Starting out on my heat pump journey

[Ronski]

My house, which is mostly 1970s and around 170 square meters, has a heat loss of just under 7 kW, so I would think a 100 year old 370m2 house would likely need more than 8.5kW.

Maybe, maybe not! He says the insulation has been thoroughly upgraded. If the insulation has been upgraded to a high standard then 8.5kW is genuinely realistic. Particularly if (as I say) there is secondary heating for the coldest conditions.

Considering my insulation has been upgraded, I have cavity wall insulation as well, my house is roughly half the size of his, I think it's pretty conclusive he'll have more than a 8.5 kW heat loss. Yes, if there is sufficient secondary heating then he may well get away with an 8.5 kW heat pump, BUT I have secondary heating, a 5kW WBS, but the heat gets trapped in the lounge dinning room, and doesn't really heat the rest of the house even with the doors wide open.

We'll find out when he gets the heat loss survey done.

[Ronski]

March was an incredible month for solar, we generated 1357 kWh, we exported 1649 kWh and imported 1123, mostly at 7p kWh.

Today we generated 65.58 kWh, currently at 59.5 kWh exported, may even break my record of 70 kWh exported.

[Yuff]

Quote back from plumber and he has recommended a 14 kw heat pump.

[Joeboy]

Quote back from plumber and he has recommended a 14 kw heat pump.

Is it Mitsubishi? Not seen one of those yet.

[Stinsy]

Quote back from plumber and he has recommended a 14 kw heat pump.

Is it Mitsubishi? Not seen one of those yet.

You'd need a very good reason to chose anything other than a Vaillant!

Whle there is the odd Dakin and Mitsu on here, the VAST majority of high-performing setups are Vaillant: https://heatpumpmonitor.org/

[Yuff]

Plumber was recommended by Mitsubishi and referral came from a friend who fit Mitsubishi in all their new builds and have been pretty happy with the pumps.
I’ve struggled to get an engineer who knows anything about fitting heat pumps and the pumps themselves have worked pretty well it’s just poor installation that has caused the majority of our issues

Ps even with the poor installation the running costs, thanks to octopus, have been nuts in a good way

[Stinsy]

Plumber was recommended by Mitsubishi and referral came from a friend who fit Mitsubishi in all their new builds and have been pretty happy with the pumps.
I’ve struggled to get an engineer who knows anything about fitting heat pumps and the pumps themselves have worked pretty well it’s just poor installation that has caused the majority of our issues

Ps even with the poor installation the running costs, thanks to octopus, have been nuts in a good way

I know you're probably borde of me saying this, but: if the problem is with the installation not the HPs then fix the installation don't install a new HP! I've seen loads of poor installs on youtube "fixed" by chucking zone valves, buffer tanks, low-loss headers, etc, and upsizing a few pipes.

I'm sure there are some very easily-achieved quick wins on your system.

[Yuff]

Plumber was recommended by Mitsubishi and referral came from a friend who fit Mitsubishi in all their new builds and have been pretty happy with the pumps.
I’ve struggled to get an engineer who knows anything about fitting heat pumps and the pumps themselves have worked pretty well it’s just poor installation that has caused the majority of our issues

Ps even with the poor installation the running costs, thanks to octopus, have been nuts in a good way

I know you're probably borde of me saying this, but: if the problem is with the installation not the HPs then fix the installation don't install a new HP! I've seen loads of poor installs on youtube "fixed" by chucking zone valves, buffer tanks, low-loss headers, etc, and upsizing a few pipes.

I'm sure there are some very easily-achieved quick wins on your system.

The plumber will be doing quite a bit of what you suggest and because of the grant it actually works out cheaper to install the new pump. It also includes removing the current boiler.
We lose 2 out of the 3 control panels and only have one heat pump.
For us it’s win win on every level. He is also putting the UFH on one zone rather than 6.
If the grant gets declined then we would keep the existing pumps and still do a lot of your suggestions.