Heat Pumps - post here.

HotSwap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120761684#Comment_120761684

It’s not hit and miss; it’s either done right or it’s not; no luck involved.

Just some installers will set it up to suit them (less callbacks) rather than put in the time and effort to do it right.

I think a lot of people expect to realise some savings from installing a heat pump. Which is only really possible if you have several other things in place (Solar PV / Battery Storage / Night Rate Meter / Airtightness / etc…) so it’s a complex undertaking

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120761684#Comment_120761684

I agree with @HotSwap that a properly calculated and designed heat pump will heat the house very efficiently

There is some degree of optimisation afterwards to get the system running at its best, but a lot of installers just set it up so the house is guaranteed to be warm and might tank the efficiency in the process

I can understand being wary however, there's enough horror stories out there to give people pause, and I think if you aren't in a position to do a lot of the initial calculations yourself then you're open to getting fleeced

It doesn't help that a lot of heat pump installers seem to be trying to upsell the work involved to get a bigger payday, replacing pipes and radiators that are already adequate and speccing larger heat pumps than required

I think at the moment the payback is a bit dubious unless it's combined with something like Solar PV and batteries, or if you're willing to do some of the work yourself

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120762144#Comment_120762144

What about a DIY heatpump 😂

https://youtu.be/ng99_2K9BW4

It would be comparable to a geothermal one.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120762773#Comment_120762773

Or the manual version 😁

micks_address

Hi folks,

I'll read back the thread but what would people say is a good estimate of kwhr usage for a heat pump during November/December/January? 4 bed semi detached with properly sized rads and pipework? Heatloss around 2

Cheers,

Mick

redmagic68

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120793139#Comment_120793139

25-35kwh/day depending on how you run the heatpump say on night time units or in demand with the knowledge that it will go up about 10kwh in particularly cold days. That’s based on my numbers from last year and includes hot water production. 250metre house well insulated like your own.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120793139#Comment_120793139

How much gas/oil do you currently use

HotSwap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120793139#Comment_120793139

That’s really an impossible question to answer in general terms like that. However what you can do is get your gas or oil usage from that period and reverse engineer what you wood need.

let’s say you used 300L of oil in Dec and Jan. 5L of oil a day. Each L of heating oil contains about 11kwh of energy. And by the time you burn that in your boiler your down to about 9kwh of energy that’s entering your home as heat from the 1L originally in the tank.

so take your 300L and multiply by 9kwh gives you 2700kwh for 2 months (60 days). About 45Kwh of energy needed per day.

now take the fact that a heatpump will get a COP of about 3.5-4. Meaning if you in 1kwh of electricity you get out 3.5kWh of heat energy. So divide the 45Kwh per day by 3.5 gives you 12.85 kWh of electricity that you would need to generate the same amount of heat as burning 5L of oil each day.

I personally use a lot mor oil than this; above is just an example.

micks_address

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120793263#Comment_120793263

Currently gas.. not in a rush to change.. had kinda set on air to air in a few years but doing some plumbing shortly to remove gunbarrel pipework and the rads in theory would work with a heat pump. I suspect I'd be cheaper on gas..have solar and 13.6kw battery storage so with a heat pump id definitely be depleting the battery and using peak rate electricity for November/December/January. My pipework is going to cost approx 2k so I was thinking if it's work looking at the heat pump grant. It's 6k? But what would a install likely cost?

I think my two month gas bill was 400 for the December/Jan period. Ei website is down so will grab usage when back up .. I

HotSwap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120793263#Comment_120793263

This would be equivalent to burning 13-14 L of oil a day. Which I’m not far off in a 141M2 E1 rated house. Ok you’ve got an extra 110M2 going on; so it’s a lot of house to keep warm. What’s your BER?

micks_address

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120793489#Comment_120793489

If your asking me it's ber A2, heatloss 2.1. bothy winter bills, November to Jan, Jan to march were 385.. I'll.get unit usage when ei finish their maintenance

sydthebeat

A HLI of 2.1 is quite poor.

If it's really A2 I assume there's loads of pv cells?

micks_address

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120793524#Comment_120793524

Yep.. well 7kwp.. hollow block wall so only way to improve is external insulation which is not very attractive financially..

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120793513#Comment_120793513

If your ripping out all the current stuff, are you also replacing the rads?

Now is a great chance to "future proof" at least to have the right size(oversized?) piping/radiators in.

Will help your gas boiler run more efficiently anyway, with lower flow temperatures.

But at a rough guess if you divide your gas by 3 would be the kwh needed for the heatpump.

Install cost, no idea unfortunately

micks_address

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120793572#Comment_120793572

Just one rad being replaced.. I'll ask about sizing it for a heat pump potentially

poker--addict

Can't find manhole in my garden for the pipes in a ground loop system...there has to be one right? Metal detector job?

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120794574#Comment_120794574

Not necessarily, the pipes could just be straight into wherever the heatpump is.

poker--addict

Ok. There is just two large pipes in at the heat pump - presumably one in, and one out.

micks_address

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120794204#Comment_120794204

Two months December/January used 2500kwh gas units

HotSwap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120796477#Comment_120796477

41.6 kWh per day. So if you were using a heat-pump for that it would be about 11-12kwh per day. That’s very doable in terms of battery storage.

im in no position to assess my situation until I do a winter once my ewi and new windows and doors are installed. Happening in Aug (been waiting a year).

micks_address

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120797142#Comment_120797142

Thanks,

I'm wondering if it's silly to look at incorporating the work now into a heat pump upgrade.. I'll be spending 2k I reckon on a new rad and piping. The heat pump grant is 6k? But how much would a full upgrade run? I've 13.6kw storage

HotSwap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120797173#Comment_120797173

If you’re doing it to save money; I think you should prob think long and hard about it as it’s prob not gonna save you a lot in the long run. Maybe when you get to the point when your gas boiler is on its last legs and you need a replacment.

i believe 10k (after the grant is not uncommon).

poker--addict

The first round of heat pumps will be approaching 20 years old and replacement territory.

are people going to be replacing them with oil and gas, as with no grant will a heat pump make any financial sense?

