Air source heat pump. RHI government scheme.

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domdee

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Evening all. I have enquired about having a air source heat pump fitted after seeing adverts on social media. Very sceptical.

I have a solid brick detached property with no cavity. Wooden windows. Poor insulation. They said I’d benefit massively from the RHI scheme due to these reasons.

Today someone come to provide a quote to have a unit fitted. This cost with everything required is £15500. Including up to 7 new rads. Sounds very steep compared to a normal combi. This would be paid by me. Savings or bank loan. Then the government pay me £12000 back over the next 7 years in quarterly instalments (RHI). And there are a couple of other payments available. Boiler by back at £500 and the source pump manufacturers offer £1610 for monitoring feedback via an app/thermostat. So initial return for my outlay is good over the 7 years. Plus I will not be paying £1400 a year on LPG.

My main concern is the effectiveness of the system. They are meant to be used at low temp but constantly. My house is draft and cold so I fear it will never really heat up fast enough compared to the combi. Will hot water supply be enough? A pressurised 170L cylinder is also used to store hot water. I have a young growing family and a wife who runs the hot top throughout her bath. I also plan to lay 100m2 of UFH when renovating.

Will my electric bill sky rocket or will it be fractional in comparison to lpg price?

Any experience with these systems would be greatly appreciated to help me weigh it all up.

Thanks in advance.
 
Your house is not suitable for an air source heat pump. Are they try to sell you a high temperature HP? the running costs will be massive when compared to gas or oil.
 
You need a well insulated and draft free house for a heat pump to work. Sounds to me like it's being mis-sold to you.

You'd be much better off spending your money on draft-proofing if you want to reduce your heating bills
 
Muggles I see where you’re coming from.

I have old wooden windows and doors on an old property so will be changing them for modern composite alternative in the not so
Distant future. Loft has minimal rock wool on floor. But I will be insulating it when I extend the property next year.

It’s the fact that I have this kind of drafts property which makes the RHI payments so high apparently. If I was to upgrade the property and then get the heat pump fitted, the RHI payments would be much less.
 
AJ, the pump quoted was a 14kw unit so I think that’s a substantial one. I thought elec would be high after install.
 
domdee said:
It’s the fact that I have this kind of drafts property which makes the RHI payments so high apparently. If I was to upgrade the property and then get the heat pump fitted, the RHI payments would be much less.
Click to expand...

Technically correct, but not for the reason you think. Payments are 10.71p per kWh generated. If you're throwing loads of heat away then you're generating more, so you get more paid back, but the RHI doesn't cover the full cost of generation so the more you generate, the more it costs you to run. They're also capped annually, so once you've generated a certain amount the payments stop altogether for that year
 
No need to wait for a year before bunging some insulation in the loft, it will save money straight away.

P.S. interesting you were sucked in by “social media” adverts, which are obviously less well regulated than conventional media.
 
Personally I would be paying out on loft and external wall insulation, and decent double or triple glazed windows.

There's no point in spending serious money on heating systems unless you can keep the heat in and you may only need a little heating if you insulate the crap out of your house
 
domdee said:
I have a solid brick detached property with no cavity. Wooden windows. Poor insulation. They said I’d benefit massively from the RHI scheme due to these reasons.
Click to expand...
Translation:
Sales person gets paid on commission, so a massive draughty old house that will need a gigantically oversized heating system will generate a vast pile of money for them personally.
 
So i guess the general consensus is to keep clear???

And to insulate the F out of the loft and get better windows
 
I would be interested to know what the size of the radiators they had proposed to install was. Heat pumps can't generate the high temperatures that boilers can, so are normally hooked up to underfloor heating systems that either use the whole floor area as the 'radiator' or use blown air. Radiators hooked up to a heat pump would have to be massive!
 
Stem they did say some of my k22 rads where not sufficient. but these are only 1000x600's.

sircerebus666 Not got cavity walls so would have to use the kingspan plasterboard stuff or put stud frame/insluation/board which i am reluctant to do either due to the mess created in the process.
 
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