These systems are very efficient when you have properly insulated house and if you use low temperature floor heating instead of high temperature radiators. Specially for the new build they should have calculate the heat loss of the house and install the unit with proper power output so it does not need to run on emergency electric heating coil. In Northern countries these systems are used widely and the emergency heating is turned only when the temperatures are below like -20 deg C or so. However build this houses and decided for that specific unit should be blamed, not NIBE.
These were 2kw Air Exhaust systems designed for 1 bed flats fitted in 3 bed houses that were way to big for the system , so stuggling to produce enough heat to heat the home then yes like any other appliance installed incorrectly they would be expensive to run
Blame nibe for crappy house build quality... ROFL. Even if using the immersion heater elements, its still at least at the same as normal electric heatin. No more, but surely no less. btw should you use kWh instead of pounds for comparison. Wouldnt make so good social porn tough..
The NIBE system could be worse than direct electric immersion as not all the heat is useful and energy wasted running mechanical parts which are not contributing to the heat.
Samantha couldn't keep up payments for her previous home so it was repossessed. But she still has 3 kids and another one on the way. You can't afford to live, but keep the babies coming. The taxpayer will pay...
Hello all, the main problem i have seen in this video is british incompetence as usual about understanding how this system works and for what type of houses is applicable. As it is an exhaust air heat recovery system it cannot have 100% efficiency and even if it did, if you have a poorly insulated house it will still run on the electrical back-up to reach the set temperature. Insulate your home well, and see the difference, if it still not enough back it up with a thermodynamic solar panel, get some PV panels as well if enough space on the roof. Live Green and do it smart.
Actually we have proof that nibe Uk specified these systems incorrectly and in Sweden (home of Nibe) these models no longer meet standard...this is why Nibe sold to UK market . In the UK electric from the grid is mainly powered by gas turbines...this means currently only a fool would think an electric boiler with an undersized heat pump is going to be greener or more economical than a gas boiler.... 1000's of these nibe units have been removed in the uk after just a year usage.If you like them so much and they are so great why did you or Nibe not collect them to use elsewhere . They all went to the dump ...why..? Because NO ONE WANTS THEM!
+J WD I imagine it is more expensive to send them back to Sweden and recycle these machines for a future use in other systems (remember that they have been used )and this is not interesting from a possible client. Btw I have an Geothermal heat pump, guess which brand.... and it is GREAT!! greetings from finland
Great so your opinion is not even based on user experience of these models. Yes I drove a Ford once and it was great does that mean all Ford cars are great???? Greetings from planet Earth.
Oh, that makes sense, about 8000kwh/year of heat, my C.O.P. is 2.42 so 3300Kwh/year electricity used to heat the house. Yeah, we've had loads of insulation put in :) the heat pump has paid itself off after 4 years because the old heating system was inefficient (electrical storage heaters)
I know :( building regs in the UK are not good when it comes to insulation (which is what I meant by the houses are too big :p ) they'll take years to change them again. I live in a 1970's built house about the same size as the ones in the video, which has been insulated about 10 years ago. the heating bill for the whole year is about £5-600 keeping the house at 20 degrees with GSHP :)
Hi . We agree the homes a way off what a Swedish home is built to an by Law in Sweden a home wishing to have this system must meet very good U values. But here NIBE UK have specified these systems into all the homes in the video and even returned a year later to confirm that its all " A OK". but it obvious to every one that these homes are not suitable and now the truth is emerging . NIBE UK have tarnished the good name of NIBE all in the name of greed.
The best way would be to insulate their houses properly in UK instead :) The house in this clip above uses 3 TIMES!!! more energy/m2 than my house!!! That is A LOT! .. There is no need to throw out the pumps if the houses could be made more energy efficiant. It's like living in a tent trying to heat it to +20c when its -20c outside!! :) Just a waste of energy!! :(
To uncomplicated all this an exhaust air source heat pump extracts heat from inside a building transferring heat to a storage tank by using heat exchangers/compressed gas. It sort of works in the reverse way a fridge does (notice a fridge is always hot at the back). A lot of heat can be extracted this way and modern heat pumps can extract heat from air as cold as -15 degrees centigrade. Just because air is cold does not mean it does not have energy! The heat collected is then used again to heat the house through radiators/underfloor heating. These systems are better installed in passive houses (very well insulated houses). The uk was truly awful at this and we are still catching up with most Scandinavian countries. Basically all this probably failed because: - poor insulation of uk homes - incorrect installs - incorrect KW system. - users not educated. Around this time people were used to firing up the heating when they want the house warm but this system is best left constantly running. - hot water was provided by an immersion heater which also probably compensated for the heat loss of the property from poor insulation. Gas is much cheaper so accounting for poor insulation doesn’t matter as much. Another thing to note is some people set their heating to unreasonably high temperatures. 18-21 degrees centigrade is where if should be, not 27 degrees with the windows open. I can’t comment on the model of the boiler in this ‘scandal’ but I am considering buying a Nibe as they have generally have a good reputation.
@@edc1569 That’s why the process requires electricity. This accounts for the excess heat produced. Unfortunately electricity is much more expensive than gas.
Ok, money spent to heat a house is a bad comparison when comparing countries with eachother.. Best would be if you could specify how many kWh of energy is used to heat your house :) The first thing to start with to earn money in UK should be to add extra insulation to the house instead of buying a heatpump. Its often cheaper too! Money spent is payed back in only a few years. Extra insulating the roof is the most efficiant action to start with. Thx for the reply!
Those houses are far too big for the little 360p. Exhaust air on it's own simply isn't enough. these companies should be installing ground source, or air source with large fan units.
Have you consider other solutions...? Like insulating your home PROPERLY...? I guess it's too late now, but don't blame NIBE, blame your builders building low quality homes.
@@bigseano8 It seems that YOU are the one who have no clue, but like to have an opinion. This BBC program is a good example of poor quality journalism, lacking basic facts and important information. Tracey Roberts above is complaining that the heating costs her 15£ a day, which is indeed a lot, but what do you know about how she lives...? Maybe the heat pump is too small for her home, maybe she has a big family, maybe they are wasting heat and hot water, who knows... I have no idea, but complaining that the heating costs are too high is inane without more information. Whatever her problem is, it is certainly not caused by Nibe and certainly you have no clue.