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120824009#Comment_120824009

Most of them would just be a swap out I would hope, since all the radiators were optimised for a heat pump originally

Replacing with an oil boiler would likely cost more overall

I'm at 6 years now and I won't be swapping out at any point in the future for oil or gas. For one thing there's no gas main on my road, and I don't particularly like the idea of pumping or storing explosive gas or highly flammable liquids into my house anyways

I might at some point down the road look at supplementing my heat pump with a small pellet boiler, however that is an entirely different and probably bonkers project with almost no ROI, just a "can I do it" sort of idea

poker--addict

You would be right that a replacement is just a swap in and out, but ultimately the majority of the cost is the capital cost of the pump and not the labour. In a larger house the oil boiler will be 2,500 and heat pump 10,000.....or more. I suspect until the first wave of pumps start hitting 20 years and need for change the powers that be have not considered the incentive to return gas or oil. The grant ultimately encourages installers in the market but acts to keep prices high, so lack of a free market is a problem.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120824546#Comment_120824546

Does it cost €10k though? You can get a 16kWh monobloc heat pump for £6500 including VAT. The existing plumbing and electrical connections could be used, probably the biggest hassle would be wiring up the new controller

https://www.orionairsales.co.uk/daikin-edla16d3v3-altherma-3-monoblock-air-to-water-heat-pump-16kw54000btu-a-14904-p.asp

You're probably looking at a days labour (assuming you don't go DIY) so maybe €8k-8.5k total I would say

And then for the oil boiler, I think you're a bit on the low side at €2.5k. Unless you have a handy oil tank already you'll need to install one of those which could double your costs.

Also you need to consider that your heat pump might have been mostly outside. If you aren't able to put the boiler inside then you'll need an outdoor boiler shed, adding yet more costs

Same story for gas, maybe the boiler is cheaper but you need to pay for a gas main to be connected. That could be €10k alone in my case since they'd need to bring the line in from another street

Or use bottled gas, but you'd probably find it cheaper to just burn €20 notes for heat 😬

Now, don't get me wrong, it irks me a lot that heat pumps are so expensive considering they're effectively a compressor, a heat exchanger and some refrigerant piping

I would like to see some quantitative analysis of the components in a heat pump versus a gas boiler. I wouldn't be surprised if the gas boiler actually cost more to produce because it likely has more complex safety systems

But that's annoying reality we live in, government are pushing heat pumps and installers and manufacturers have figured out they can charge a fortune

Same story is happening over in EV world, logically an EV should (and is) much cheaper to build and yet manufacturers are charging a premium for them

poker--addict

Your counter arguments are fair. Albeit I think we are both toying with figures at either end of the argument spectrum. My point remains valid. Heat pumps are expensive, and they are also expensive relative to a fossil fuel unit.

Part of that expense is down to grants. While not the popular narrative politicians use, grants ultimately support installers/builders,ie grants drive profit margins up, the customer might see some benefit but the bulk goes to encouraging more installers into the market pushing the product. Same with solar panels- many people (not all) are being robbed and seeing not one cent benefit of the grant ! to be fair to EV grants, the providers are not making money, the arguably genuinely need the price boost.

If the heat pump price is artificially high due to a rather large 6.5k grant being a factor, then people who need to replace them are severely disadvantaged. If such a large grant is required to drive our national targets then there needs to be a half way house grant for those stuck unable to access it but impacted by inflated prices

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120824850#Comment_120824850

100% agree about the grants. It's a sad truth but every time a new grant has been introduced, installation costs have magically gone up

It's great that the government wants to support people making the transition towards renewables, but unfortunately it's backfiring on them

Personally I would like to see a system of grants with price controls added in. Something like "we fund up to XX% of the the costs provided it doesn't go beyond Y overall price"

That would strongly discourage unfair price hikes by manufacturers IMO since if they do they'll lose business because they aren't grant supported

HotSwap

I paid 1197.63 ex vat for a 21kw grant vortex condensing outdoor oil boiler in May 2021.

I turn it down to the minimum temp of 55C which is fine on all but the coldest (-5C) days.

My pipes and radiators are on the small side; Kitchen only has 1000w radiator in it. It’s a big kitchen; and the rad is so small cos it used to have a solid fuel stove that’s disconnected now.

but we are getting EWI and new windows and doors next month. So I’m prob gonna go at least this winter with the oil to see what impact the insulation and windows have.

we are an E1 last time we did a BER 316 kWh / m2 / year.

I have installed 7.5kWp of solar PV since then. Which drops me to 271 kWh / m2 / year.

so I was a middle of the road E1 and now I’m a low D2.

ColemanY2K

8kW Heat pump and cylinder cost me 6.5k ex vat last week. Its a new build.

Electrician and plumber will cost no more 1500 for a couple of days work so for 10k in total for install.

When it comes to replacement the cylinder will probably be fine with only the HP needing replacement.