Air-source heat pumps - are they good/crap?
Discussion
monkfish1 said:
borcy said:
Cheib said:
Tom8 said:
Gas will be cheap again next year following deal with US. Broker forecasts look very favourable.
The price of electricity in this country is set off the cost of burning gas to generate electricity….a lot of the electricity is produced at much cheaper rates. There is plenty of room for electricity prices to come down significantly…if the Govt stepped in and said they will subsidise electricity generated by gas then the price of electricity would come down. That isn’t as daft as it sounds as it is the fault of Central Govt that we didn’t build nuclear power plants in this country for decades.Its what should happen though.
otolith said:
What is faintly irritating is that there appear to be loads of grants for things, but I personally qualify for absolutely fk all to improve my insulation.
Agreed.Being in wales, if i earn less than £31k i can have £45k of insulation and heat pump installed. But earn £1 more, tough, nothing at all. Not a single penny.
Depending on how long the scheme runs for i may be able to slide under that, indeed, financially sound to do so given the amount of "free" stuff i can have. Take a pay cut for a year or so, then go back to full pay afterwards. Though i suspect they wil run out of money soon given the various budget cuts.
borcy said:
monkfish1 said:
borcy said:
Cheib said:
Tom8 said:
Gas will be cheap again next year following deal with US. Broker forecasts look very favourable.
The price of electricity in this country is set off the cost of burning gas to generate electricity….a lot of the electricity is produced at much cheaper rates. There is plenty of room for electricity prices to come down significantly…if the Govt stepped in and said they will subsidise electricity generated by gas then the price of electricity would come down. That isn’t as daft as it sounds as it is the fault of Central Govt that we didn’t build nuclear power plants in this country for decades.Its what should happen though.
Ive been unable to find any evidence that this is being looked at seriously beyond a few soundbites. I put it in the same category as Sunak justifying new oil licenses as making us more self sufficent for energy. Which anyone with even a minimal grasp of the facts knows is an outright lie.
Happy to be proven wrong.
B'stard Child said:
otolith said:
What is faintly irritating is that there appear to be loads of grants for things, but I personally qualify for absolutely fk all to improve my insulation.
Whilst I agree with in part with your statement - sometimes you shouldn't need grants to do things that actually give you a return on investment.........monkfish1 said:
Agreed.
Being in wales, if i earn less than £31k i can have £45k of insulation and heat pump installed. But earn £1 more, tough, nothing at all. Not a single penny.
Depending on how long the scheme runs for i may be able to slide under that, indeed, financially sound to do so given the amount of "free" stuff i can have. Take a pay cut for a year or so, then go back to full pay afterwards. Though i suspect they wil run out of money soon given the various budget cuts.
Yep, loads of schemes, but dependent on being on a qualifying benefit or earning under a threshold.Being in wales, if i earn less than £31k i can have £45k of insulation and heat pump installed. But earn £1 more, tough, nothing at all. Not a single penny.
Depending on how long the scheme runs for i may be able to slide under that, indeed, financially sound to do so given the amount of "free" stuff i can have. Take a pay cut for a year or so, then go back to full pay afterwards. Though i suspect they wil run out of money soon given the various budget cuts.
We have one and its excellent. However, we have triple glazed windows, 25cm insulation jacket on the outside walls, plus underfloor heating. It uses around 4000kWh per year, most of which occur during winter. Outside temps are between -20 and +40. The system runs at 50 degrees for HW and depends on outside temp as to what temp it runs the floors. Once the structure is warm, the energy usage is very little.
ETA: I think it is excellent. I would probably not retro fit one without doing insulation, windows, and UFH.
ETA: I think it is excellent. I would probably not retro fit one without doing insulation, windows, and UFH.
Edited by jonathan_roberts on Wednesday 7th February 14:42
r3g said:
jonathan_roberts said:
The system runs at 50 degrees for HW
How do you manage to clean anything greasy in your house? Do you have to boil a few kettles full of water every time you want to wash greasy pans, plates and crocks because 50 degrees isn't going to do crap.r3g said:
How do you manage to clean anything greasy in your house? Do you have to boil a few kettles full of water every time you want to wash greasy pans, plates and crocks because 50 degrees isn't going to do crap.
Seems to now be standard because of scalding issues.https://www.nhbc.co.uk/binaries/content/assets/nhb...
We just put them in the dishwasher.
r3g said:
How do you manage to clean anything greasy in your house? Do you have to boil a few kettles full of water every time you want to wash greasy pans, plates and crocks because 50 degrees isn't going to do crap.
I also run my HW at 50 degrees and have no issues with washing greasy dishes. Not sure if you've ever tested it but 50 degree water is very hot and not comfortable to have your hands/body in. The issue for me is that even with a 300L tank, the hot water can run out after a couple of generous showers. It's ready again in 20-30 mins but that's a pain if you have a house full of people at Christmas. That's the one area for me that is a clear disadvantage to gas/combi boiler but there's no gas where I live so I decided to go the ASAP route when I built.
UFH taking a long time to heat up is a non-issue once you learn how to program it.
