Heat Pumps

[wolfie138]

got a letter through the door yester about the council doing a trial scheme installing free heat pumps into 250 houses.

https://www.newcastle.gov.uk/heatpumps

anyone know much about them? First I've heard of them but it seems a hard sell to me - leaflet said normal cost was £4~11k depending and you might save around £400 a year, so at least a decade to pay for itself.

 

[sovietspybob]

They're interesting and probably the future for a lot of people but they are very expensive, we looked at them with our new build house but even then the sums just didn't add up to me.

They're really not that good at heating radiators, you need wet underfloor heating or massive radiators to make best use of them as they can't get the water as hot as a normal boiler so you need a system which makes use of cooler water to see the real efficiency of them.

For free though it sounds interesting, there was a poster on here recently though where his heatpump gave up the ghost after 10 years and he was looking at a 7k repair bill.. so even if free the long term costs could be a lot more than a normal gas boiler if it fails out of warranty.

 

[Destination]

Free.....
sounds good

 

[TheFew]

Get one for free and connect it to an outdoor swimming pool... Will keep the pool nice and warm in the summer months.

 

[wolfie138]

ta for the info. sounds like i'll just politely refuse if I get selected. Seem to recall solar panels were the same, not particularly worth it until a few years of development had passed.

 

[the_r_sole]

These are well proven technology, we put them into almost every new house we do, the only thing I'd say is that they're better suited to low temperature systems (ufh) and of you've got radiators they'll probably need upsized to be useful, not sure if that's part of the scheme too?
They do work a bit different to high temperature systems tho so make sure you understand how to use them before deciding.
If i was me I'd definitely take one for free!!

 

[ash_scotland88]

What are the thoughts of Hight Temperature heat pumps? They're designed to be ran with "standard" central heating systems and houses that aren't as air tight, and are partially aimed towards those that are looking to replace an oil tank.
Think LG and mitsubishi have them in their range and Daikon has one too.

 

[tonys]

We have the large LG thermo v, it does heat the house up ok (4 bed semi detached, electricity only) on radiators but because of flooding issues with the house we had to have it mounted below a bedroom window. When working it can sound like a washing machine on a long spin cycle or a distant helicopter hovering so be aware of the sound issues aswell. Running cost is about the same as gas but you can get an incentive payment back every 3 months.