Author Topic: Thou shalt have a heat pump.  (Read 3429 times)

Offline DavidA

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Thou shalt have a heat pump.
« on: November 10, 2021, 04:32:20 PM »
So, It looks as if the government is hell bent on having people throw out their reliable gas boilers and move ot heat pumps.

Does anyone here actually have one of these fitted and working ?

If so, can you provide some 'real world' data on the efficiency and the costs.

I did study heat pumps a long time ago, and am of the opinion that, like us all owning electric cars, it probably seems a good idea at the time.

What do you think ?

Dave.

Offline WeldingRod

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Re: Thou shalt have a heat pump.
« Reply #1 on: November 10, 2021, 04:41:46 PM »
If you -must- heat with electricity, it gives you more bang for your buck!  However, air source heat really only works in Florida.  More North and you need ground source,  which adds a lotta $$$.  I couldn't justify the investment when I swapped my A/C unit, even though I wanted to!

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Offline John Rudd

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Re: Thou shalt have a heat pump.
« Reply #2 on: November 10, 2021, 04:43:43 PM »
Again its a case of the blind leading the blind....The Govt have been told that this is a greener way....but...

Where does the refrigerant come from? Is there enough to go round?
How green is the manufacturing process compared to that of a boiler?

For me, there are too many unanswered questions, ( the above are just off the top of my head)
Agreed, gas isnt going to last forever, but rather than forcing the issue I think there must be alternative methods of domestic heating
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Offline BillTodd

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Re: Thou shalt have a heat pump.
« Reply #3 on: November 10, 2021, 05:34:33 PM »
I pity anyone next door to the bloody things , standard air con units are bad enough when it comes to noise (and no, don't give me the mine's quiet bullshit , the ##### -rant terminated before my gaskets blow!!!)  high output air source heat pumps are only going to be worse.

If you have the land go for ground source, you'll get about 20watt/m2  so you'll need a fair sized garden.

Bill

Offline vintageandclassicrepairs

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Re: Thou shalt have a heat pump.
« Reply #4 on: November 10, 2021, 05:49:19 PM »
Hi All
I have seen several ground source heat pumps being ripped out in recent times  :scratch:
Over a period of years they lose efficiency (ground gets cold ??)
I have seen successful ones where they laid the coils in a river bed
My Niece has a newly built huge house (not quite passive) with an air to water heat pump I cannot say I have noticed the noise ? the rads are nice and toasty inside the house (under floor takes too long to heat and cool in my opinion) where our weather can vary a lot from day to day, so instant heat is needed

John

Offline WeldingRod

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Re: Thou shalt have a heat pump.
« Reply #5 on: November 10, 2021, 07:30:48 PM »
One issue with ground loops is that if your heat and cooling load isn't balanced you start raising or lowering the ground temperature over time.  You accomodate this with more loop volume than is shown on the charts.
Or, you do what I was contemplating: bank cold!  When it's cold, circulate your fluid through a air heat exchanger to cool the ground.  Low energy activity...
Or, bank hotness if you are in Canada instead of Houston ;-)

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Offline chipenter

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Re: Thou shalt have a heat pump.
« Reply #6 on: November 11, 2021, 02:48:18 AM »
One issue with heat pumps is when you want the heat at night where is the sun to give you the heat ?
Jeff

Offline mattinker

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Re: Thou shalt have a heat pump.
« Reply #7 on: November 11, 2021, 06:34:50 AM »
One issue with heat pumps is when you want the heat at night where is the sun to give you the heat ?

It doesn't use the sun's heat! It's takes heat from the air!

I have one, air to water, it's been running about a year, I don't know how economical it is yet. First immediate benefit here in France is not having to pay the charge on the Gas meter!

It took some setting up, but there is no difference between my gas boiler and the heat pump!

Cheers, Matthew

Offline Muzzerboy

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Re: Thou shalt have a heat pump.
« Reply #8 on: November 12, 2021, 06:15:18 PM »
We had an air source heat pump in Canada (Vancouver, where the climate is very similar to the UK) and it was a simple matter to install it in place of the original furnace. Wasn't expensive, worked fine and also gave us aircon in the summer. Wasn't noisy, worked down to 0C and we had a back up heat source for very cold weather. Generally that's either an electric heater or a gas furnace but ours (gas furnace) was only very rarely required. The coefficient of performance is something like 4 for these installations, which means you get 4 times as much heat energy out as you pay for. That almost makes up for the higher price of the electricity compared to gas

Lots of conjecturing and not much knowledge is being stirred up by the recent change in direction. We humans don't like change but once the supply chain is established and people understand what we are talking about, hopefully the tone of the conversation will mellow out.

Offline JHovel

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Re: Thou shalt have a heat pump.
« Reply #9 on: November 25, 2021, 05:39:03 AM »
The cost of gas versus electricity varies from country to country. Here in Australia for example, gas is significantly more expensive than electricity for heat pump heating. We even use heat pump hot water services instead if gas....
Cheers,
Joe