Stop pushing heat pumps or face major backlash, Dale Vince tells Labour

[Moxi]

I'm in the same situation as Mart appears to be in, in so far as an ASHP seems to be just too big for my domestic heating needs (366kWh in a mild year, 592kWh in a cold year) and not the optimum solution for my DHW needs. I'm roughly 3657miles North of the equator and 300m above sea level in an exposed position BUT the cottage has EWI and is only 84sqm of floor space so our heat loss is only around 3052W/h.

Based on those figures I am having no joy making the wet ASHP stack up.
Moxi

Moxi, can you clarify those figures as they are at least twice as good as the criteria for a passive house of the same size as yours?

Yep, literally blew my socks off!

I'd love more info, background story etc, as it's so, so impressive.

Not impressive just plain wrong sorry

Moxi

[Moxi]

Moxi, can you clarify those figures as they are at least twice as good as the criteria for a passive house of the same size as yours?

Yep, literally blew my socks off!

I'd love more info, background story etc, as it's so, so impressive.

What temp difference between outside and inside is the heat loss of 3052W/h based on ?

Hi Knowty,

Well if I could get logged I to heatpunk I could check but for some reason at the minute its not allowing me which is a annoying and a worry, but if memory serves I think it was - 3 to 20 degrees knowing we seldom drop below 4 degrees this close to the coast.

Moxi

Can someone move this to a new post as I dont want it to overtake AE-N Midlands post, and I dont know how to move stuff

[Mart]

Moxi, can you clarify those figures as they are at least twice as good as the criteria for a passive house of the same size as yours?

Yep, literally blew my socks off!

I'd love more info, background story etc, as it's so, so impressive.

Not impressive just plain wrong sorry

Moxi

Nah, still very impressive. If ~1,600kWh cold year, then do you have an A2A unit, or are you considering one? That might be all you need, so long as it can slowly spread around the property. Perhaps just off-peak use for 4-6hrs per day. Let's say a 3.5kW unit, modulating to around 600W, that's 3.6kWh per 6hrs, and at a low, cold night COP of 2, then 7kWh(t) per day, or 210kWh(t) per month. With some day use in the hardest/coldest months.

Just thinking out loud, looks like the World is your oyster, may just be better to save the money, and use an oil rad or hot air blower at times?

Can someone move this to a new post as I dont want it to overtake AE-N Midlands post, and I dont know how to move stuff

Take your point/concern, but it does sorta fit within the news article about looking at other possible solutions, for those with differing needs/circumstances.

[Moxi]

Hi Mart,

Yes a few days back I noted somewhere else on here that I needed to consider A2A for heating and some other source for DHW instead of combining the two in to a wet system and ASHP. I haven't had much time to go looking but my current thoughts are that one or perhaps 2 small A2A units (one down stairs and one upstairs) would give us all the heating and cooling we would ever need. DHW could then be supplied by electric boiler, phase change boiler, several inline heaters at the source taps or a small integrated HWC and heat pump, a hot water cylinder and vaccum tubes on a ground mount. The latter 2 options would be located outside in a lean to building built where the current LPG cylinders are positioned and heavily insulated.

Lots of options which is good, lots of optioneering and thought to arrive at the best solution to my specific needs.

Moxi

[Joeboy]

Yep, literally blew my socks off!

I'd love more info, background story etc, as it's so, so impressive.

Not impressive just plain wrong sorry

Moxi

Nah, still very impressive. If ~1,600kWh cold year, then do you have an A2A unit, or are you considering one? That might be all you need, so long as it can slowly spread around the property. Perhaps just off-peak use for 4-6hrs per day. Let's say a 3.5kW unit, modulating to around 600W, that's 3.6kWh per 6hrs, and at a low, cold night COP of 2, then 7kWh(t) per day, or 210kWh(t) per month. With some day use in the hardest/coldest months.

Just thinking out loud, looks like the World is your oyster, may just be better to save the money, and use an oil rad or hot air blower at times?

Can someone move this to a new post as I dont want it to overtake AE-N Midlands post, and I dont know how to move stuff

Take your point/concern, but it does sorta fit within the news article about looking at other possible solutions, for those with differing needs/circumstances.

Iain,
What does your ashp modulate down to once the home settles ?

[Mart]

Not impressive just plain wrong sorry

Moxi

Nah, still very impressive. If ~1,600kWh cold year, then do you have an A2A unit, or are you considering one? That might be all you need, so long as it can slowly spread around the property. Perhaps just off-peak use for 4-6hrs per day. Let's say a 3.5kW unit, modulating to around 600W, that's 3.6kWh per 6hrs, and at a low, cold night COP of 2, then 7kWh(t) per day, or 210kWh(t) per month. With some day use in the hardest/coldest months.