@@AdaptingCamera Well here’s what I’ve experienced in real life. - The radiators do not get that hot. - The apartment was always cold, it took a long time to get to a comfortable level. I have resorted to using fan heaters in my rooms. - The bathroom was ruined with mould as the vent linked to the boiler doesn’t take much water vapour out. I replaced the bathroom suite and installed an extractor. - The summer setting doesn’t keep the water warm enough over 24hours - The cost of using the Emerson is heavy - Opening the “trickle vents” through the winter on the windows makes the property very cold - You will need a specialist plumbing firm who know how to service these. NIBE charge £450 for a call out / labour. Overly complicated system that hasn’t worked for me.
@@bigseano8 I am sorry for your troubles, but certainly, that's NOT something Nibe caused, but the poor building standards you have in UK. Mould in bathroom is a typical example of that. To get rid of mould you need a certain amount of fresh air, so completely closing the vents and sealing the home is totally wrong. I have fresh air inlets in every room, except the bathrooms and the kitchen. Air is sucked out in the bathrooms and the kitchen, and that air is led to the heat pump, recycling the heat to produce hot water or heat. This is how it is working and I have good quality air in my home, no mould anywhere, and low heating costs. Add to that that I live in Sweden, and the Nibe pumps work pretty well here in the Nordic countries, including the polar parts of Finland, Norway and Sweden, so if they are not working in UK then obviously something else is the problem, not the heat pumps. The fact that your radiators are cold indicates that there is something wrong with your system. It can be that the system is too small and weak for the property you have, or it simply needs some tuning. My system works well for my home, and also the previous one worked fine for 17 years. I don't know why you are charged 450£ for a visit from Nibe, that can be expensive, or not, depending on what they do for the money. I paid about ten times as much for my new F370 but that included also removing of the old one, the price of the new one as well as trimming the ventilation for the new heat pump.
So, the housing association, bought tiny units, so the backup heater has to be used, the builders fked up the installation, further doing everything up. Just so you know, I have a heat pump and im very happy with it.
I have a Nibe Fighter 1200, which is the most complicated piece of c..p I have ever owned. It promised the earth, but delivers expensive heating. If I could afford it I would chuck it on the dump and get a Mitsubishi Air source heat pump, which my friend has and works really well. I tried getting in touch with Nibe but to no avail, they couldn't care less. And engineers I've paid to look at it have not been able adequately to explain how to set it efficiently. I built my house myself, took 14 years, it is super insulated but the firm I bought it from in Glasgow couldn't care less either. Really disappointed.
Define what’s super insulted according to you because it’s not just the walls ho should be well insulated its Everything from the heating pipes (for less energy loss) to the windows ( should be window with a triple glazed) and that the Ventilation is working correctly. Like they say in the video it’s not the right unit for the house or wrongly used . Me my self and nearly everyone I know have nibe as a heating source( different variants from one another)and we live 70 km north of Stockholm and never heard they have had problems nether have I . So I would think the problem is maybe you have to small unit fitted or what I just wrote above
The reason they dont last in the uk is that you have poor insulation and you undersize the units, We have a NIBE Fighter 1135 In 300 sqaure meter 3 apartment bulding in Northern Sweden With up to 20 people there at once showering and using heat and it does just fine and has for the last 18 years. The temperature gets down to -30 degrees celcius on a regualar basis and it uses a total of 25 000 kwh per year. Split over 3 families that gets us a total price of 10-15£ pounds to pay per family per month. What should be chucked on the dump is gas boilers which pollutes our earth.
if i had lived there i would have simple disconnected the immersion heater element and left the heat pump part of the system working. but thats just me
@@samuelfellows6923 It does work. There is a setting in the menu where you can specify an outside temperature at which the immersion heaters are not started. You can also set the system to Autumn/spring mode which has the same effect. If you are a bit handy then a third option is to use the tarrif control switches which allows for disconnecting the immersion heater in two steps. We have this system installed in our 125m2 house in Sweden and it works good as gold. The problem appears to be Nibe dimensioning the system for a properly insulated house which doesn’t seem to include typical British homes!
@@jasonoldy69 Those tiny double panel radiators that don't even span the full width of the windows that also look like they belong in a 1960's home? 5:53 WTF?! Those radiators? I seriously doubt that they stay below 40 C. Turn down the supply temperature on your gas heater to 40C and I will guarantee that you will freeze your nuts of the coming winter. Radiators work by convection and to get a proper amount of convection they need to get warmer than 40 C when it's cold outside. Marius is right: Heat pumps don't work well with standard radiators. You need forced convection radiators or, idealy, underfloor heating.
The other problem is that the capacity of this heat pump is simply insufficient. In a slightly smaller home with underfloor heating and proper insulation this system would work well. In this case someone got the specifications wrong and cut corners by installing radiators instead of underfloor heating. I don't know about this particular case, but past experience suggests that is the housing association, not the supplier of the equipment.
@@peterselie1779 All installed to the designer's (NIBE UK's) heating spec. Our property is a tiny 2 bed, yet our annual NIBE running costs were over £1k for a system commissioned by NIBE UK at request of ourselves and our shared owner HA
@@jasonoldy69 Did they sell it as a cost effective solution? If yes, then they are in the wrong. Technically this unit is capable of heating a poorly insulated home, but in that case it will rely mostly on the cost ineffective 13 kW immersion heater. The heat pump only has a capacity of about 2 kW (even less with a high temperature system, suchs a free convection radiators), which is not enough even for regular heating demands unless your home is very well insulated and fairly small.
These systems are terrible. I'm a heating engineer and work for local authority. We have some of these on our patch and they don't work as advertised. Nobody knows how they're meant to work and all the tenants want them ripped out. Don't buy one
You might want to see if there is anything your company can do to help your client get them replaced. There is a company called Aaron Services that are sick of paying out compensation for damaged caused by problems and leaks, and have started an investigation
There seems to be the crux of the problem: "Nobody knows how they're meant to work". Why on earth would you install (or buy) something you can't be bothered to learn to use?!?
That's nonsense. It is very clear how they should work, and if it's not clear to you then you aren't really a "heating engineer".... whatever that means. I am an electrical engineer (a real one) and it is VERY clear how it is working, but in fact, you don't need to be an engineer to understand the principles of how heat pumps work.
