the mercy of ambient air temperature. I have been designing heat pump installations for commercial properties for a while. So I know a little bit about HP economics. It will be interesting to establish your annual seasonal COP which takes into account winter external temperature and additional energy you will incur on defrosting your evaporator. I think you have done the right thing though and it is useful to see the domestic consumer experience on show.

[@VoxelLoop]

About 2 months back I got my own ASHP setup installed. For my house it wasn't practical to do ducted and as I live alone in a big 4 bedroom house I wanted to be able to heat individual rooms. I ended up with 6 indoor units. 3x 1.5kW, 2x 2.5kW, and 1x 5kW. Outside, I have 2 outdoor units, one on each side of the house controlling 3 indoor units each. One rated at 11kW capacity and the other I believe 13kW. Both are fused at 8 amps. (About 2kW) System has been working great. Got a GivEnergy 9.5kWh battery getting installed tomorrow with a 5.5kWh solar system and the 5kW Hybrid inverter. Unfortunaterly I have no hot water heating outside of the gas boiler though, problem for another time I suppose. :)

[@pdtech4524]

The increased cost of electricity is a concern when that heat pump is going to have to be run pretty much constantly through winter to be efficient! 😲⚠️🤔

[@edc1569]

Didn’t gas get more expensive too?

[@pdtech4524]

@@edc1569 Precisely, heat pumps are being pushed forward as a 'better' all round solution compared to 'old' gas boilers, ie cheaper to run and better for the planet plus more efficient. For me personally I'm not seeing where the benefits are? Gas fired power stations already produce the majority of our electricity in the UK. Gas boilers are at about the peak of their efficiency, mine is only a couple of years old and I can tell.it is far more efficient than my last boiler, my house is warmer and costs less to keep warm! It's going to be another 20 years or more before we see renewable energy becoming our main source of energy. But I doubt we'll get to that point as demand for power increases exponentially as the EV market gains momentum, certainly by 2030 we'll see a huge increase in demand for power, we're already very close to full capacity on the national grid. I think.heat pimps are probably going to work fine in modern thermally efficirnt houses designed to run them. But in the UK most of our housing stock is older, draughty and thermally much less efficient, a heat pump will not work in those circumstances. You're right heating my home with a gas boiler is going to be much more expensive this winter. Hence why I have installed a wood burner, I've already built up enough wood to last me through winter just by foraging. 👍

[@rogerevans425]

We live in a 1920s bungalow, and have been told, by several installers how we would need to install underfoor insulation, as well as many plumbing changes, that would work out at nearly £50k. Recently, we had an old-school plumbing company come in who took one look at our system and said all we had been told before was rubbish, all we needed to do was swap the boiler for a heat pump - the reason being we have a thermal store system (as we have it linked to our wood burner back boiler as well the gas boiler), and that is well suited to a heat pump. After having been put-off we are now actively investigating the possibility.

[@nickwinn7812]

The first thing you need to consider is the overall efficiency of the building - not just the heating appliances themselves, So - is the building insulated to the current building regs specs? or higher if possible? Whatever your heat source, however efficient it is, if the building is letting that heat out at a great rate, you are just pissing into the wind. Underfloor heating works very well with heat pumps because it has the same requirement of a low flow temperatyure of around 40 - 45 C. However it is not essential to have it - you can run radiators at this lower temperature - they just need to be bigger ie have a larger surface area in order to deliver the same amount of heat into the room as a comparatively smaller radiater running at a higher temperature. So you will have to swap out some radiators, and probably, but not necessarily, change some of the pipework to them. Forget the underflooor heating ( which I'm guessing is the biggest part of the 50k ).. For a heat store to give you a good COP (coefficient of performance ((efficiency)) with a heat pump it will have to run at the lower temperatures which suit a heat pump and therefore, will have to be larger to be able to store the same amount of heat as the current one.. A heat store running at lower temperatures WILL NOT WORK WITH A WOOD BURNER. The heat exchanger in the woodburner will quicly build up kreosote deposits at these temperatures, which will reduce it's efficency and will corrode it. My advice to you is to pay a heating engineer to evaluate your propety and existing heating sytems and give his/ her recommendations. Make it clear from the outset that you do not want this heating engineer to do any installation you are paying them to do the maths and give recommendations.A few hundred quid spent up-front on expert advice from someone who is impartial have a very quick pay-back time!

[@deanbloomfield4863]

Hi EVMan! Looking forward to seeing the numbers on the "whiteboard of truth" over the coming weeks! 🙂 We had Givenergy installed with 8.2kWh battery after watching you vids on that! We're looking at getting an ASHP too, we're even thinking of installing another 8.2kWh battery to support heating needs through winter (and charging it with cheaper electricity). Will you be reporting on the fluctuation of how many kWh the heat pump uses through each day? That would be really interesting, especially to see if the consumption of the ASHP mainly stays below the output capacity of the Inverter. Thanks for these vids, important times to be on the ball as things are changing so quickly! Dean

[@stuartburns8657]

We to have a GE 8.2 kwh battery, and 6kwh PV. PV been next to useless the last 2 months in the UK, and whilst I usually agree with his man maths, I can see how an ASHP would be affordable. Maybe if electricity becomes cheaper, they'll be more viable

[@emotioneering]

Just ordered an Aira heat pump. 15 year maintenance, nice looking unit and all those years of Scandinavian weather experience. Nice looking too

[@tuc-dh4df]

I will wait for the winter figures to come in THAT will be the true make or brake for me, looking forward to that!

[@paulstubbs7678]

Hi, I'm from Australia, that tower as you call it is all but unknown to us over hear, we have very little hydronic heating over here (there is some, it's just not very common). Central heating is usually via air ducts etc. Heat pump hotwater systems are starting to take off, with a government funded scheme to rid us of electric hot water systems (as in with a heating element) and replacing them with heat pumps. Hopefully they will extend that one day to include gas fired hot water. Although at the moment the biggest problem over here is the price of electricity to run a heat pump. Our power has shot up 30%, with another 50% foreshadowed, so I'm kind of glad I have both a heat pump (as in reverse cycle air con) and a gas heater to choose from, depending on how the supply charges go. Unfortunately, in a way there is an advantage to gas. If the gas plant shuts down for whatever reason, it take a few weeks for the gas distribution pipes to empty, so if the plant it down for a few days, almost nobody is affected. On the other hand if the power network has a similar issue, the loss is immediate, no grace period at all... I suppose the answer to this lot is of course a big battery that can run grid independent, however for most people over here they are too expensive at this time. Hopefully that will change.

