ASHP installer recommendations

[Greenfingers]

After gleaning a lot of useful information here, it's time for my first post:-

Octopus quoted a little over £3k (using the £7.5k grant) to replace my Mother's ancient boiler with an ASHP system. A replacement gas boiler would be a similar cost, so it seemed a no brainer to go down the ASHP route, especially after weighing up the benefits of an upgraded DHW cylinder and radiators.

Octopus explained that they could do a survey in November and we would be looking at an install date around May next year, so we did the loft insulation top up to ensure we qualify and paid the £500 deposit. I have good faith in Octopus as a company, but even with all their investment in training installers, it looks like they are being flooded with orders, because they are now saying survey in 8 - 10 weeks. Heaven only knows how long the wait for installation will actually be.

So I've starting looking for alternative providers to do the work sooner and it seems a bit of a minefield. A major priority for me is finding a firm that can be trusted to do a decent job for my elderly Mother. The MCS website lists half a dozen registered installers in the area, but these tend to be sole traders or small newly formed companies and I feel it is important to find an installer with good experience of this emerging technology.

One glaring defecit is that while there are over 120,000 Gas Safe registered plumbers in the UK, there are only about 3,000 MCS approved heat pump installers. It's easy to find a reputable plumber - via personal recommendation, Google, etc, but there are very few online reviews for ASHP installations and it's hard to tell which products are likely to work best.

Having discounted the local 'one man bands', I found a company called AIRA, who are new in the UK, but well established in Sweden. They are talking about installation potentially four weeks post survey, which sounds great, but I have no idea whether this is sales patter or they have a good track record.

Any recommendations for ASHP installers (I'm in Oxfordshire) - either positive or negative, would be gratefully received.

[Fintray]

Sorry I can't give any recommendations for ASHP installers but welcome to the forum.

[Greenfingers]

Thanks Fintray.

It is understandable that most installers want to do a survey before specifying and quoting for a system, which makes it trickier to get a feel for prices and a specification that hits the 'sweet spot'. I expect a lot of MCS accredited firms are inundated with requests due to the BUS grant and do not have enough manpower to survey every property.

I think it would help potential customers and lessen the burden on companies if it was easier to get ball park figures without the need for repetitive surveys. Once the parameters such as number of rooms and their dimensions, insulation levels, existing radiator sizes and siting requirements have been established, it should be possible to specify the main variable components of a system, such as size of heat pump, water cylinder and radiators. This information could then be used to provide a fairly good indication of the total cost.

A database or list of quotes from various providers would be a useful tool for people trying to assess ASHP installation costs. Octopus gave a fixed price quote for my Mother's very large property, without even doing a survey. Aira quoted more than double the amount after their survey and although they seem like a well run, progressive company, their price is unworkable for my Mother.

Here are the two quotes for comparison's sake:-

Octopus: £3385.50 including everything
Aira: £8,323 including Vaillant aroTHERM 12 kW heat pump, 250l water cylinder and 16 radiators

Perhaps anyone else who has had quotes could post them here for comparison?

[richbee]

Thanks Fintray.

It is understandable that most installers want to do a survey before specifying and quoting for a system, which makes it trickier to get a feel for prices and a specification that hits the 'sweet spot'. I expect a lot of MCS accredited firms are inundated with requests due to the BUS grant and do not have enough manpower to survey every property.

I think it would help potential customers and lessen the burden on companies if it was easier to get ball park figures without the need for repetitive surveys. Once the parameters such as number of rooms and their dimensions, insulation levels, existing radiator sizes and siting requirements have been established, it should be possible to specify the main variable components of a system, such as size of heat pump, water cylinder and radiators. This information could then be used to provide a fairly good indication of the total cost.

A database or list of quotes from various providers would be a useful tool for people trying to assess ASHP installation costs. Octopus gave a fixed price quote for my Mother's very large property, without even doing a survey. Aira quoted more than double the amount after their survey and although they seem like a well run, progressive company, their price is unworkable for my Mother.

Here are the two quotes for comparison's sake:-

Octopus: £3385.50 including everything
Aira: £8,323 including Vaillant aroTHERM 12 kW heat pump, 250l water cylinder and 16 radiators

Perhaps anyone else who has had quotes could post them here for comparison?

I think that is the problem with the grant - it distorts the difference in prices - with the grant, the Aira quote is way more than double the cost. Without the grant it is more like £11k vs 16k.

I have a quote from Octopus for £4.6k after grant, the only other online quote I had was from Heatgeek, which was over £10k after grant!
I'm also now waiting for Octopus to come and do the full survey, after we'll see - I'm slightly concerned they might not even quote, as they mentioned that 11kW is the max heat pump size they supply, and my initial calcs with the MCS excel sheet show 12.5kW max heat loss

[richbee]

I think that is the problem with the grant - it distorts the difference in prices - with the grant, the Aira quote is way more than double the cost. Without the grant it is more like £11k vs 16k.

I have a quote from Octopus for £4.6k after grant, the only other online quote I had was from Heatgeek, which was over £10k after grant!
I'm also now waiting for Octopus to come and do the full survey, after we'll see - I'm slightly concerned they might not even quote, as they mentioned that 11kW is the max heat pump size they supply, and my initial calcs with the MCS excel sheet show 12.5kW max heat loss

I'm not complaining about getting a £7.5k grant BTW - just it makes the other quotes look like they are much higher precentage-wise

[Greenfingers]

Yes understood, but even when you ignore the grant, there still seems to be a huge disparity in what different companies charge for similarly specified systems.

If we were discussing quotes for gas boiler replacements, then I reckon most people would have a fair idea of what to expect: perhaps £2.5 - 3k for a boiler change, plus up to £1k for a good hot water cylinder and about £100 per radiator and then maybe add another £1k if pipework and controls need modifying. Of course there will be some disparity in quotes, but surely not more than 25% (assuming genuine tradesmen who are actually looking for work)?

My two ASHP quotes are hugely different - £11k from Octopus and £16k from Aira. Richbee had £12k from Octopus and £17.5k from Heatgeek. The BUS grant means that companies can charge way more than they need to and customers will still justify spending a little more than they would on a new boiler, to help save the planet. I think the MCS accreditation requirement to access to the grant is also fuelling suppliers' greed, due to demand outstripping supply from just 3,000 accredited installers in the UK. We need some controls to ensure the quality, safety and performance of these systems, but my view is that ASHPs are inherantly safer and more robust than gas boilers (no gas and lower water temperatures) - so why the need for such rigorous MCS accreditation?

ASHPs may be seem like relatively new tech to us, but it's not rocket science and I don't like providers pretending it is.