That's all lovely, but the plant room alone looks about half the floor area of my entire house! I'd wish there was some integrated unit which reduced a lot of the external pipe work etc. and perhaps could sit outside, or in a garage. Even going back to having a water cylinder is problematic for those with small houses.
Yes, this is going to be a problem for lots of people, in the real world modern houses don't seem to have much spare room and lots of older houses aren't properly insulated.
A pre plumbed cylinder would sit in the corner of a garage. The biggest issue would be for 2 up, 2 downs with very little cupboard space. Flats etc will need to move to district heating assuming we are all coming off gas.
Even in larger homes, a larger plant room vs an extra/larger storage-/bath-/bedroom/kitchen is a hard sell. This is the main reason I went with an oversized combiboiler last year: sure I have the space to put a seperate hot water cylinder and it would have multiple advantages in my home, but I happily waste a few Euro's of gas and water each month in order to have a larger kitchen with more storage for dry and frozen food so I don't have to drive my car to the supermarket as often and don't have to think about how much room I have in my freezer and pantry. The low-and-slow character of a heatpump is perfect for heating a well insulated home in mild climates, and can be compact (monoblock outside, flow/return from radiator to radiator), but I think it doesn't make sense for hot water production.
This video should be called "Gas boilers no longer make sense if installing an HP in a brand new, hugely insulated home with plenty of space for a plant room". Gas boilers still make a lot of sense for your average older home. Just my opinion.
Exactly what I was going comment. This guy knows his stuff and love some of his videos. But I can’t help but think he’s on the heat geek bandwagon and pushing his own little heat pump agenda
And add the extra cost for an AC unit when going the gas boiler route. Add solar and the running costs become even lower. With a big property is easily achieveable getting around 500-600w of power from an array in cloudy weather. Thats easily a 2kva heater running all day, for free. And during the summer you get free power for basically everything. I went the new build route, intergas xource 7 heat pump, 10kw of solar and my heating costs are ZERO. (mind you, a government law dictates that every KW i put on the grid, i can reuse for free the same fiscal year). Even without that rule, i would be much cheaper than gas, since having the connection to the gas grid alone is 400 euros a year, and gas is over 1,30 per m3. We run a jacuzzi and triple split AC all summer aswell, for free of that 10kw system. Concerning ROI, i dont really care. With a bit of luck my system lasts 20 years or more. Building gasless here has massive government grants, making it a no brainer. Maintenance aside, I wont have to worry about heating costs at all anymore. Many people get sick and are out of a job, plummeting into poverty. Lowering your monthly bills is SO important. Many people have to pay over 400 a month just on gas alone these days here. Thats half my mortgage, FOR THE ENTIRE PROJECT!! (also knowing im not funding the UA war as much is nice)
Yes. There are internal integrated units suitable for flats that do not require an external unit. With flats it can be much smaller and simpler as the heat loss is usually much lower and dhw demand is also lower
@@UrbanPlumbers I guess then it's just a case of the reduced for space for the water tank being the major drawback versus an on demand gas boiler? Thank you for your videos, they're excellent btw.
I just installed a new gas boiler. I cant afford a air source heat pump as it requires me to first insulate all my external walls from the outside, get new doors and windows and add floor insulation . It’s just not viable for most people here in the UK.
Yes, I was told this updated insulation is necessary to be done first to my 1940 house. The heat pump installation alone with grant was a quote for £6000, but it’s £2000 for a good new gas boiler swap. Maybe in a few years it will be affordable , but not at the moment.
@@Greguk444 One of Urban Plumber's recent videos was about an installation in a Victorian house with solid brick walls. I don't think they added wall insulation and it seemed to work perfectly well. I get the same comments whenever I discuss the idea of having a heat pump in my house (part 200 year old cob/stone, part 25 year old extensions with fairly paltry cavity insulation), but we already have a wet underfloor heating system driven by a 6kW electric flow boiler with flows temps of around 38-40C (already here when we bought it, and no options for anything other than electric owing to various logistical reasons I won't go into). The only difference with a heat pump would be I'd use less power for the same heating effect I have now, which is fine. Granted, I have improved the windows since they were utter junk, but I'd have done that no matter what. The bigger issue, at least for me and also for many others where a pump might work, is as someone else commented: The space required for the tank etc, and the running of pipes to it. I expect one day I will have a heat pump, but I am rather hoping that advances might make the space required less of an issue, but that's probably wishful thinking on my part.
@@stevepettifer4896 Even if I ignored the insulation recommendation, I still have the cost issue. I have not had a quote under £6000, including the grant, most were more and most wanted me to replace my radiators which I am not convinced need replacing as they are double layer type 22. It seems inevitably that I will have to get a heat pump eventually but I don’t think I will do it now as it is so much cheaper to swap out my old combo heater for a new gas version. Also, I just cannot see where I could put the tank and control equipment in my small house. Thank you for your comments.
All this business about heat pumps 'requiring' external wall insulation is misleading. Just as with a gas boiler you can always install a higher-rated boiler to cope with heat loss, you can do the same with heat pumps: but you'll need a bigger installation, which will cost more and will almost certainly run at lower efficiency too, putting running costs up further. It's just the usual question of compromising on costs here versus costs there.