+Valentina Diamond Both - NIBE still sized and specified the boilers to be fitted without a care about insulation, whilst the builder foolishly relied on NIBE's heating design.
Nibe has very clear requirements even on their public websites. You need an really up te date isolation and a low temperature heating system. Without theses conditions you will face serious problems. For me the builders are to blame by building poor isolated houses. In the Netherlands we use a stepped approach: first use your money for isolation. When this is properly done then switch to floor and wall heating and use if needed Low Temperature convector heaters. Then check ventilation system. Is this energy friendly like a balanced system or an intelligent system so you keep the heat in and the dirty air out? When this all is done then maybe a warmthpump could be a solution... always in combination with solar panels for compensating the extra need for electricity
@@jeroenvandersluis9764 As it should be done. School example. Make sure the building can keep the heat from leaving the building and those NIBE products works perfectly.
Crappy system. The builder should have to replace them with properly sized systems. My heat pump works perfectly in -20 and costs 1/2 of what the old oil furnace cost yearly.
I have this system in my flat, not only is it extremely noisy with the compressor running all the time. It’s expensive as hell, and doesn’t even heat up the flat whatsoever, I’m freezing cold all the time. Absolutely appalling piece of engineering
So....... your houses are insulated poorly and you blame the heat pump that is used throughout scaninavia in -20 degrees celcius with great succes. *facepalm*
Timothy Vincents Broughton Premature facepalm - these boilers are used as a secondary heat source, the primary usually being a log burner. NIBE UK specified 1000's of boilers for primary use. How can you heat a home with a heat pump when there's no source of heat (excluding the dirty great immersion)?
@@jasonoldy69 You seem to have misunderstood how this system is working. The heat pump is not covering 100% of the need, that's NEVER the case with any heat pump. But the NIBE system has additional heating also to support the heat pump when needed. However, if you need too much heat because of poor insulation or poor use practices (for example windows open mid winter all day...) then the electrical heating is ALWAYS active and the system can't cope. So don't expect anything else than super high electricity bills in those homes. Gas may be cheaper, so you may not care that you actually burn a huge amount of it to compensate for the heat loss, but the problem is not NIBE, the problem is poor building standards and lack of knowledge. We in Scandinavia manage well with such systems in much bigger homes WITHOUT burning logs or gas. The NIBE F360 has more than enough capacity to cope with our heating and hot water needs, but of course, all systems can be abused.
@@jasonoldy69 I heat my home with a heat pump. The source of heat is the ground. The pump extracts a contant 3' from it, concentrates it to around 30' and puts it through my underfloor heating. BUT it wouldn't work if I hadn't spent 100s insulating the house (cavity wall and 50mm kingspan internally, plus 100mm in the roof rooms - would put more up there but no space!) Nor would it work with standard sized radiators - they need 75C plus to work properly, tho' you might get away with cooler in a well insulated house. However, I still use 5500kWh a year. I reckon if I can fuel my home for under £100 a month then I'm doing well (I live in a detached 19 century cottage with 70s and 90s extensions in Scotland). I reckon most of these houses suffered from poor specifications in insulation and heating systems. Probably, as someone has already said, due to cost and corner cutting. But TBH the tenants are pretty naive too - whoever heard of heating a 3-bed standard town house for £300/yr?!?
BBC what are you doing? This could have been told in 4-5 mins but you made prolonged it for almost 30!! Glad I don’t pay my bill for plastic old women stood outside doing links.
You think this is bad wait till people are forced to use air sourced which has the same insulation requirements as these , but drafty old England houses just can’t cope. Only now with. R values being tripled do you actually get a warm home without using the Emerson heater part. Other pitfalls are undersized units, issues with weather compensation controls most installers just turn it off, and installers that don’t follow the rules - remember each quote they have to do a full energy. Rating of the property from windows to heating types and the amount of insulation, plus when sizing ensure it is rated to -6 not -3 levels. I cannot stress how important it is to increase your insulation first Walls , in between floors and double your granny’s in the roof , solid walls forget it your electric will be through the roof without doing costly insulation first to the outside . Case example a 4 bedroom house. 1990s build standard rock wall in the wall , zero in the floor , and 3 inches i the loft, rads usually are about 4ft long single panel in most rooms double in high traffic areas such a living room and kitchen. The house had to have extra wall insulation blown in , underfloor was installed to 7 inches, , all pipes were upgraded to 22mm from 15 something they don’t tell you about. We opted to install your typical loft levels in between the levels to increase efficiency and in the loft we now have 3 rolls on top of each over , all the rads we upgraded to high efficient twin And the windows were swapped (due to the age and rotting for modern doubles with gas in fill ) we still needed a double unit 14kw . Total upgrade cost before heat pump 15k . We kept a system boiler as backup as well ironically i between commissioning of the heat pump the house only needed a 5kw to heat or it got to warm e.g. the .boiler turned down to minimum as for the heat pump it’s good but if like us if your still turning it off it’s warm up time is almost double gas . That’s not a bad thing since you can turn it on on the way home etc electric prior to spring2022 was about £90 pounds a month. With 2.5kw on the roof pv. Would I do it again, it depends on the build seriously insulation is the key also scale your cylinder to your needs then add 50-100 litres as between the solar heating via a solar diverter and heat pump means it stays hot most of the time unless everyone and the dog has a shower reheat times about 2 hours on heat pump mode zero immersion heater usage. For a 300 litre tank compared with about 45 mins for a 25kw system. From cold. Do you save money compared to gas . Honestly they are about the same . Every now and again we turn off the heat pump and give the gas unit a go in that week we use about £20-25 of gas at 6.2p per kw . The heat is a lot more noticeable on warm up compared to the heat pump l our heat pump is operating at about 2.8 units of energy per kw , a little down on the 3.5 originally quoted we only see it that high usually in summer when it’s only heating the tank.
We have NIBE machine with floor and ceiling pipe system and great graphite insulation. Our energy bill is around 14k HUF monthly (change it it you want, It's super low - our house is around 270 sqare meter in 2023, and I dont have other bills because we dont need gas)This report is a huge lie. It's not the faliure of the NIBE company It's the faliure of your system engineer!!! If I was the ceo I would sue you because of this title.
