Starting out on my heat pump journey

[Ronski]

I put a list together over the weekend of installers to phone, when I checked a month or two ago there was two local Heetgeeks listed, they've now both disappeared. Nearest one is 40 miles away, so I gave him a call today, and he will install in our area, had good chat and he's asked me to send through a load of info including the Hent Punk heat loss calcs, he'll then come up with a ball park figure, and if I'm happy to continue will then do a complete heat loss survey, at a price obviously. It's an hours drive each way, so I don't expect a home visit just for a chat, and he seemed decent enough to talk to.

Got a couple of other installers who are approved Valiant installers, so will get in contact with at least one of those as well.

[Ronski]

I've contacted one of the approved Vaillant installers, their indicative estimate is between £7700 and £9300 after BUS grant, excluding radiator upgrades. Full survey would be £354.

I presume it would be money well spent to get both this company and the Heat Geek to do a survey?

In other news, I'm joining the EV club, I put down a deposit on a 3 year old E-Niro 4+ today, will likely collect it next weekend. It will be a big change to my 15 year old VW Tiguan diesel, which I've owned for about 12 years.

[Ronski]

First survey booked for Saturday 25th January, this is the approved Vaillant installers, I've not heard back from the Heatgeek yet.

[Fintray]

First survey booked for Saturday 25th January, this is the approved Vaillant installers, I've not heard back from the Heatgeek yet.

It'll be interesting to see what they specify.

[Yuff]

I did this just over 2 years ago and it has been a frustrating journey, albeit quite rewarding financially if I remove the capital investment
The most annoying part is not finding someone who has a lot of experience with heat pumps. Original plumber didn’t do a bad job, but it could have been better, we needed 2 heat pumps as high temp heat pumps weren’t around and the biggest heat pump at the time would not have been sufficient.
The 2 upstairs floors struggled to heat with a gas boiler prior to doing all this, so heat pumps weren’t around likely to be a challenge.
Still not quite there with the efficiency but hopefully an edition so pump and replacing the initial pump from the install will address the issues.
The old plumbing hasn’t helped and I wasn’t going to take up the floorboards to change the pipe work having gutted the ground floor to install UFH in 2020/21. Went with low water content radiators that use a fan and can also cool
Battling to get the plumber to fit these pumps though :head-bang

[Ronski]

Had the first heat loss survey today.

The result, total heat loss at -3c 6998w, my Heatpunk survey I did came out at 6992w at -3.2c, so very close indeed.

His recommendation is to run at a 50c flow temperature as we have solar, and large batteries and thus very low electric costs, this will mean we don't need to replace any radiators. We can then experiment and I can replace radiators if I feel the need to. Doing this would be more cost effective than having them design at a lower temperature and changing loads of rads, it will still be a 7kW heat pump, so nothing to lose really in my mind. Heatpunk gives a SCOP of 3.65 at 50c flow, so still respectable.

He's also recommending a 250ltr tank, it will be tight but may fit where the existing boiler is, they may need to fit a small buffer / expansion vessel in the loft, or the cloakroom - it's just a coat and shoe cupboard basically, so can lose a little space from there - there is far too many womens shoes in there anyway!

They are going to quote for both a Vaillant aroTherm Plus 7kW & 250l Unistor pre-plumbed HWC and the Kronoterm 9kW Adapt with equivalent Hydro C2.

I've not heard of Kronoterm, anyone have any opinions or thoughts on the above as well?

As for the Heatgeek, full radio silence, no reply to my email he asked me to send, no reply to WhatsApp I sent recently, and no answer or call back from a phone call the other day, so no idea what's happened to him. If he's not interested then he should just say so.

[Fintray]

As for the Heatgeek, full radio silence, no reply to my email he asked me to send, no reply to WhatsApp I sent recently, and no answer or call back from a phone call the other day, so no idea what's happened to him. If he's not interested then he should just say so.

If I was you, it would be a definite forget him (even if he does get back to you) and move on.

[Joeboy]

As for the Heatgeek, full radio silence, no reply to my email he asked me to send, no reply to WhatsApp I sent recently, and no answer or call back from a phone call the other day, so no idea what's happened to him. If he's not interested then he should just say so.

If I was you, it would be a definite forget him (even if he does get back to you) and move on.

Agreed, fell at the first hurdle. Never think of them again. What's your rad pipe bore size Ron?

[Joeboy]

Forgot to ask, who did the heat calc? Is this one of your 2 preferred fitters, the other being Mr radio silence?

[Ronski]

Forgot to ask, who did the heat calc? Is this one of your 2 preferred fitters, the other being Mr radio silence?

It was Solaris Energy who are an approved Vaillant installer, that did the heat loss survey today.

Main runs are 22mm copper or 22mm plastic, then they have seperate feeds to each rad, either 15mm copper or 15mm plastic.

Edit: Great solar day today, 20.5 kWh