@@Greguk444 yes, true, it is the cost of the system installation that gets most people. I have seen complete heat pump kits (7kW with tank etc) for under £4k, but usually seems to be the labour costs in most cases that really pushes things up. For the moment, installing a heat pump when you are not doing a full refurb is something you have to want to do in the full knowledge that it's possible you will not really recover the costs. The running costs can be made to be on par or even sometimes less than a gas system, but the most people can't see past the capital cost, or of those who can, it's simply out of reach. I hope this will change in time, but for now I suppose we are where we are.
I'm not a plumber/ engineer but I find this channel a MUST watch. I love watching craftspeople working at the top of their game. We are just about to do a 4 metre extension to our house and I'm in the process of trying to find someone of the same class to sort out the heat calculations/ loss needed - wish me luck!
@@duds2423 I approached a company that was Heat Geek approved specifically and got them to survey my home for Solar Panels. I thought there was a good chance that the layout meant there wasn't sufficient space for an effective installation. I thought the survey went well, the surveyor left making all the positive sounds. A month later I rang him for an update and see where the quotaton was. He gave me some BS about how he'd emailed me to say property wasn't suitable. Needless to say I didn't believe him. The point of this post is Heat Geek acreditation is no guarantee the company is any good if the people working there aren't honest.
It all depends . We live in a rural area in a 1840's detached house that is not to big but has high ceilings . We have had 3 prices for air source heat pumps they range from £27 k to £32 k . before any insulation up grades . We have no spare internal space for the plant to go and the wall space available in most rooms do not have space for the upgraded radiators. All of the projected running costs are only just marginally below what we spend all ready and will likely be more as the tariffs they have used in the calculations are not available to use. The prices for replacing our 25 year old boiler are from £3.5k to £4.6 k . If you add on the the fact that the ASHP has to be paid up front and the government £5k is not available if your EPC is as lower as ours its just not worth bothering with . ASHP are an answer but the answer to the 1.4 million oil boilers .
£32k. Unless your house is bigger than you’re letting on that’s just a scam. Mind you, so is £27k. £5-6k of that is just VAT! I’d be that fuming I wouldn’t need a heating system.
Agree with you on this. I have put in all the insulation I can (there was none in my loft in 2021!) and replaced an old gas boiler with new. With the much more efficient boiler (95% compared with about 70%) and insulation, I have got the consumption down to about half what it was.
@@jonh1808 he prices all include VAT . But did not include the 5 windows that would need to be double glazed and the extra roof insulation. All of the quotes said we needed the biggest available pump and we checked all the calculations using industry figures. The money was in the considerable work needed to the existing plumbing and building a place for the tank and plant to go . So I do not think we were scammed at all. High ceilings really throw the calculations out.
Looks great. I agree about the cost on a big complete renovation like that, no brainer. But for the average home when the boiler is end of life its a more complicated question. Also for someone like myself thats a geeky DIYer (i'm doing a full house renovation, so far prob 95% on my own) that wants to do most of it themselves the grant and the vat thing is not much help :-/. Interested in the cooling idea the customer is going for, be interested to see what that looks like if the customer will let you film it. Anyway, great video. Thanks.
If you're interested in cooling as well as heating, have you considered a heatpump AC system (HPAC)? Simple and cheap to install but weirdly, no grant available. Ours has a CoP of 5 and is so cheap to run as it is easy to direct the heat. We run the system on Octopus Go battery stored electricity@7.5p/kWh plus solar. We've retained our boiler for now to provide hot water for showers.
Total install costs after grants may be still very high compared with a gas system. Maintenance and servicing costs also need to be compared as does the life expectancy of the main piece of kit. If a house is well ventilated and has heat recovery systems the actual heat input should be very little. In fact I remember an experimental house being constructed 45 years ago to a low budget. It had thick insulation, treble glazing and heat recovery. The only heat producing appliance was a gas fire in the living room which only needed to be switched on for a couple of hours a day!
The target is passive heating (was planned for building regs before the govt pulled it...). Most houses have a total of around 4MWh/y of heating from electrical appliances (it all ends up as heat) and occupants. This CAN be enough to keep the house warm, with the appropriate insulation and air control as you mention. The complex water systems as shown in this video play no part in this- it is all about air management. Imagine the cost and complexity of keeping such legacy systems running...
@@edc1569 Hi, it worked by the heat recovery system drawing it via ventilation to other parts of the house, then the heat is recovered and re-introduced with the fresh air coming in. The high insulation levels do the rest.
Extreme insulation isn't necessarily a great idea anyway. A lot of these modern materials are made of many materials that might not be that great to your health to breath in all the time.
@@chunkymonkey55555 And why would the air you breathe pass anywhere near the house insulation? Passive heating (the ultimate goal) requires active control of air change. This involves (as a minimum) a heat exchanger between incoming and exhaust air. This controls the flow of air within the building, which is otherwise sealed. Moisture and dust control of this air is an obvious addition. None of this is part of the crude A2W2A system in this video. This will form part of the dated and expensive redundant systems we are so keen to install in this country.