[@jonathancullen1337]

Like any venture in life, the better you plan the better the outcome will be. Do your research, pick the right installer, take the upfrom hit (albeit not everyone can afford to) and it will pay dividends in the medium to term. Hopefully Andy you will make use of the whiteboard of truth once winter hits and you have a better idea of running costs/payback time.

[@Isclachau]

If your smart you would keep a gas boiler. No ifs and no buts. Indeed if your up to date on current political policy Gas is now back to being Green again. Funny old world hey

[@Sean006]

Some excellent advice. Just shame about the clickbait title. Also, where do I sign up to get sponsorship for my HP install!

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

I mentioned the title in the video. And quite frankly, it works.

[@Sean006]

@@ElectricVehicleMan I suppose it says more about me than it does about you.....in your next video can you please have a sexy female assistant?!

[@mycameras6814]

Since you cannot rely on the 4hrs @ 7.5p cheap night rate for central heating the house in winter, you are fundamentally stuck with the fact that with typical UK tariffs, 1 kWh from electricity costs about 4x that of 1 kWh from gas. So even if this setup does manage to achieve a 400% COP (and you will not on a cold winters day) you might just claw your way back to running cost parity with your old gas boiler! This is the fundamental problem with heat pumps. The 4x cop is cancelled by the 4x tariff difference. The only answer is to drive it with “free” electricity from solar pv which is difficult on a dark January day in the UK.

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

In the video I never said I got one for financial reasons. I’ll try to make it as cheap as poss but that wasn’t the primary driver. And gas is getting closer in price too to electric so it is shifting. In my case (only a few others) I can also use cheap electric from my battery during the day in winter too.

[@carlarrowsmith]

My maths is the same as your workings. A few things also to consider, the home battery can be charged at the 7.5p rate but this is only around 80% efficient on lower voltage systems. Electricity in the future should get cheaper if the government switches green charges from electricity towards gas. I worry too that Octopus may not be so generous in the future and go rates will increase considerably. It's hard to justify a heat pump at present if you have a modern gas boiler, those running oil or electric radiators it makes sense.

[@nickieredshaw7835]

Yer that’s the problem we found can’t make figures work yet hopefully the tax on electric will drop and be put on gas then will make sense

[@nickieredshaw7835]

@@ElectricVehicleMan but how long will your battery last mid winter when little solar is the big question I’m interested to find out ? As this could make a big difference to running costs 7.5 to 40 p is alot of difference! ? Thanks

[@blower1]

For this to work financially, purely from a running costs POV vs a gas boiler - you need a very big battery come winter..... In winter my current gas setup can use 40 kwh per day on a cold day - just heating the house, ignoring hot water as I use very little of that (only 2-3 kwh per day). So to get any real savings from switching to a heat pump from gas, you need all the electricity being used by the heat pump to be on the cheap 7.5p rate, and that means a massive battery! Even if you get the energy consumption down to a ~3rd of what the gas boiler used (a cop of 4 is not realistic in winter, more like a cop of 2.5), you are still going to need 15kwh of battery storage just for the heat pump - which is a big battery bank costing a small fortune, around £10K at current prices.

[@leroyharder4491]

I know local hvac people are discouraging heat pumps and seem to be gouging on the pricing. I have recently installed a one zone minisplit in my shop. It will displace a gas heater, still have it as backup as our winters are cold and am a bit skeptical about efficiency at very cold temperatures. Half the problem seems to be retrofitting to existing central heating systems. As our natural gas in british columbia will soon be connected to world markets via a lng facility, I expect our gas prices to increase. Not mentioned when discussing pros and cons of said facility. So I want a plan to phase out gas for central heated ducted system with an eye to environmental concerns as well. One plan is to just replace our air conditioner with a heat pump. These are overpriced and don't have the efficiency of minisplits. Another plan is to go with an ground source heat pump. Very expensive, but very efficient. Has same cons as our current ducted system (uneven heat) Plan C is to buy a dual zone minisplit with air handlers to heat or cool main areas downstairs and up. The advantage of this system is that we can separately control temperature upstairs and down. I have never seen a ducted system do a good job of even temperature control throughout the house. Since we have tenants downstairs, it would be very good if they had more control over their environment. And minisplits seem to be reasonably priced compared to central systems linked to ducted systems. We good retain the furnace as backup and to even out air. In terms of noise, my minisplit is amazingly quiet both inside and out. Excuse my ignorance, but don't you lose the cooling function when you tie a heat pump into a piped system? A minisplit with air handlers would allow cooling as well as heating. The air units are mounted high, removing the need for radiators and increasing useable foot print of a room. Just putting it out there as an option. It wouldn't be so useful if the house lay out is many small rooms.

[@edc1569]

Yes you can’t really cool with it because radiators are in the wrong position for cooling and you risk hitting the dew point and getting condensation where you really don’t want it. In the UK to be eligible for the grant your system must replace the functions of the boiler, that includes heating the hot water. In a lot of properties it’s much much easier to swap out the heat source than try to figure out how to run refrigerant pipes.

[@leroyharder4491]

@@edc1569 That would be unacceptable around here. We have hot summers, cold winters. I still wouldn't like the idea of losing that capability even in the UK where heat waves are not that common.

[@LoremIpsum1970]

Interesting video to see what you've done, especially as the gas boiler in my 50 year-old-house died a few years ago (she used to set the thermo at 25C!). We're in the tropics (down south) so have minimal heating needs otherwise, it's a woolly jumper time when chilly. Unfortunately, looking at the costs it's not for me as there's no money in the pot for a good number of years to come.

[@firsteerr]

the BEST thing you can do for any heating system involving radiators and water is to get it flush cleaned every year ensure your inhibitor is correct and fit a magnet system regardless of how you heat the water your efficiency is mostly dictated by the size placement and cleanliness of your system

[@richardbrown1189]

Just an observation. If you are able to heat your house with your flow temperature set to 40 degrees without changing the radiators you had with a gas boiler they must have been massively over-sized to begin with. I wonder how many other people would be that fortunate?

[@skiiddy]

Norway has dry cold. UK is damp. Norway constructs houses with much higher standards of insulation.

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

Norway also goes down to temperatures far lower than the UK, necessitating the insulation.

[@reggievonramstein]

@@ElectricVehicleMan I disagree southern France needs as much insulation as Norway, it’s much more comfortable.