NIBE UK have dragged the NIBE brand through the mud. They are the ones who heat designed, fully installed and missold. There are clear alternatives in the UK that run at 3rd of the cost of these consitently bad installations. CEO should be pointing fingers at their own greedy subsidaries
wot a rip of crountry it is things are so dear here the poor all must get to gether and chuck all the rich out today there is a lot off poor people to do it
WTF... You COMPENSATE for heating loss with adding inefficient, outdated, dinosaur heating system (gas) instead of an excellent, scientifically proven system like the NIBE...? You should design your homes with better heating insulation instead of wasting energy and promoting using fossil fuel like gas. This is the worst video I have ever seen made by BBC. It's nothing but advertisement for British petrol companies producing gas. The makers of this program seem to have ZERO ability to accept facts and clearly only had one goal, which was to promote the use of gas. I have a fairly large ( 180m2 ) house built 2003 with 6 rooms, two bathrooms and four people living in it, so my children went through all stages from small to adult in the hose and the same NIBE system works very well, capacity is more than enough without any additional heating. So if the capacity of this system in your homes is not enough then either your homes are HUGE (which I doubt) or you have sever heating losses due to poor installation, way of living, or very poor building standards and insulation . The people who made this program are simply incompetent in the subject or get paid from the gas and petrol industry.
This is just bad design and specification from the roof downwards. NIBE should have known better too. My stone house built in 1885 does far better than this heap of junk. The basic problem is the poor insulation spec, and we all know that don't we.
It's cut and run builders pretending to not know they undersized the systems because they want to keep their margins. It's not incompetence it's intentionally screwing the home buyer.
To start with, this is not a boiler, so I don't believe you understood anything of what's been discussed in the video, the subject seems too complicated for you. Second, if your "friend gets hundreds of pounds with this system" then she should be VERY happy. I don't get anything, I pay (as in spending money) when I heat my home with such system. Heating COSTS money, and what I GET is heat, never get any money.
@@AdaptingCamera you have plenty to say for yourself. Come back to the thread after you’ve lived with one. Then you’ll be able to talk from experience and not give it large with no basis.
@@bigseano8 I have 17 years of experience with Nibe Fighter heat pumps and I was so happy with the one I had that when it was time to get a new one last year, I got the the F370, which I am very happy with and would DEFINITELY recommend to anyone considering something similar. As it seems, you have no clue, just have a condescending opinion about somebody you don't know and something you have never seen.
Wrong - completely wrong. It is NOT a good idea. As the heat pump is pumping from the inside to the inside, it doesn't mater how big it is. Nibe fighters are perfectly good electric boilers. Electric boilers are not often fitted these days because they cost up to 4 times as much as a gas boiler to run. Their carbon footprint is roughly double that of a condensing gas boiler. THEY ARE NOT "GREEN". Anyone with an "O" level in physics would be able to spot this, it doesn't require a heating engineer. The real problem comes from the "exhaust air source heat pump" which, at best, pumps heat from inside the house to inside the house. For it to work, it needs a ventilation system. Often this consists of vents in external walls which allow wind to whistle through the property stripping out much of the very expensive heat produced by the electric boiler. he Nibe fighter is what you get when decisions about heating systems for housing association dwellings are made by managers selected for their expertise in accountancy and classical Greek. The Swedes are decent peaceful and honest people when the come across the British specifiers, the gullibility is so huge that not even the most honest could give the sucker an even break.
Nope, The issue is the poor insulation used in British homes aswell as undersizing if the units aswell as these units are really designed for underfloor heating and not radiators. I have a NIBE Fighter 1135 At a large 300 square meter 3 apartment building with up to 25 people living at once, And the temperatures regularely get down to -30 degrees celcius and it heats extremely cheap and it has since 2008. It uses 3000 kwh in the coldest months and that is split between 3 families which makes each pay for 1000 kwh at max and with todays prices in sweden it heats for approximately 10£ per month per family.
@@norwegiannationalist7678 (edit; radiators NOT underfloor) Facts from over 52 flat in the same block....; We all have an the F205P Nibe, one in every flat. We all have the same problem (massive electricity bills 200 pound+ month for years now). The insulation is top notice ambient temps never goes lower than 19-20c. Still costs a fortune just for hot water, not even needed for heating. Please understand what works for you does not apply every where. I am sure this does work in your setup. But here it don't. Could be they dont understand the setup?
By the way the homes in runcorn (second part of video) have now had a full year gas bill and the findings show that the NIBE is out performed by our UK natural Gas. The Runcorn homes are built to UK code level 4 . Taz the problem here is our gas is very cheap and co2 friendly compared with our electricity . Sweden has "Green" electricity but 50% is Nuclear bit like hommer simpson sprigfield town :) only take 100,000 years to be safe! Green coz you cannot see it. Green peace have other ideas!
These systems are very efficient when you have properly insulated house and if you use low temperature floor heating instead of high temperature radiators. Specially for the new build they should have calculate the heat loss of the house and install the unit with proper power output so it does not need to run on emergency electric heating coil. In Northern countries these systems are used widely and the emergency heating is turned only when the temperatures are below like -20 deg C or so. However build this houses and decided for that specific unit should be blamed, not NIBE.
In my point of view; the title should be, "Consequences of poor planning".
...and incompetent architects and builders.
@@AdaptingCamera Don't forget cost cutting managers.
These were 2kw Air Exhaust systems designed for 1 bed flats fitted in 3 bed houses that were way to big for the system , so stuggling to produce enough heat to heat the home then yes like any other appliance installed incorrectly they would be expensive to run
I wouldn't live in a house without a chimney - you can always get a stick for the fire if you are stuck.
Undersized units are the issue here.
Units with a higher kw rating would mean the immersion heater doesn't have to kick in as much.
Blame nibe for crappy house build quality... ROFL. Even if using the immersion heater elements, its still at least at the same as normal electric heatin. No more, but surely no less. btw should you use kWh instead of pounds for comparison. Wouldnt make so good social porn tough..
The NIBE system could be worse than direct electric immersion as not all the heat is useful and energy wasted running mechanical parts which are not contributing to the heat.
Samantha couldn't keep up payments for her previous home so it was repossessed. But she still has 3 kids and another one on the way. You can't afford to live, but keep the babies coming. The taxpayer will pay...
