Heat Pumps - post here.

I reckon Andy here has hit the nail on the head regarding heat pump installation

It's all down to the design and there's plenty of cowboys

He got his heat loss calculations done independently and knew he'd need a 5kW heat pump, keep the existing pipes and increase the size of two radiators

He got quotes from installers (without telling them the heat loss results) for 12-15kW heat pumps and replacing all the radiators and pipework

No wonder people are having bad experiences if on many houses you can do an upgrade for a fraction of the costs they're paying and they're getting absolutely rubbish CoP as a result

Can anyone recommend a company for air to water with underfloor heating and heat recovery in co mayo, who are also registered for SESI grants. Really struggling.

Muppet man

Just found that Daiken do a boiler that takes both gas and electricity (with outdoor heat pump unit) or a combination of both

This seems to me to be the best possible option, drop in replacement for my combi and the majority of the time will be run from the excess PV anyway.

And best of all no need for any tank or any of that mess, hot water on demand.

Did anyone here install something like this?

I suspect the air to water grant from the SEAI doesn't apply because it takes gas too?

Could one for example replace the boiler with a heat pump to claim the grant, then just install one of these after the fact?

It's not like they rip the whole gas main out as part of the replacement, right?

Or leave the gas "disconnected" for the grant, similar for the PV inspection, if you leave one string unplugged then it is not part of the install (stupid but confirmed by the inspector)

I think the point is when really cold outside the HP is worse than gas (not sure if it reaches in Ireland) and it switches to that automatically or it can use gas/elec combined.

I'd be interested in the instant hot water without the tank mainly (if it can do it that is) since all HPs seem to require one.

Or even simpler idea, get the heat pump with an external auxiliary heater, and keep the existing gas boiler

All 3 without the hassle of buying a very expensive proprietary gas boiler

You can control the boiler from the heat pump in bivalent mode. It looks like Daikin heat pumps can activate the heat pump based on outside temperature and the programmed prices of electricity and gas

I can't link the exact page, but if you search for bivalent it'll explain it

Seems like a good feature, so the heat pump will automatically figure out the cheapest heating source and use that

Anyone any experience with carbonfreeheat.ie? They seem to offer a fitted 17kW heat pump for 11k eur. Is that good? Have a functioning oil boiler but I'd like to move to electric heating

You'd want that 17kwh hp to be able to do cooling in summer too for that price.

I'd say his house is a lot bigger than yours and nowhere near A2 rated ☺️

I didnt but I was just googling heat pumps ireland and this was the first one.

I've no idea of what a square meter is but we have a 6 bed house, which has been split into main house and 2 offices, BER (which is BS anyway) is B2 after putting in solar PV and the walls pumped.

Ideally it would but that's an A2A HP in order to do cooling and I'm looking at A2W in order to do DHW. I am considering A2A but it seems more expensive and a less well integrated solution. I would like AC in summer though

yes my house was built 30 plus years ago so UFH would be cost prohibitive. I think I'd need A2A to cool here. I wouldnt mind an AC unit that could do cooling in specific rooms and then a main A2W system, just scoping it out at the moment to be honest. Oil for heating is probably my last essential spend on fossil fuels so would be nice to get away from that. I do have some classic cars that are ICE obviouslt but they arent essential.

Heatgeeks made a video to try get a standard radiator to cool a room. Result was crap – didn’t drop temp at all from what I recall. Idea was that you’ve a surface area (rad) cooler than the surrounding area (room) and would that reduce the room temp. Created a load of moisture too which dropped onto the floor. Could lead to damp and people failing on wet floors. Basically they pumped cool water through the heating system somehow. They might have done something since to better that. Was a fairly low tech approach they took in the jacks in their office 😊

Gist seems to be there was no heat convection happening. As in hot air rises so travels up and around the room heating it. Cold air doesn’t do that, will sink to floor. So even if the rad did get cooler, that cool air didn’t then travel the room. Which is why aircon units are up high so cold air ‘flows’ down. 

I think what may end up happening (for me anyway) as its the best mix of cost and functionality. A2W installed for the house with a few zones, then individual AC cooling units in the problematic rooms. It's really just my office and the main living area. I could get 2 A2A smaller units and then a main A2W heater. When we need the cooling, solar PV is producing in excess so I dont really care about the draw etc. I reckon 1kW draw should easily cover 2 small AC a2a units in the summer.

Called a crowd to get me prices for A2A and it seems there will be unsightly trunking all over the exterior walls with the split systems.

You also sometimes need small pumps (hidden under trunking) to assist with the condensate flowing if you have a weird run.

And cost is 1500 + vat per room (would you even get the 3.5k from the SEAI for A2A HP?)

I'd need 6 of them to do the house proper, he even said a lot of people put less units, like 1 upstairs and 1 downstairs and it's useless in the end since the farthest room will never cool/heat properly.