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

@@reggievonramstein The average winter temp of France vs Norway is what?

[@reggievonramstein]

@@ElectricVehicleMan 5*C but it can snow once every few years.

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

@@reggievonramstein it get down to minus 20/30c. Nothing alike.

[@pocketfella5176]

How can you comment on your system in the heat of the summer, if your radiators are not larger then your existing rads the system will not heat your home properly

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

Have you watched the video? 5 were replaced and the rest were already oversized for the rooms. You do not need to increase every radiator.

[@markglanville6495]

I subscribe to you and Skill Builder, enjoying excellent content from you both. But it is a mistake to discredit what he has said about heat pumps! He does not say they don't work period, but instead he has stated, often they are not economic or even effective! I've bought an electric car, have solar panels and am switching to the Octopus Go Tarriff like you, but we are not typical of most households. You do say as much later in the video, which slightly contradicts the start of the video. We have a My Energy Eddi Solar Diverter which is set to heat our hot water to 60 degrees only from solar power using an emersion heater. I too get 3 showers on a full tank and the Eddi uses 5 to 6kwh of solar power to achieve this, depends on how drained of heat the tank is. By my rough calulations, on a normal tariff, gas is four times cheaper than electricity costing 30p per kWh, using gas it would cost the same 7.5p per kWh to heat the tank as we would pay on the Octopus Go night time Tarriff for electricity. For households on a standard electricity tariff without Solar it would cost four times as much to heat the water compared to gas. I'm obviously missing something here, as heating my water with an emersion heater appears to use roughly the same amount of energy as yours, and I don't have a heat pump! Hope you have a water softener, I've just changed the emersion heater after 11 years, and the old one looked like new. Hard water would prove to be very costly with your system. I'll look forward to your Winter heating costs with great interest! Thank you for contributing to the debate. It appears with Heat pumps there is no clear cut answer. With our hotter summers I would favour a system that would cool as well as heat, popular in other countries but discouraged in the UK.

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

I like him too but his heat pump videos were the definition of negative and sensationalised. Watch his original video at 3:40 onwards. The ugly truth one (sure that had a ‘more negative title originally?) He states “I’ve installed heat pumps and after a few years they’re unhappy as it costs a lot to run and their houses aren’t warm.” HE installed them. He then says people who don’t know what they’re doing will whack em in and they’ll all fail. He’s complaining about himself essentially not installing them properly. Untrained people taking advantage of Gov grant. 🤷‍♂️ He’s either installed one in an unsuitable house or installed one badly, in a suitable house. In this case he's very wrong and only carried it on as he got mega views.

[@nectafarious8842]

@@ElectricVehicleMan Rather than slagging off Roger Bisby, why don't you ask him for more details about the systems he has installed in the past where the recipients have been critical of the running costs and poor performance? Installing systems is one thing; who actually specified the system to be fitted though? Many a builder has been instructed to complete a project designed by 'professionals' which has then turned out to be a disaster. Is that the builder's fault?

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

@@nectafarious8842 If he was just following instructions (pretty clear he wasn’t as he’s just done a series of videos on them) then that’s even worse as surely you’d want to know why? “They work in the UK, have done for decades in other countries but because these I’ve done don’t work, I’ll now do a video telling people they don’t”. It would also show that he’s never done heat calculations required for them if others did the planning. Think about it. You build a house. The house falls down. You then do a video saying houses don’t work, even though there are millions of people living in them. Have you seen the videos he did with the heat geeks? Everything technical was answered.

[@fordwebster8113]

Cannot get my head around that 5kWh

[@justinfletcher1882]

First 4 Solar have let my friend down in a huge way. He used them after seeing them being referred to by the channel, now several months after paying the deposit he still has no installation date. Chased them numerous times with no constructive response, just awful service/ communication. Great video btw...

[@divad4438]

hi just to give you a bit of hope I used them, frustrating at times on the communications I know but ultimately they got it done and everything is working fine, they saved me some money on the installation so that was nice, they are just extremely busy

[@chemicalandy3]

This is exactly my experience with first 4 solar. Hopefully I'll get my battery eventually but it's been a long and frustrating experience. Nine months after I placed the order and I'm still waiting.

[@davejohnston5158]

All very interesting and useful info but as the technology gets more widespread the off peak rate will increase - as it will no longer be off peak! My neighbours heat pumps are older and very noisy being audible at 2am in my house 20m away. I look forward to your report in January. Before installing anything like this I would like to know how long it's likely to last. Was being lectured at Uni about heat pumps in buildings 40 years ago by a professor who's real world preference was for heat recovery systems.

[@steveyoung8376]

to reduce running cots set the flow temperature a slow as possible to increase the efficiency- the difference between the flow temperature and the outdoor temperature will determin this.

[@johndoyle4723]

Thanks, very interesting, sadly our 300 year old property would need gutting to install this, so yes for those with the right property it is a good idea.Ground source even better COP, but you need the ground.

[@Sidewinder1009oli]

Time of use tarrifs will only get more important, if the grid doesnt want to be full of energy storage. Grid levelling is how they can save the most on electric production in the long run, with the lowest costs

[@tonytyson5762]

still on the journey for a solar system, 9 months and counting , prevarications abound, maybe its us, but glad your experience was more enjoyable than ours to date. i have viewed your channel and found your explanations very helpful , i even followed up on your recommendation for an supplier /installer . who knows if we will ever have a working system from them, maybe they will ring back or answer an e-mail. good luck with system , first 4 not in our case it would seem

[@deathruddlesdeathruddles5438]

Just to come to Rogers defence a little. He did do a great video with Heat Geek where they discussed all the issues with install, gov policy and so on. He even agreed to do a joint video on a real install.

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

Yeah I saw that. Kinda proves he was ‘exaggerating’ somewhat in his videos which he hasn’t taken down (as they get good views I suspect).

[@jeffreyrex8232]

A very refreshing video. It’s great to see more in life experiences with these. I’ve been trying to provide a balanced response to the naysayers for years. It would be interesting to see the specs for the outdoor unit. Also, yes 50 degrees setpoint is more than ample 👌🏻. I’ve commissioned a hell of a lot of York Amichi’s over the past four years and you really do not need to push past 50 degrees on a water system.

[@milesbuckhurst504]

Great video. I’ve had a heat pump for over 18 years. And yes I live in Norway and I’ve tried without. It halves my electric bill and that is an old system. And yes in Norway it is damn cold in the winter and yes it works well and contrary to negative arguments our insulation is good but not great and still we are warm 😊

[@ChrisLee-yr7tz]

Would you mind sharing how many kWh per annum you use and how big is the building?