Rip off Britain - Number one rip -off TV licence fee
Hello all, the main problem i have seen in this video is british incompetence as usual about understanding how this system works and for what type of houses is applicable. As it is an exhaust air heat recovery system it cannot have 100% efficiency and even if it did, if you have a poorly insulated house it will still run on the electrical back-up to reach the set temperature. Insulate your home well, and see the difference, if it still not enough back it up with a thermodynamic solar panel, get some PV panels as well if enough space on the roof. Live Green and do it smart.
Actually we have proof that nibe Uk specified these systems incorrectly and in Sweden (home of Nibe) these models no longer meet standard...this is why Nibe sold to UK market .
In the UK electric from the grid is mainly powered by gas turbines...this means currently only a fool would think an electric boiler with an undersized heat pump is going to be greener or more economical than a gas boiler....
1000's of these nibe units have been removed in the uk after just a year usage.If you like them so much and they are so great why did you or Nibe not collect them to use elsewhere . They all went to the dump ...why..? Because NO ONE WANTS THEM!
+J WD I imagine it is more expensive to send them back to Sweden and recycle these machines for a future use in other systems (remember that they have been used )and this is not interesting from a possible client.
Btw I have an Geothermal heat pump, guess which brand.... and it is GREAT!!
greetings from finland
Great so your opinion is not even based on user experience of these models. Yes I drove a Ford once and it was great does that mean all Ford cars are great???? Greetings from planet Earth.
I would love to see that proof :)
The system works well with underfloor heating .... not radiators .... works in est europ much cold country
Yes the problem is that they have poor insulation and undersize the units in the Uk and the use radiators.
Oh, that makes sense, about 8000kwh/year of heat, my C.O.P. is 2.42 so 3300Kwh/year electricity used to heat the house. Yeah, we've had loads of insulation put in :) the heat pump has paid itself off after 4 years because the old heating system was inefficient (electrical storage heaters)
I know :( building regs in the UK are not good when it comes to insulation (which is what I meant by the houses are too big :p ) they'll take years to change them again. I live in a 1970's built house about the same size as the ones in the video, which has been insulated about 10 years ago. the heating bill for the whole year is about £5-600 keeping the house at 20 degrees with GSHP :)
Hi . We agree the homes a way off what a Swedish home is built to an by Law in Sweden a home wishing to have this system must meet very good U values. But here NIBE UK have specified these systems into all the homes in the video and even returned a year later to confirm that its all " A OK". but it obvious to every one that these homes are not suitable and now the truth is emerging . NIBE UK have tarnished the good name of NIBE all in the name of greed.
The best way would be to insulate their houses properly in UK instead :) The house in this clip above uses 3 TIMES!!! more energy/m2 than my house!!! That is A LOT! .. There is no need to throw out the pumps if the houses could be made more energy efficiant. It's like living in a tent trying to heat it to +20c when its -20c outside!! :) Just a waste of energy!! :(
To uncomplicated all this an exhaust air source heat pump extracts heat from inside a building transferring heat to a storage tank by using heat exchangers/compressed gas. It sort of works in the reverse way a fridge does (notice a fridge is always hot at the back). A lot of heat can be extracted this way and modern heat pumps can extract heat from air as cold as -15 degrees centigrade. Just because air is cold does not mean it does not have energy! The heat collected is then used again to heat the house through radiators/underfloor heating.
These systems are better installed in passive houses (very well insulated houses). The uk was truly awful at this and we are still catching up with most Scandinavian countries.
Basically all this probably failed because:
- poor insulation of uk homes
- incorrect installs
- incorrect KW system.
- users not educated. Around this time people were used to firing up the heating when they want the house warm but this system is best left constantly running.
- hot water was provided by an immersion heater which also probably compensated for the heat loss of the property from poor insulation. Gas is much cheaper so accounting for poor insulation doesn’t matter as much.
Another thing to note is some people set their heating to unreasonably high temperatures. 18-21 degrees centigrade is where if should be, not 27 degrees with the windows open.
I can’t comment on the model of the boiler in this ‘scandal’ but I am considering buying a Nibe as they have generally have a good reputation.
My flat walls are twice as thick as a normal house. It was considered an eco flat.... this system doesn’t work. Just awful
so it extracts heat from the same space its heating up, err, that's not going to work!
@@edc1569 That’s why the process requires electricity. This accounts for the excess heat produced. Unfortunately electricity is much more expensive than gas.
Ok, money spent to heat a house is a bad comparison when comparing countries with eachother.. Best would be if you could specify how many kWh of energy is used to heat your house :) The first thing to start with to earn money in UK should be to add extra insulation to the house instead of buying a heatpump. Its often cheaper too! Money spent is payed back in only a few years. Extra insulating the roof is the most efficiant action to start with. Thx for the reply!
I’d be delighted with an 80 a month bill I’m 300 a month for three storage heaters and no hot water
Solar and battery way to go..contact me
Those houses are far too big for the little 360p. Exhaust air on it's own simply isn't enough.
these companies should be installing ground source, or air source with large fan units.
I have this system & it costs up to £15 a day in the winter :-( I have to move as cant afford to run it
Have you consider other solutions...? Like insulating your home PROPERLY...? I guess it's too late now, but don't blame NIBE, blame your builders building low quality homes.
@@AdaptingCamera you don’t know what you’re talking about.
@@bigseano8 It seems that YOU are the one who have no clue, but like to have an opinion. This BBC program is a good example of poor quality journalism, lacking basic facts and important information. Tracey Roberts above is complaining that the heating costs her 15£ a day, which is indeed a lot, but what do you know about how she lives...? Maybe the heat pump is too small for her home, maybe she has a big family, maybe they are wasting heat and hot water, who knows... I have no idea, but complaining that the heating costs are too high is inane without more information. Whatever her problem is, it is certainly not caused by Nibe and certainly you have no clue.
@@AdaptingCamera Well here’s what I’ve experienced in real life.
- The radiators do not get that hot.
- The apartment was always cold, it took a long time to get to a comfortable level. I have resorted to using fan heaters in my rooms.
- The bathroom was ruined with mould as the vent linked to the boiler doesn’t take much water vapour out. I replaced the bathroom suite and installed an extractor.
