Theo wrote:
> Tim+ wrote:
>> To be fair to the cowboys, a straight swap is the holy grail that we all
>> seek. I’ve tried to get quotes for a heat pump and the only company that
>> would give me one was going to cost over £23,000 for a 5 bedroom house.
>
> Did you ask Octopus?
They don’t do Scotland (yet) and even if they did, I don’t think they would
quote as they’re “cherry picking” straightforward smaller installs.
> It sounds like a lot of installers are rushed off
> their feet and only interested if you cross their palm with silver. Octopus
> seem to have more capacity for doing installs in volume and bringing the
> prices down. I've heard install costs comparable with a gas boiler after
> the grant.
>
>> Now that kind of money pays for a f*ckload of gas (and several replacement
>> boilers). Yes, grant money will help but I get the feeling that prices are
>> being jacked up by the value of the grants and that we’re being fleeced.
>
> Yes, there is always the risk of that. Did you get a heat loss survey and what
> did it say? What size of pump did they recommend, any other works?
We tried. After 6 months of waiting and nagging the first company we got
still hadn’t produced any figures, largely because I think the salesman
under-quoted us and the engineers couldn’t supply a system any where near
his quote.
>
> Is the house 'complicated'? (ie is it rambling farmhouse rather than a
> 1960s+ box?)
Not terribly, it’s a 60s box with 5 bedrooms but messy CH plumbing due to
various extensions over the years but it’s still essentially a box.
>
>> If heat pump efficiency was high enough to make a “sub-optimal” cheaper to
>> run than gas then I would be prepared to suck up (some of) the installation
>> cost but the uncertainties surrounding system efficiency and the potential
>> disruption of replumbing are putting me off the whole idea.
>>
>> In an ideal world I’d like a heat pump that could be a straight swap for my
>> existing gas boiler that would cost no more to run than my gas one with no
>> (or at least minimal) system modifications.
>
> High temperature heat pumps (where there are two compression cycles,
> effectively two HPs in series) are more of a swap with a boiler, but you
> lose some efficiency. It depends on your numbers whether that makes sense.
Based on what I’ve seen on YouTube, expensive to purchase and run.
I do realise that it’s probably not realistic to have a straight swap but
their are some interesting new designs of HP under development
(thermo-acoustic pumps for one) that may render conventional refrigerant
based pumps redundant. https://www.blueheartenergy.com
Tim
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Please don't feed the trolls
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