[@milesbuckhurst504]

@@ChrisLee-yr7tz sure our house is 300m2 and used 18000 kWh in the whole of 2022. But bare in mind the house is run fully electric and 2 adults and 2 teenage girls. And we keep what I would call a warm house.

[@ChrisLee-yr7tz]

@@milesbuckhurst504 Thank you. Do you know how much of the 18k went on the heating system vs general electricity? What's your average CoP throughout the year? My house is a similar size in the uk but is old and drafty. We're looking to fully refurb and I'm considering a heat pump. We use around 37.5k kWh of gas at the moment but obviously that would drop if we tackle the insulation. At uk prices your 18k would cost about £6k / year which is still pretty hefty. I realise your climate will be different. I'm trying to justify a heat pump but struggling to see the economics making sense.

[@milesbuckhurst504]

@@ChrisLee-yr7tz I think this is a tough question. Our temperatures here reach -10C to 20C. And since the heat pump is old by todays standards. For you in the UK you will get better ‘pay back’ . Regardless if you can vastly reduce the drafts and insulate you can most likely do much better than we do here. Gas prices are predicted to go up so I can only imagine good pay off. If I was you, I would get some proper advice in the uk. Follow the fully charged show / everything electric on KZbin there are lots of good tips there.

[@riptide9090]

@@milesbuckhurst504That would cost in the UK 18000kwh x 30p/kwh = £5400 pretty sure your heating bill is much less

[@robsmith1a]

I bought solar this year. I want to get rid of gas too and want to go through a winter and more info before looking at taking the plunge. Thanks for the video, looking forward to seeing your updates

[@keithhobbs1]

Think I feel exactly the same. My solar was installed in June and saved about 55 percent on the electric. Allegedly the battery will go live next month which hopefully will save another 50 per cent. Still using gas for heating though so very interested in other people's practical experience. The price of energy in this country is ridiculous, and a lot of smes will go bust in the next 12 months unless the government acts decisively.

[@robsmith1a]

@@keithhobbs1 I haven't used any gas since April,I have a solar iboost water heater and that provides enough hot water provided there aren't too many after dark showers

[@jamesrotherham2342]

Sorry but im going to have to stop watching your channel. Hadn't heard of you 12 months ago and EV's, solar etc wasnt even on our radar. Discovered your channel just after Christmas, we now have a EV (All be it as a second car but as it turns out we use more than the family car) and hopefully in 2 weeks the install will start of our solar battery system....... So thanks. For costing me loads this year. In all seriousness great video, looking forwards to hearing about your experience with it. Our Gas boiler is virtually new so we have a few years to see the heat pump technology improve and hear of the experiences of people such as yourself. Also, just switched to Octopus and used your referral code.

[@jabberwockytdi8901]

That "channel" has only a very sketchy understanding of physics/engineering. The engineers that develop these systems have to know what they are doing and wouldn't be allowed to get away with wasting their employers development resources on something that doesn't work. That said heat pumps are a still a hard sell for me at current electricity to gas price ratios, the pay back time is very long. A lot of people will get better return from improving heat retention - our 90's house is well insulated but still can be improved particularly the glazing. For most people the size of the internal unit is also a big issue unless you have an integral garage, and in our case all the floors would have to come up and all the downstairs walls ripped open to change the piping. If gas prices go even higher and electricity comes down with higher renewable content then that calculation can change.

[@chrisellis1232]

You mean when they fiddle the figures to make gas more expensive compared to electricity, until enough people buy the heat pumps, then bam, higher electricity costs to improve the infrastructure which could never handle the extra demand…..it’s a con, as always

[@alanbrad3727]

@@chrisellis1232 Gas is heavily subsidised so artificially cheaper. If we're talking fiddling figures 😆

[@alanbrad3727]

The new Hinckley point power station operator's have been told they can charge 30p per kwh. So that might be what the price eventually returns too!

[@stumac869]

May as well just go with a storage tank for a few grand and use off peak electricity to charge it up and it'll give you hot water all day. Had one in an apartment and it worked well. Not sure what advantage heat pump gives you if it relies on electricity to charge it up?

[@chrischild3667]

@@stumac869 the idea is that it does your heating as well as heat a hot water tank. Also 1kWh to run it returns 3kWh or 4kWh worth of heat. Gas is going up to 14p per unit, electricity is 51p per unit. CoP of 3 or 4 puts the heat pump on price parity to gas boilers, if not better cos gas is CoP of less than 1. Factor in an off peak electricity tariff and good savings are to be had.

[@kevinnuttall7858]

What are the chances of letting us know on cost so we can all have a good idea on how much we are likely to pay?

[@e-redj]

Welcome to the gang. I mean the heat pump gang. Yours has been an incredible journey, starting with the missing insulation of the house and the garage to now leaving gas behind. I have to roughly calculate how much energy you heed to heat up 190 l of water from 15 degC(tab temp) to 50 degC. I expect to be something like 10 - 15 kWh, but we’ll see.

[@Isclachau]

Wow 15 kWh is terrible. I guess keeping a gas boiler is the way to go.

[@neilcunningham1081]

@@Isclachau The heat pump will be providing most of that. If the heat pump efficiency ('COP') is '3' then it gives 3kWh of heat for every 1 kWh of electricity it uses. The latest ASHP claim ratings between high '3' and high '4' - so to get 15 kWh of water heating you would use 4-5 kWh of electricity - which is much more efficient than gas.

[@Isclachau]

@@neilcunningham1081 But gas is still cheaper. I don’t get it I’m afraid.

[@neilcunningham1081]

@@Isclachau Gas is contributing to climate change which is trashing the survivability of most species on the planet including us. At the moment in the Uk gas is anything but cheap (this will fluctuate of course). If you have enough solar panels (which pay for themselves in 5-10 years) then the cost of running the heat pump is low/free (and green).

[@charlesbridgford254]

@@Isclachau If you heat your water on an EV tariff, at say 7.5p/kWh, then it is much cheaper than gas, once you factor the efficiency of the HP at (say) 3, your unit cost is down to 2.5p/kWh. A quarter the price of gas.

[@justice4g]

almost all houses in Australia have at least 1 heat pump / reverse cycle air con, not for heating water, just heating and cooling and usually not ducted but sized for individual spaces, not the whole house.