- The summer setting doesn’t keep the water warm enough over 24hours
- The cost of using the Emerson is heavy
- Opening the “trickle vents” through the winter on the windows makes the property very cold
- You will need a specialist plumbing firm who know how to service these. NIBE charge £450 for a call out / labour.
Overly complicated system that hasn’t worked for me.
@@bigseano8 I am sorry for your troubles, but certainly, that's NOT something Nibe caused, but the poor building standards you have in UK. Mould in bathroom is a typical example of that. To get rid of mould you need a certain amount of fresh air, so completely closing the vents and sealing the home is totally wrong. I have fresh air inlets in every room, except the bathrooms and the kitchen. Air is sucked out in the bathrooms and the kitchen, and that air is led to the heat pump, recycling the heat to produce hot water or heat. This is how it is working and I have good quality air in my home, no mould anywhere, and low heating costs. Add to that that I live in Sweden, and the Nibe pumps work pretty well here in the Nordic countries, including the polar parts of Finland, Norway and Sweden, so if they are not working in UK then obviously something else is the problem, not the heat pumps. The fact that your radiators are cold indicates that there is something wrong with your system. It can be that the system is too small and weak for the property you have, or it simply needs some tuning. My system works well for my home, and also the previous one worked fine for 17 years. I don't know why you are charged 450£ for a visit from Nibe, that can be expensive, or not, depending on what they do for the money. I paid about ten times as much for my new F370 but that included also removing of the old one, the price of the new one as well as trimming the ventilation for the new heat pump.
So, the housing association, bought tiny units, so the backup heater has to be used, the builders fked up the installation, further doing everything up.
Just so you know, I have a heat pump and im very happy with it.
I have a Nibe Fighter 1200, which is the most complicated piece of c..p I have ever owned. It promised the earth, but delivers expensive heating. If I could afford it I would chuck it on the dump and get a Mitsubishi Air source heat pump, which my friend has and works really well. I tried getting in touch with Nibe but to no avail, they couldn't care less. And engineers I've paid to look at it have not been able adequately to explain how to set it efficiently. I built my house myself, took 14 years, it is super insulated but the firm I bought it from in Glasgow couldn't care less either. Really disappointed.
rip it out, cut your losses.
Define what’s super insulted according to you because it’s not just the walls ho should be well insulated its Everything from the heating pipes (for less energy loss) to the windows ( should be window with a triple glazed) and that the Ventilation is working correctly.
Like they say in the video it’s not the right unit for the house or wrongly used .
Me my self and nearly everyone I know have nibe as a heating source( different variants from one another)and we live 70 km north of Stockholm and never heard they have had problems nether have I .
So I would think the problem is maybe you have to small unit fitted or what I just wrote above
The reason they dont last in the uk is that you have poor insulation and you undersize the units, We have a NIBE Fighter 1135 In 300 sqaure meter 3 apartment bulding in Northern Sweden With up to 20 people there at once showering and using heat and it does just fine and has for the last 18 years. The temperature gets down to -30 degrees celcius on a regualar basis and it uses a total of 25 000 kwh per year. Split over 3 families that gets us a total price of 10-15£ pounds to pay per family per month. What should be chucked on the dump is gas boilers which pollutes our earth.
if i had lived there i would have simple disconnected the immersion heater element and left the heat pump part of the system working. but thats just me
🤨 That would have caused it to state a fault condition and not work
@@samuelfellows6923 It does work. There is a setting in the menu where you can specify an outside temperature at which the immersion heaters are not started. You can also set the system to Autumn/spring mode which has the same effect. If you are a bit handy then a third option is to use the tarrif control switches which allows for disconnecting the immersion heater in two steps.
We have this system installed in our 125m2 house in Sweden and it works good as gold. The problem appears to be Nibe dimensioning the system for a properly insulated house which doesn’t seem to include typical British homes!
I don t believe this type of heatpumps work with normal radiators as seen in the video You need a system that works on low temp
Our replacement gas combi runs these rads below 40deg all winter and it's effortlessly toasty. 1/3 the cost of the NIBE system as well
@@jasonoldy69 Those tiny double panel radiators that don't even span the full width of the windows that also look like they belong in a 1960's home? 5:53 WTF?! Those radiators? I seriously doubt that they stay below 40 C. Turn down the supply temperature on your gas heater to 40C and I will guarantee that you will freeze your nuts of the coming winter. Radiators work by convection and to get a proper amount of convection they need to get warmer than 40 C when it's cold outside. Marius is right: Heat pumps don't work well with standard radiators. You need forced convection radiators or, idealy, underfloor heating.
The other problem is that the capacity of this heat pump is simply insufficient. In a slightly smaller home with underfloor heating and proper insulation this system would work well. In this case someone got the specifications wrong and cut corners by installing radiators instead of underfloor heating. I don't know about this particular case, but past experience suggests that is the housing association, not the supplier of the equipment.
@@peterselie1779 All installed to the designer's (NIBE UK's) heating spec. Our property is a tiny 2 bed, yet our annual NIBE running costs were over £1k for a system commissioned by NIBE UK at request of ourselves and our shared owner HA
@@jasonoldy69 Did they sell it as a cost effective solution? If yes, then they are in the wrong. Technically this unit is capable of heating a poorly insulated home, but in that case it will rely mostly on the cost ineffective 13 kW immersion heater. The heat pump only has a capacity of about 2 kW (even less with a high temperature system, suchs a free convection radiators), which is not enough even for regular heating demands unless your home is very well insulated and fairly small.
These systems are terrible. I'm a heating engineer and work for local authority. We have some of these on our patch and they don't work as advertised. Nobody knows how they're meant to work and all the tenants want them ripped out. Don't buy one
You might want to see if there is anything your company can do to help your client get them replaced. There is a company called Aaron Services that are sick of paying out compensation for damaged caused by problems and leaks, and have started an investigation
There seems to be the crux of the problem: "Nobody knows how they're meant to work". Why on earth would you install (or buy) something you can't be bothered to learn to use?!?
That's nonsense. It is very clear how they should work, and if it's not clear to you then you aren't really a "heating engineer".... whatever that means. I am an electrical engineer (a real one) and it is VERY clear how it is working, but in fact, you don't need to be an engineer to understand the principles of how heat pumps work.
At last someone who knows what they are talking about. These are shocking.