Just thinking out loud, looks like the World is your oyster, may just be better to save the money, and use an oil rad or hot air blower at times?

Can someone move this to a new post as I dont want it to overtake AE-N Midlands post, and I dont know how to move stuff

Take your point/concern, but it does sorta fit within the news article about looking at other possible solutions, for those with differing needs/circumstances.

Iain,
What does your ashp modulate down to once the home settles ?

Hi, did you mean me? My 3.5kW unit, set to 24C with the door wide open, seems to be modulating down to around 400W through that 6hr period, at the moment, and no GCH yet. I exaggerated a bit, to 600W, to assume it working harder during coldest days.

[Or in other words, I pulled a number out of my arse!]

[Joeboy]

Nah, still very impressive. If ~1,600kWh cold year, then do you have an A2A unit, or are you considering one? That might be all you need, so long as it can slowly spread around the property. Perhaps just off-peak use for 4-6hrs per day. Let's say a 3.5kW unit, modulating to around 600W, that's 3.6kWh per 6hrs, and at a low, cold night COP of 2, then 7kWh(t) per day, or 210kWh(t) per month. With some day use in the hardest/coldest months.

Just thinking out loud, looks like the World is your oyster, may just be better to save the money, and use an oil rad or hot air blower at times?





Take your point/concern, but it does sorta fit within the news article about looking at other possible solutions, for those with differing needs/circumstances.

Iain,
What does your ashp modulate down to once the home settles ?

Hi, did you mean me? My 3.5kW unit, set to 24C with the door wide open, seems to be modulating down to around 400W through that 6hr period, at the moment, and no GCH yet. I exaggerated a bit, to 600W, to assume it working harder during coldest days.

[Or in other words, I pulled a number out of my arse!]

I think I probably did mean you Mart, heads going in 5 directions and mastering none!

[HML]

I get that HML with a large modest insulted bungalow is getting good CoPs but even then thats good CoPs to maintain the energy input to the bungalow based on average insulation (BTW is 20kWh per year right HML or are you missing one or two digits ?) wouldnt it be better if the government gave him options to better insulate so his nett energy demand dropped rather than giving him a grant to keep the energy demand the same and the costs to him relative to using gas ?

The government needs to provide a selection of resources and maybe spend time making sure the industries are properly regulated and incentivised on results in terms of less power lower costs rather than the free for all selling badly sized badly installed widgets to every one before folding the business and running off with the profits.?

Like i say its not black or white its many shades of grey and probably to complex for a government to manage.

Moxi

Yes, there's 3 digits missing!

The government aren't going to give me any assistance with any form of improvement. Historically the insulation assistance has been means tested and limited to a subset of housing, apart from when rolls of insulation were being sold very cheaply and AIUI they were subsidised by the energy companies.

Apart from that the only way to significantly improve the thermal performance of our house would be to knock it down and start again, which is obviously not going to happen. (Well over 300mm of loft insulation, reasonable DG, but suspended floors and dubious wall insulation. Insulating under floors and adding wall insulation would be eye wateringly expensive and extremely disruptive.

None of my projects have had any financial input from the state. When I've looked at schemes they are only available to MCS members and the subsidy magically disappears into the pockets of the installers.

From a financial POV heat pumps will be a failure unless they are completely subsidised. The payback is far too long, if ever.

[Moxi]

Nowty,

-3 to 19.5 was the temp range.

Moxi

[Mart]

From a financial POV heat pumps will be a failure unless they are completely subsidised. The payback is far too long, if ever.

Sat in on a presentation yesterday at the Everything Electric Show entitled "The state of play with the UK Heat Pump roll out. What's holding us back?"

And of course, it was cost that came up as the main issue. But perhaps some good news (if true) for new builds, was something the guest speaker from Baxi said. He said that roughly half the cost of an ASHP install, was dealing with the issues of 20+yrs of previous heating/systems.

It was an almost off-hand digression, so I won't remember all the points, and I don't think he listed everything, but it was about siting, radiator size and cleaning, micro-bore, typically a need to go back to a tank where space may not now exist, silly issue of PP and noise, v's gas boilers and noisy flues, etc.

The point being that for new builds, the cost shouldn't be considerably more than a gas install. And for replacement/maintenance going forward, no different to boiler repairs / replacement costs.

No idea if all of that is true, and cost comparison fair, but I think it's a good point. Not that it helps with the ~20m residences that already exist.