[@DarrenWhittington]

Not getting a EV until end Sept, but Octopus switched me to Go last December without questioning if I had a EV, not sure if they have tightened it up since then, I switched from agile. I had Tripple glazing installed earlyer this year (about £5k labour and parts for a terraced house) and did not cost much more than double, in some cases if the frames are good quality you can just have the glass inserts replaced

[@keithdaines8613]

I have a very similar system with the mitsubishi ecodan system. Not sure if you can do the same with yours, but I changed out the immersion heater with one I could control the temp on. This in turn is connected to a solar i boost which uses excess electricity once my batteries are full to heat my water tank. For most of the year I get free hot water this way. When there is not enough sunshine the i boost has a boost function and can also be programmed for my/your time of use tariff. The installers were not aware that solar power could be used to heat the water this way, but the engineer who does the annual service is a Mitsubishi engineer and told me how to do it. Worth checking to save a few bob lol.

[@AdamJermaneJones]

I needed a new boiler recently and got quotes for both a boiler and a heat pump. I really wanted to get a heat pump but my local installers were really negative about it and it was far more expensive. Hopefully next time I need a new boiler I’ll go for a heat pump, hopefully the local installers will be more clued up in them and fingers crossed about a drop in price. Really looking forward to how things go with yours

[@colingathercole391]

You had a lucky escape, use your brain, the only people pushing these are making money from it. When it minuses outside where do these heat pump get the heat from ? They have an electric heater ,

[@paulclarke475]

@@colingathercole391 That's not correct, Colin. Current heat pumps can extract useful heat from the air down to beyond -20c. Theoretically there is heat energy in the air right down to temperatures of "absolute zero" (0 kelvin) which is -273c!

[@scottcompany4040]

@@colingathercole391 It's a matter of simple physics. Our 'zero' is actually not indicating there's zero heat - it's just zero on the centigrade or Celsius scale. Absolute zero is something like -273 (that's a minus) degrees Celsius. so even below zero centigrade there's a lot of energy available. Recently we had overnight temperatures of minus nine degrees centigrade but my heat pump kept the house toasty warm. In fact the last 8 days have been well below zero all night and for most of the day where I live but every room in the house has maintained a temperature of at least 19C (and it's only 19 because that's the temperature we wanted). Our bathroom is always set at 23C so we don't shiver when we get out of the shower. So Colin - please use YOUR brain rather than spouting complete nonsense. You clearly don't understand the laws of physics

[@hazmat5749]

@@colingathercole391 Wrong, heat pumps can extract energy down to minus 40, it all depends on the refrigerant used. Scandinavia and Canada have used heat pumps for decades.

[@Sigma.6]

​@@hazmat5749Comparing houses in Scandinavia and Canada with England is pointless, when half of the houses don't even have roof insulation. 😂😂

[@TheGraemeEvans]

All this (hot water especially) depends on an electric supply tariff that's not even available currently and is only available to a fraction of the country anyway. It's a very fragile solution to depend on something like that.

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

It's available to anyone in the UK right now.

[@martinkesson4443]

What was the cost for you please?

[@eddyd8745]

Good video, looking forward to seeing how you get on in the winter.

[@barrydoherty636]

You have a lot more equipment now to maintain, it will be interesting to see the service cost in the future.

[@edc1569]

Like swapping a boiler for a fridge, I know which one causes me less maintenance headaches.

[@Messimagician83]

And outright cost to have installed. We need something similar to combi boiler prices. Not everyone can afford 10-15k for these plus look at how much room these take up

[@kildareman051]

My new Mitsubishi is getting a great workout in the current (december 2022) (very) cold spell. Even at max chat it's still quiet. The only thing I'd say is - Don't stand in front of the fan when it's on and the outside temp is -5 because that exhausted air is way colder.

[@Jaw0lf]

I had my Midea ASHP installed in the last 2 weeks of February and it was running during the cold spell at the end of February into March with average temperatures being between 3 and 5 degrees C. For the 12 cold days, that were very much like our winter days, I used 249kWh, so average of 20.75kWh per day. For comparison, the next week was an average of 9C and for those 7 days I averaged 9.28kWH. Hot water during the summer has been heated to 50C by the ASHP and used either 1 or 2kWh per day. So far from 24/2 to 24/8 my ASHP has used 802kWh and the heating slowed by mid April to 1 or 2 kWh a day. We have a 1973 detatched 5 bedroom house and have 270mm of insulation in the roof space alongside a loft conversion that was completed in 2011. Due to our radiators being 50 years old, we decided to replace them all to get the efficiency and heat transfer. The house was lovely and warm during March and I have set my thermostats up to drop temperature by a few degrees overnight. We moved from an LPG heating system so have also now freed a much larger space in the garden, where the tank once stood. Compared to growing cost of LPG ( I was paying £700 before price rises) I am definately saving money.

[@Isclachau]

No your not 😂😂

[@nickieredshaw7835]

Good info thanks

[@dbell9225]

Glad you had a good experience with First4solar. I didn’t. They installed my solar panels with batteries in my home in 2019. The BMS control unit failed within weeks, they took months to replace it after numerous failed appointments, they acknowledged their failings and promised me £300 in compensation. Which they never paid. It failed again a few months ago and I’m still waiting for a replacement. Daniel stated they would pay compensation for my loss of use of the batteries, when. I pointed out they still hadn’t paid the last compensation amount agreed, all went silent again.

[@paulmurray5338]

Also wouldn't go near first4solar, totally mislead about installation times, still waiting after a further delay, no reason given when they eventually did reply, absolutely pathetic customer service, Avoid!

[@siredward782]

Will you be upgrading your storage battery capacity to handle the electrical demands of the heat pump?

[@philware1546]

I calculated I'd need 20 kWh per day in January to run a heat pump. That's a big battery! People with a tiny 5 or 7 kWh battery will do jack shit in winter.

[@knowbs2122]

We are being forced into playing a game , that we don't know the rules too , and the second you know they change them pissing in the wind is a great analogy

[@johngreen1060]

I am now seriously concerned if I made a good decision following on your advice on GivEnergy. So far it doesn't look too good, and the inverter is not even installed. People trust your reviews and not every review is so clerly and blatantly wrong as this one. Good luck heating water in the middle of winter. Even if it works, efficiency will be equal to an immersion heater. Heat pumps are great if you use them with an air to air heat exchanger (noisy but effective, as proved by its immense popularity) or with floor heating. Even then, it is hard to beat gas on cost, although that may change. Currently, a heat pump would have to work at its peak efficiency just to not be worse.