I'm surprised Nibe doesn't yet own the BBC after they put out a slanderous piece like this.
Which bit? Timestamps
@@jasonoldy69 I read your other replies. You're on a misguided warpath against Nibe and won't listen to reason.
everythink in britain is a rip off theses days the good old days have long gone
Are you still using them. Where you locate.
They stated clearly that these houses AREN'T (properly) insulated!... whose fault is that?! NIBE's or the house builder's?
+Valentina Diamond Both - NIBE still sized and specified the boilers to be fitted without a care about insulation, whilst the builder foolishly relied on NIBE's heating design.
jasonoldy69
That's what I tend to think too... this company's replies were too idiotic in a matter.
Nibe has very clear requirements even on their public websites. You need an really up te date isolation and a low temperature heating system. Without theses conditions you will face serious problems. For me the builders are to blame by building poor isolated houses. In the Netherlands we use a stepped approach: first use your money for isolation. When this is properly done then switch to floor and wall heating and use if needed Low Temperature convector heaters. Then check ventilation system. Is this energy friendly like a balanced system or an intelligent system so you keep the heat in and the dirty air out? When this all is done then maybe a warmthpump could be a solution... always in combination with solar panels for compensating the extra need for electricity
@@jeroenvandersluis9764 As it should be done. School example. Make sure the building can keep the heat from leaving the building and those NIBE products works perfectly.
Crappy system. The builder should have to replace them with properly sized systems. My heat pump works perfectly in -20 and costs 1/2 of what the old oil furnace cost yearly.
I have this system in my flat, not only is it extremely noisy with the compressor running all the time. It’s expensive as hell, and doesn’t even heat up the flat whatsoever, I’m freezing cold all the time. Absolutely appalling piece of engineering
Probably needs new dampers. Keep it at a constant temperature all the time in the flat
So....... your houses are insulated poorly and you blame the heat pump that is used throughout scaninavia in -20 degrees celcius with great succes.
*facepalm*
Timothy Vincents Broughton Premature facepalm - these boilers are used as a secondary heat source, the primary usually being a log burner. NIBE UK specified 1000's of boilers for primary use. How can you heat a home with a heat pump when there's no source of heat (excluding the dirty great immersion)?
Heat pumps move heat, they dont make heat
@@jasonoldy69 You seem to have misunderstood how this system is working. The heat pump is not covering 100% of the need, that's NEVER the case with any heat pump. But the NIBE system has additional heating also to support the heat pump when needed. However, if you need too much heat because of poor insulation or poor use practices (for example windows open mid winter all day...) then the electrical heating is ALWAYS active and the system can't cope. So don't expect anything else than super high electricity bills in those homes. Gas may be cheaper, so you may not care that you actually burn a huge amount of it to compensate for the heat loss, but the problem is not NIBE, the problem is poor building standards and lack of knowledge. We in Scandinavia manage well with such systems in much bigger homes WITHOUT burning logs or gas. The NIBE F360 has more than enough capacity to cope with our heating and hot water needs, but of course, all systems can be abused.
@@WindyJAMiller heat pumps move and concentrate heat, otherwise how can you get 40' heat out of 10' air?
@@jasonoldy69 I heat my home with a heat pump. The source of heat is the ground. The pump extracts a contant 3' from it, concentrates it to around 30' and puts it through my underfloor heating. BUT it wouldn't work if I hadn't spent 100s insulating the house (cavity wall and 50mm kingspan internally, plus 100mm in the roof rooms - would put more up there but no space!) Nor would it work with standard sized radiators - they need 75C plus to work properly, tho' you might get away with cooler in a well insulated house. However, I still use 5500kWh a year. I reckon if I can fuel my home for under £100 a month then I'm doing well (I live in a detached 19 century cottage with 70s and 90s extensions in Scotland). I reckon most of these houses suffered from poor specifications in insulation and heating systems. Probably, as someone has already said, due to cost and corner cutting. But TBH the tenants are pretty naive too - whoever heard of heating a 3-bed standard town house for £300/yr?!?
BBC what are you doing? This could have been told in 4-5 mins but you made prolonged it for almost 30!! Glad I don’t pay my bill for plastic old women stood outside doing links.
such a shame, now all those people will be put off the idea of heat pumps
They'll now question anything with "green" credentials, which I think is a good thing. The same people will probably hate rainwater harvesting as well
You think this is bad wait till people are forced to use air sourced which has the same insulation requirements as these , but drafty old England houses just can’t cope. Only now with. R values being tripled do you actually get a warm home without using the Emerson heater part. Other pitfalls are undersized units, issues with weather compensation controls most installers just turn it off, and installers that don’t follow the rules - remember each quote they have to do a full energy. Rating of the property from windows to heating types and the amount of insulation, plus when sizing ensure it is rated to -6 not -3 levels. I cannot stress how important it is to increase your insulation first Walls , in between floors and double your granny’s in the roof , solid walls forget it your electric will be through the roof without doing costly insulation first to the outside . Case example a 4 bedroom house. 1990s build standard rock wall in the wall , zero in the floor , and 3 inches i the loft, rads usually are about 4ft long single panel in most rooms double in high traffic areas such a living room and kitchen. The house had to have extra wall insulation blown in , underfloor was installed to 7 inches, , all pipes were upgraded to 22mm from 15 something they don’t tell you about. We opted to install your typical loft levels in between the levels to increase efficiency and in the loft we now have 3 rolls on top of each over , all the rads we upgraded to high efficient twin And the windows were swapped (due to the age and rotting for modern doubles with gas in fill ) we still needed a double unit 14kw . Total upgrade cost before heat pump 15k . We kept a system boiler as backup as well ironically i between commissioning of the heat pump the house only needed a 5kw to heat or it got to warm e.g. the .boiler turned down to minimum as for the heat pump it’s good but if like us if your still turning it off it’s warm up time is almost double gas . That’s not a bad thing since you can turn it on on the way home etc electric prior to spring2022 was about £90 pounds a month. With 2.5kw on the roof pv. Would I do it again, it depends on the build seriously insulation is the key also scale your cylinder to your needs then add 50-100 litres as between the solar heating via a solar diverter and heat pump means it stays hot most of the time unless everyone and the dog has a shower reheat times about 2 hours on heat pump mode zero immersion heater usage. For a 300 litre tank compared with about 45 mins for a 25kw system. From cold. Do you save money compared to gas . Honestly they are about the same . Every now and again we turn off the heat pump and give the gas unit a go in that week we use about £20-25 of gas at 6.2p per kw . The heat is a lot more noticeable on warm up compared to the heat pump l our heat pump is operating at about 2.8 units of energy per kw , a little down on the 3.5 originally quoted we only see it that high usually in summer when it’s only heating the tank.