Increasing the temperature of your water cylinder is an easy way to make your hot water last longer. The losses from a modern decent cylinder are pretty marginal in any case so there's not a huge saving to be made there anyway.
I tend to leave ours at 60 if it's just the two of us but if we have visitors I crank it right up as high it can go - makes a huge difference to the ability to have repeated back to back powerful showers. That's with an oil boiler, not sure how an ASHP would enjoy the same scenario.
My parents have underfloor heating and their main issue is the time it takes to get the slab to cool down - if the sun comes out during cold weather the additional solar gain on top of the heat output from the warm slab turns their house into a sauna and they end up with the windows open!
I tend to leave ours at 60 if it's just the two of us but if we have visitors I crank it right up as high it can go - makes a huge difference to the ability to have repeated back to back powerful showers. That's with an oil boiler, not sure how an ASHP would enjoy the same scenario.
My parents have underfloor heating and their main issue is the time it takes to get the slab to cool down - if the sun comes out during cold weather the additional solar gain on top of the heat output from the warm slab turns their house into a sauna and they end up with the windows open!
Edited by Snow and Rocks on Wednesday 7th February 15:57
mcbook said:
I also run my HW at 50 degrees and have no issues with washing greasy dishes. Not sure if you've ever tested it but 50 degree water is very hot and not comfortable to have your hands/body in.
Hmm, I have to beg to differ. 50 degrees is the top end of warm. Certainly quite comfortable to have your hands submerged in but it needs to be hotter to remove grease and baked on crud IME. Of course the dish washer argument is a fair one if you have that luxury. Anyway, moving on.. r3g said:
mcbook said:
I also run my HW at 50 degrees and have no issues with washing greasy dishes. Not sure if you've ever tested it but 50 degree water is very hot and not comfortable to have your hands/body in.
Hmm, I have to beg to differ. 50 degrees is the top end of warm. Certainly quite comfortable to have your hands submerged in but it needs to be hotter to remove grease and baked on crud IME. Of course the dish washer argument is a fair one if you have that luxury. Anyway, moving on.. mcbook said:
I also run my HW at 50 degrees and have no issues with washing greasy dishes. Not sure if you've ever tested it but 50 degree water is very hot and not comfortable to have your hands/body in.
The issue for me is that even with a 300L tank, the hot water can run out after a couple of generous showers. It's ready again in 20-30 mins but that's a pain if you have a house full of people at Christmas. That's the one area for me that is a clear disadvantage to gas/combi boiler but there's no gas where I live so I decided to go the ASAP route when I built.
UFH taking a long time to heat up is a non-issue once you learn how to program it.
Tanks need to at least cycle through 60 at some point to kill bacteria, otherwise it's a petri dish for legionnaires etc.The issue for me is that even with a 300L tank, the hot water can run out after a couple of generous showers. It's ready again in 20-30 mins but that's a pain if you have a house full of people at Christmas. That's the one area for me that is a clear disadvantage to gas/combi boiler but there's no gas where I live so I decided to go the ASAP route when I built.
UFH taking a long time to heat up is a non-issue once you learn how to program it.
B'stard Child said:
50 deg is borderline for scalding IMO - this suggests your hands have been conditioned to hot work or your water isn't as hot as you think it is
Are you a girl? My hands are certainly not leather skinned and 50C is absolutely fine. I wash my jeans and cottons at 50 and they don't come out the other end the size of a postage stamp when finished, which tends to support my claim that 50 isn't hot! The other guy makes a good point about legionnaire's, running the water so cold.
r3g said:
jonathan_roberts said:
The system runs at 50 degrees for HW
How do you manage to clean anything greasy in your house? Do you have to boil a few kettles full of water every time you want to wash greasy pans, plates and crocks because 50 degrees isn't going to do crap.The system runs up to 65 degrees if you’d like it to. I’ve never seen the need though.
RE hot water running out:
We have a 320L tank. But if you need a lot of HW, there is a “powerful” setting. It seems to produce water at the rate it’s being used. I have a wife and two daughters. They regularly have a bath and then two have a shower, then I shower and it’s fine.
In any case, 50 degrees is way hot enough for HW.
Our hot water is also mains pressure.
We have a 320L tank. But if you need a lot of HW, there is a “powerful” setting. It seems to produce water at the rate it’s being used. I have a wife and two daughters. They regularly have a bath and then two have a shower, then I shower and it’s fine.
In any case, 50 degrees is way hot enough for HW.
Our hot water is also mains pressure.
Snow and Rocks said:
My parents have underfloor heating and their main issue is the time it takes to get the slab to cool down - if the sun comes out during cold weather the additional solar gain on top of the heat output from the warm slab turns their house into a sauna and they end up with the windows open!
Have your parents tried adjusting the temperature at the manifold? Ours was set at 45c. When the room temperature hit the wall thermostat target temp of 21c, the residual heat in the floor was giving us a temperature overshoot. I’ve gradually tweaked the manifold temp lower, now at 35c, and this gives us less of an overshoot and a more stable temperature. It’s trial and error as to what manifold temp will work best.Edited by Snow and Rocks on Wednesday 7th February 15:57
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