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

In winter, this will heat my water at roughly 200% efficiency. Where are you getting these figures from? Even if you were right (not) then that would be 100% efficiency over 2/3 months of the year and progressively higher for the other 9 months.

[@johngreen1060]

@@ElectricVehicleMan typical tariffs are now 30p/kWh for electricity and 7.3p/kWh for gas. If you are lucky/smart enough to have fixed your rate or to get a promotional rate like Octopus Go - good for you. But anyone else will have to hit 400% efficiency just to break even. I've checked Vaillant data, and while they claim a truly impressive peak temperature and peak efficiency they do not provide any other numbers. It would be easy for them to release plots for efficiency vs temperature difference and power output plots and cut this discussion short. Instead, they chose to cherry pick an efficiency number we know is for low/moderate temperature difference and power output (otherwise it wouldn't be peak efficiency). BTW, don't get tempted to reduce water temperature too much, 60C is recommended for a reason (prevents microbial growth). For heating 30C is fine if you use floor heating but for regular size radiators you'll need more. Any reason you didn't go with an air-to-air heat pump for heating/cooling only and perhaps an immersion heater for water, if you really don't want gas? Finally, congratulations on your upgrade but please try to be more balanced in your content, perhaps run a test or two.

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

@@johngreen1060 Most of your questions were answered in the video. And as I said, this wasn’t done for money saving (although I want it as cheap as it can be).

[@bcsongor]

We are heating our house (64sqm) with a 5Kw Daikin air to air heat pump (just a fancier AC unit). For the last heating season I installed an electricity meter to track the cost of the heating and with the house kept at 23C, the cost of electricity (~1.3MWh) was almost half compared to the cost of heating with firewood (we do not have gas utility in the area) - all this in Eastern Europe, where firewood is still cheap compared to other regions of Europe...

[@robman80808]

Do you use warm air heating, underfloor heating or radiators?

[@bcsongor]

@@robman80808 Hi! I am using warm air heating (air to air heatpump).

[@robman80808]

@@bcsongor Thanks

[@billysmart24830732]

Any idea on payback times? You truly are a strange bloke to think that a panel with magic hinges is interesting and the more surprising thing is I just found out that I must be a truly strange bloke too.

[@marcwebb687]

How much would your Vaillant heat pump cost to install without KZbin advert subsidies? I think this is a very important question as to change your combi boiler would have been £2-2.5k

[@skfalpink123]

Even assuming you can get this unit to consume just 800Wh, if we were to switch the thirty-two million UK homes that currently use gas to ASHPs, that would add a load of some 25.6GWh to the National Grid. To put some perspective on that, every home and business in the UK is currently consuming 43GWh - so we'd be looking at a 50% increase in UK generating capacity. "But what about renewables?" you might ask. Well, SSE's new "Seagreen" (A) offshore windfarm (which came online last week and is the size of Greater London), generates just 1.075GW. This means we would need to add a further 2,800 offshore turbines, as well as seven Nuclear stations the size of Hinkley C, before we could even could reach even the baseline of capacity needed to support the country switching to ASHPs running at 0.8kWh. P.S. In the event of most ASHPs consuming >2kWh, it would not just be the nation's generating capacity that would need to be doubled, it would be the entire distribution network - including 33,000 stations and substations, with 250 of those being inside the M25. And that's before almost every mile of buried and overhead cable was replaced.

[@neilcunningham1081]

Or put solar panels on the rooves and run all (Summer) and much (Winter) of your ASHP from that instead - with minimised impact on the national grid. Your concerns mirror those of many in big companies and government - 'how do we do this in the old corporate way that will generate profits and lucrative NEDs' - rather than 'how do we do this so it gets us off fossil fuels and helps solve global warming'.

[@skfalpink123]

​@@neilcunningham1081 "we" cannot solve global warming, nor can we even make a dent in it. Even plunging our poor and working classes back to the Middle Ages (which is where we're headed right now) will not make one iota of difference. Here in "La La Land" (aka Scotland), SNP and Green councils are running around bricking up open fires, to make sure people can't burn wood to stay warm this winter - fires that almost certainly saved countless lives last winter! Meanwhile massive numbers of the eleven-million trees, felled in Scotland, during 2021's storm Arwen, are being cut up and shipped to Scandinavia and Germany - to be burned in open fires. Once people start freezing, once they see neighbours dying of cold (and that could be this winter), and once the shattering double-standards of the people promoting this are dragged into the open, I think we can safely say that the move to "Net Zero" will be STONE DEAD. And with its passing, I'd say we can (finally) draw-down the curtain on ASHPs

[@neilcunningham1081]

@@skfalpink123 Wow - you really don't like ASHPs do you? I understand how overwhelming it all seems - but the council of despair is a guarantee of failure. Happy to agree that shipping wood for burning anywhere is madness - much of it could be better used for building (as we seem to import most of our building wood) - and the rest could be burned in our biomass stations rather than sent abroad. ASHPs are a major and successful heating method across Scandinavia (1/3 of all Finnish houses I believe) and have been for years - so suggesting that they don't work in cold countries or are too costly to run etc is just nonsense. And like anything else - we have to start somewhere. Sorry if you've had to brick up your fireplace.

[@stevenwootten2804]

Have a 80l temporary electric hot water cylinder in my house, 1.8kw element. Takes 3.5kwh to heat on GO, I found this will last all day for a single person having a bath or shower at the end of the day. Pure immersion.

[@PabloTBrave]

Looks like your original plumber run out of 15mm pipe and just bodged it with 10 mm to finish the job of on time

[@DarrellMinards]

Ours is five years old and saving us a fortune...4 bed detached house, solar and powerwall fully fuelled costing less than £50 per month. Reckon payback has halved to about 4 years with current pricing. I'd never go back

[@campbellcopeland]

Is your 8.2kWh battery sufficient now that you're running with a heat pump now? Or is there an additional 9.5kWh battery being planned?

[@stuartburns8657]

My thoughts exactly. Can't see during the lean pv generation months (quarter of a UK year and when heat most needed) that his current setup can support an EV, home and now heating and hot water. Can only assume he's planning on getting another battery and charging via Octopus Go

[@xinam]

Interesting that you’re shilling first4solar, whereas this very week Ian @ Speedy Feet has revealed he has had a mare with first4solar and after months of them messing him around, is now looking for a new company to take on his install.