We have NIBE machine with floor and ceiling pipe system and great graphite insulation. Our energy bill is around 14k HUF monthly (change it it you want, It's super low - our house is around 270 sqare meter in 2023, and I dont have other bills because we dont need gas)This report is a huge lie. It's not the faliure of the NIBE company It's the faliure of your system engineer!!! If I was the ceo I would sue you because of this title.
NIBE UK have dragged the NIBE brand through the mud. They are the ones who heat designed, fully installed and missold. There are clear alternatives in the UK that run at 3rd of the cost of these consitently bad installations. CEO should be pointing fingers at their own greedy subsidaries
@@jasonoldy69 To be honest, I don't belive you.
Two easy steps.
1 batteries
2 better spec
FIREPALCES ARE THE CHEAPEST FORM OF HEAT
Not always the case.
If it is a wood-burning stove or an ESSE/AGA-RAYBURN heating & cooking range, then yes 😉
wot a rip of crountry it is things are so dear here the poor all must get to gether and chuck all the rich out today there is a lot off poor people to do it
WTF... You COMPENSATE for heating loss with adding inefficient, outdated, dinosaur heating system (gas) instead of an excellent, scientifically proven system like the NIBE...? You should design your homes with better heating insulation instead of wasting energy and promoting using fossil fuel like gas. This is the worst video I have ever seen made by BBC. It's nothing but advertisement for British petrol companies producing gas. The makers of this program seem to have ZERO ability to accept facts and clearly only had one goal, which was to promote the use of gas. I have a fairly large ( 180m2 ) house built 2003 with 6 rooms, two bathrooms and four people living in it, so my children went through all stages from small to adult in the hose and the same NIBE system works very well, capacity is more than enough without any additional heating. So if the capacity of this system in your homes is not enough then either your homes are HUGE (which I doubt) or you have sever heating losses due to poor installation, way of living, or very poor building standards and insulation . The people who made this program are simply incompetent in the subject or get paid from the gas and petrol industry.
This is just bad design and specification from the roof downwards. NIBE should have known better too. My stone house built in 1885 does far better than this heap of junk. The basic problem is the poor insulation spec, and we all know that don't we.
It's cut and run builders pretending to not know they undersized the systems because they want to keep their margins. It's not incompetence it's intentionally screwing the home buyer.
Are these the ones Bozo wants us all to have
My friend gets hundreds of pounds with this system and she in a 1 bedroom really awe full this boiler is 😡
To start with, this is not a boiler, so I don't believe you understood anything of what's been discussed in the video, the subject seems too complicated for you. Second, if your "friend gets hundreds of pounds with this system" then she should be VERY happy. I don't get anything, I pay (as in spending money) when I heat my home with such system. Heating COSTS money, and what I GET is heat, never get any money.
@@AdaptingCamera you have plenty to say for yourself. Come back to the thread after you’ve lived with one. Then you’ll be able to talk from experience and not give it large with no basis.
@@bigseano8 I have 17 years of experience with Nibe Fighter heat pumps and I was so happy with the one I had that when it was time to get a new one last year, I got the the F370, which I am very happy with and would DEFINITELY recommend to anyone considering something similar. As it seems, you have no clue, just have a condescending opinion about somebody you don't know and something you have never seen.
Wrong - completely wrong. It is NOT a good idea. As the heat pump is pumping from the inside to the inside, it doesn't mater how big it is. Nibe fighters are perfectly good electric boilers. Electric boilers are not often fitted these days because they cost up to 4 times as much as a gas boiler to run. Their carbon footprint is roughly double that of a condensing gas boiler. THEY ARE NOT "GREEN". Anyone with an "O" level in physics would be able to spot this, it doesn't require a heating engineer.
The real problem comes from the "exhaust air source heat pump" which, at best, pumps heat from inside the house to inside the house. For it to work, it needs a ventilation system. Often this consists of vents in external walls which allow wind to whistle through the property stripping out much of the very expensive heat produced by the electric boiler.
he Nibe fighter is what you get when decisions about heating systems for housing association dwellings are made by managers selected for their expertise in accountancy and classical Greek. The Swedes are decent peaceful and honest people when the come across the British specifiers, the gullibility is so huge that not even the most honest could give the sucker an even break.
£200+ a month with this system, we've been told its in the nature of the NIBE system to cost this much, nothing can be done.
Nope, The issue is the poor insulation used in British homes aswell as undersizing if the units aswell as these units are really designed for underfloor heating and not radiators. I have a NIBE Fighter 1135 At a large 300 square meter 3 apartment building with up to 25 people living at once, And the temperatures regularely get down to -30 degrees celcius and it heats extremely cheap and it has since 2008. It uses 3000 kwh in the coldest months and that is split between 3 families which makes each pay for 1000 kwh at max and with todays prices in sweden it heats for approximately 10£ per month per family.
@@norwegiannationalist7678 (edit; radiators NOT underfloor) Facts from over 52 flat in the same block....; We all have an the F205P Nibe, one in every flat. We all have the same problem (massive electricity bills 200 pound+ month for years now). The insulation is top notice ambient temps never goes lower than 19-20c. Still costs a fortune just for hot water, not even needed for heating. Please understand what works for you does not apply every where. I am sure this does work in your setup. But here it don't. Could be they dont understand the setup?
@@casparharte Not sure, but british homes generally are badly insulated, If the imersion heater has kicked on the unit is undersized
By the way the homes in runcorn (second part of video) have now had a full year gas bill and the findings show that the NIBE is out performed by our UK natural Gas. The Runcorn homes are built to UK code level 4 . Taz the problem here is our gas is very cheap and co2 friendly compared with our electricity . Sweden has "Green" electricity but 50% is Nuclear bit like hommer simpson sprigfield town :) only take 100,000 years to be safe! Green coz you cannot see it. Green peace have other ideas!