[@verticalmaster]

interesting video thanks. I actually started watching your previous video from last year first where you said you decided a ASHP wasnt for you. Interesting to see your journey! I've had a similar journey and I have actually just actually installed an ecodan 14kwh heat pump last week - and am loving it so far. Id now like to get some more solar panels to add to our array to offset some of the additional electricity costs in summer. Were on the Octopus Tesla energy plan (using our powerwall as a virtual power plant in peak hours); so although we discharge the battery down to 20% each evening to supply the grid, we benefit from the lower day import rate. Keep up the great work!

[@PabloTBrave]

I watched a KZbin video with a heat pump specialist . His take on it was heat pumps were great and you should get one, if designed properly they will heat properly save money and the environment . He did admit installers training in general is poor., and therefore don't always design it properly And that was from a heat pump evangelist . My opinion is Knowing who's suitably trained seems to be a lucky dip , the older the property the more important that the engineer is more highly trained as they tend to be less efficient have inadequate radiators /underfloor heating etc. Your water tank looks like a floor standing freezer that's not an insult people are used to seeing floor standing freezers

[@Muppetkeeper]

Heat Geek assure their installations.

[@wolfgangpreier9160]

I knew i have a 20kW wood heater in the middle of Europe and thats enough to heat the house @ minus 20 degrees. My heat pump with air has 8kW and is good for down to minus 5 degrees. If it gets colder than that for longer than a few days i would have to add some wood again. I did not the last 2 years. I need about 20-25% more for the electric energy compared to wood but it does not need work, cutting, stuffing, cleaning.

[@edwardpickering9006]

Make sure you use someone who is MCS certified.

[@nigeldavies6573]

Try a heatgeek. Look them up

[@PabloTBrave]

@@nigeldavies6573 it was heat geek that said most engineers aren't trained sufficiently in the UK , although this is changing . They also said you don't need a buffer tank , yet many manufacturers required it to be covered by warranty so even if it's not technically needed it is. So logically unless you have a super modern house and therefore likely a simple installation or you need a new "boiler" now it's better to wait a year or so until more people are trained correctly.

[@paulclark2111]

saw your vid made about a year ago when you were on holiday about heat pumps not being for you, but now your getting one. i'm in a similar situation what made you change your mind?

[@alunhuang-wright3030]

If you can heat a 13 radiator house with a 4kw (output) heat pump I'm massively impressed with your insulation. Did I also hear you say that your low energy tariff was due to you having an electric charging point as well? You are quite correct, Heat pumps aren't for everyone, with most houses (3-4 bedroom semi/detached) having a heating requirement of 8-12Kw plus the hot water requirement say 3kw, the size of the required heat pump/thermal store and installation costs becomes prohibitively expensive not to mention the cost of the triple panel radiators that you will need to run with a heating flow temperature of around 50 degrees vs a typical gas boiler that runs with a flow temperature of about 80 degrees. This I think you'll find is where 'Skill Builder is coming from with his critique of heat pump systems. I'll be sticking with my Baxi Powermax band A energy efficient boiler for now.

[@edc1569]

If you’ve got weather comp setup right you’ll be surprised how often your gas boiler runs at low temps.

[@alanbrad3727]

I'm going to try running my boiler at a lower temperature to see how my radiators perform. I'm using off peak to heat immersion tank under 2kwh of electricity against 4.5kwh of gas.

[@gileshalliwell3591]

Just about to replace a very old oil boiler with a heat pump set up and glad to have seen this! So glad to see the back of the fossil fuel system…

[@keithhobbs1]

I've been sceptical about heat pumps and ended up replacing my 20 year old gas boiler with a like for like replacement last year. Now that cost £2200 last year when gas was a mere 4p a unit and a ashp was likely going to cost £6-8k, and my boiler uses 15 to 20 percent less gas. But now with gas at 15p upward well was I short sited. Be very interested, if you're willing, to see how much power it takes to run the heat pump. What put me off is that for max efficiency it has to run 24/7 And something which can draw 2-3kwh in the winter with prices at 50+p/kwh worried me a lot! Anyway, hope it works out for you.

[@kiddwong4186]

Not sure about the need to run 24/7 but ours definitely doesn't and has no problems keeping our 4 bed detached house warm over the winter.

[@keithhobbs1]

@@kiddwong4186 Do you mind saying how many kwh it draws from the grid and how much came from solar (if any) over the winter?

[@reallynotpc]

Ours does not run 24/7. It works very well, and we are nearly two years in. The house energy consumption is down 30% in kWh from our gas days.

[@kiddwong4186]

@@keithhobbs1 ASHP daily consumption is going vary massively depending on size of house, the type of heat distribution system you have (radiator / underfloor / air), your programmed settings and insulation effectiveness. I'd need to dig out the data to give you average kWh numbers through the winter but in terms of costs, I know in the summer our monthly bill is around £30 and in the winter it's £100. We have underfloor heating and the house is occupied most of the time through the day so thermostats are set to at least 18C all the time. We have 3.2kw solar PV (south facing, Midlands). Daily average output dropped down to 1.6kwh last December (4-5 kWh in November and January) so doesn't help much in the coldest darkest months. This is why we got a battery added to our system just recently.

[@geoffreycoan]

Our ASHP installers recommended that the heat pump run 24/7 as they were more efficient that way. I was unsure as there would be constant heat loss that would need topping up, nevertheless I tried it. For the first two days of 24/7 it used 60-80kW a day and the house was far too hot at night. I changed to running it only in the evenings and usage dropped to 20-30kW a day in Winter. My experience therefore was that even though it is less efficient to run it when you need it, its considerably cheaper to do so - you just need to start it up a bit earlier than you would with a conventional boiler as the flow temperature is lower and it takes longer to heat the house

[@timballam3675]

We've had our heat pump for almost a year and had no problems except for the unlooping but we now have 3 phase ready for the solar and car charger.

[@decimal1815]

Brilliant video - very informative - thanks. Now need to watch the install videos!

[@geniuscctv1072]

I think it's a bit early in the year to be doing a report on your new install. Wait until you have been through a few winter months. Let's hope your predictions are correct.!

[@loafy1]

Great video. Did you consider air-air for a/c in bedrooms etc.? I am considering splitting air-water for downstairs heating and hot water, and a air-air for heating and cooling of upstairs. Likely UK summers are going to be hotter for longer so I'm betting more and more people are going to look for cooling too.

[@edc1569]

If you want the grant you need to install a system that provides space and water heating.

[@loafy1]

@Ed C that is what one of the units would be doing, I guess I may have issues finding one small enough so it's not cycling on and off all the time. This is all theoretical tho, I need to have a re-roof, install solar and battery, buy an EV, and then add heat pumps. I should be able to afford that by 2040ish

[@grahamleiper1538]

@@edc1569 sometimes avoiding the companies chasing grant money can make more sense. Mini splits cost less than heat pumps, even without grants.

[@andreycham4797]

@@grahamleiper1538 and they can output 90 percent of rated capacity at -35 C . This is what Gree commercial says

[@andreycham4797]

@gilburton if your house is not air tight and insulated . Both systems will not perform well. Buy cheapest infrared attachment to a phone and inspect the house on a cold day in a winter. Do some posable improvements with can spray foam and extra insulation. . Search air to air cold climate heat pumps . Pay attention to output from nominal capacity at cold temperatures. I would not consider buying European or Japanese brands too expensive LG or Gree, Meadia , read instructions and install it by yourself

[@philb1730]

Informative video, looking forward to the follow ups. I'm actively looking at greener ways to heat our home.

[@alanbrad3727]

Looking forward to the whiteboard of truth break down in the future. First 4 Solar should be installing a home storage battery in September. If that goes well then maybe a HP will be next as boiler is getting on a bit!

[@chemicalandy3]

Good luck with the First 4 Solar installation - you're going to need it. Worst company I've ever dealt with.

[@alanbrad3727]

@@chemicalandy3 Did you get your money back?

[@chemicalandy3]

@@alanbrad3727 I'm still hoping they'll install the battery. I did cancel the order last month when they told me they couldn't get any more batteries this year. They then miraculously said they had one and could fit it within 30 days so I gave them another chance. It was meant to arrive on Friday but unfortunately it didn't.

[@alanbrad3727]

@@chemicalandy3 Ordered mine at the end of February. Was told 8 to 12 weeks. They did tell me they had the battery but no fitters available so if i paid another 25% they would send it out. I said no! 27weeks later here we are!

[@chemicalandy3]

@@alanbrad3727 Mine was ordered last December. By February they were unable to give me any idea of an installation date. I was eventually told it would be August and then at the end of August they said no batteries were available and it would be next year.

[@finanzferdinand9874]

12:15 Here's all you need to know to save you wasting your time

[@Muppetkeeper]

Lol, after two years of fiddling, my hot water is set to 49°C. My heat set to 21 with a drop back to 19. Heating efficiency is 400%, hot water efficiency is 200%.

[@nickieredshaw7835]

Good efficiency but how much did it cost to run mid winter?

[@TimJW]

Excellent choice, we had an Arotherm Plus 10kW installed back in July. Needed quite a lot of radiators replaced though as many pf the ones in the house were 70s/80s vintage......they would have needed to be replaced regardless..Currently heating DHW to 45 degrees, seems to suit the family at the moment.

[@redrickratae]

Interesting episode - thanks. We moved into a new build house with an ASHP and solar PV last November, and I had the opportunity to monitor the energy usage through last winter when our solar PV was giving very little. Being a new house it used relatively little energy, but as the ASHP is an electrical heater this was still quite expensive. Even considering the CoP of the heat pump, with the price of electricity being so much more than the price of gas the financial benefits seem marginal, which also seemed to be your conclusion in your video on heat pumps last November when you said "I just can't do it". So my question is - what has changed for you? In my case, I have no regrets at all, especially since I realised that our house was probably using more heat than usual as it is a traditional 'brick and block' construction and was drying out for some of last winter. Also, since last year we have a 9.6kWh battery so I'm interested to see what difference this makes. Like you, we are on Octopus Go since we have an EV and I also use the Go cheap rate to charge our battery in winter when the PV gives little energy. I calculated the additional cost of solar PV and our ASHP to be 4% on the price of the house, which we have easily made back in house price inflation since last November. Why don't all new home buyers insist on PV and heat pumps? Why don't politicians legislate to force builders to add them?

[@noelburke6224]

You can't force anyone to do anything .you have the wrong way of thinking. Politicians work for the people. We have to use the democratic system

[@redrickratae]

@@noelburke6224 I'd question your thinking there, Noel. Unfortunately many of our politicians are influenced by lobby groups much more than 'the people', which weakens our democratic system. The construction industry is a very powerful lobby, but they don't seem to be all-powerful in Scotland where solar PV is much more common on new-build homes. Perhaps 'forcing' is the wrong word, but the Scottish planning system seems to be better at 'strongly encouraging' builders to install micro-generation. Why doesn't this happen in England?

[@noelburke6224]

@@redrickratae I am a heating engineer and a qualified building contractor 45 years and still in business. We implement all new technologies in our projects. We also provide cost analysis on materials labour and most important is end user running and maintenance cost .plus pay back time and opalescence. We are members of a Academy who have research and development labs we also run real life tests on all appliances to determine the cop and the scop.As for politicians they are liars and parasites, a party to themselves sucking the life out of the citizens and private business to line their own pockets glorified mouthpieces who forget who is there employers. I can write you a best seller on the corruption in the government and civil service in Ireland 🇮🇪

[@davidallan1098]

Heat pumps can clearly do a great job, also solar and battery systems. However I think there are a couple of important points to consider. 1. Cost. A heat pump system is expensive, even with a grant. Way in excess of even a higher end combi boiler. This alone puts it out of the reach of many homeowners, even with slightly cheaper running costs. If you do need new radiators, insulation, pipework etc. that's going to send costs through the roof. 2. Space. A combi boiler is really a remarkable piece of kit for the size, heat pumps require a fair bit more space which not everyone has. Not a deal breaker but if you need to make space or reconfigure areas of your home that's more cost. I think where heat pumps really can come in to their own will be new builds, they can be purpose built with that in mind. Retro fitting will be impractical for many people and I think we need to acknowledge that.

[@Isclachau]

I think they would be worth while in around 5 years time, like EV’s when the tech has actually progressed to a better level. Gas is going nowhere btw and it’s only a political,decision to keep the price high. It should be cheap as chips in reality.

[@alanjenkins1508]

The market dictates the price. Gas is in short supply and so expensive.

[@Isclachau]

@@alanjenkins1508 You sound like I did 10 years ago. You think you know what your talking about but don’t. It’s a political decision as I said, nothing more.

[@CED99]

@@Isclachau Russia has plenty of gas, but "we" aren't buying it so the can use the money to fund their war in the Ukraine...