I’ve watched a lot of your videos and you do a brilliant job, however there are not enough installers yet and certainly not many who fully understand the installation. My two bed property was going to cost 25k for HP, rads, solar and battery, at my age it was a no brainer to install a new combi and some rads for 2K. Now only if I was 25 years younger 👍
Completely agree with you, my property is heat pump ready. But for some reason I'm still being quoted £5k for the install that is including £7.5k gov grant. £12.5k seem steep, especially as I don't need any new radiators, or pipework upgraded.
@@Pav_1983 You are ripped off in UK and many western countries. I've installed a 6kW monoblock unit from Gree that was bought from Spain and shipped to Romania, where I live, with 2.600 EUR. No boiler was installed, DHW is still the job of the gas boiler. Last winter I've used only the heat pump for heating and the cost was 357EUR for the season (winters are harsher here then UK i think). With gas would have cost me 632 EUR. Using heating at 24°C inside from October until May for a 135 sqm house, but it's well insulated. This year I managed to install through a government grant a 7,3 kWp solar system with 4.000 EUR so obviously from now will be cheaper.
Any recommendations if you don’t have space for a “plant room”. Genuinely interested in one of these for our two-bed maisonette, but a combi boiler takes up no space at all, whereas it seems these need a lot more space (both inside and outside) for an equivalent system?
@@pumpkinhead456 There was formerly an airing cupboard that now has a washing machine and tumble dryer stacked where the old hot water cylinder used to stand. But it’s only just big enough for those two and has no external walls, so even if it wasn’t full, I’m not sure it would be suitable. The only other place is a coat cupboard on the 1st floor, but that’s even smaller. We’d also have to get permission to hang a unit on the outside wall (which is currently prohibited in our block). I’m just not sure these are a good alternative to a combi boiler in small flats / apartments (as much as I’d like them to be)…
Im not a plumber but I haveworked on building sites, im prettysure that floor joists should not be notched to accomodate that pipework, will it not seriosly weaken the floor?
@@immers2410he actually is an engineer, most UK plumbers can’t even be arsed to do any calcs they just chuck something on the wall and then charge you more money later to install the right size radiator.
It is not rocket science. All you need is to measure all walls, windows etc, apply the correct U values and stick it into a standard app. As far as radiator upgrades are concerned it is usually a case of changing from single panel to double panel and increasing the number of convectors rather than any increase in wall area.@@edc1569
On a large renovation like this you are absolutely right, if it's cost neutral then HP is a no brainer. Gas is only going to get more expensive and there is a strong impetus on government now to bring down the cost of electricity. The bigger issue is the replacement market where a new gas boiler is often a distress purchase (after failure) which householders are therefore looking to do quickly at the minimum cost. Sorting out radiators and insulation then becomes something they don't want to think about even if it makes sense in the long run. IMO the government therefore needs to put a strong focus on making all homes 'heat pump ready' and unfortunately the incessant lobbying for hydrogen by the gas industry has made this very difficult.
Very impressive workmanship and women saw a young woman helping , sorry I digress, wow can’t think of anyone in my lifetime that I’ve been so impressed with , keep in mind that I was born that long ago rainbows was only in black and white, if you ever find yourself in Devon please pop in and give me a price no change that just come and do the job , very small house so would be your quickest install on record,
That's going to be such a high performing system! Top work as always 👏. What's the KW rating of the unit you fitted? It looks like a 5kW unit? You should do a follow up video to document the performance and how well cooling works. I think the option for cooling could be a great selling point for a ASHP. What made you go for a Vaillant cylinder? It looks like the Telford HP cylinders have a larger coil and slightly lower cost.
After the oil crisis of the 1970`s in rural areas straw burner was the rage my cousin built wood framed house house installed the strawburner in the garage he had to abadon his house one night and call the fire brigade luckily thay saved his house but gave them all a scare
Reading the comments, it’s funny seeing the confirmation bias from the gas boiler / radiator die hards. North America, Northern Europe & apac have converted to heat pumps a long time ago, with building standards & insulation “R” values often below that of the UK. They work & are cheaper than gas boilers even in radiator systems. But yeah, heat pump deniers…..
I live in a semi-detached 3 bed house that is on an estate that was built in the early 1930s. So, any quote that includes a complete CH replacement, redecoration, storage of furniture ect, and accommodation for the duration of the project, and can be achieved for £5000, we're in.
Nice installation and I'm sure it makes perfect sense for a contractors bank balance, however this is a renovation of a house that no ones in a rush to move into and if this is a builder who will sell the project on he will be looking for a return on investment. A couple of questions what was the total cost for supply and installation ?, what's the warranty period, why have you specified such a large installation when you will run the system around 40% capacity ?. Where are people expected to put a cylinder of that size when houses have been built for the last 20 years without emersion heater tanks. what savings against gas will be made ?........... think of the disruption to the average family household with no guarantees........ yeah makes perfect sense.
You can also add solar and batteries to your house when you have a heat pump and run it on that energy instead of grid energy, can't do that with a gas boiler :)
@@ctid107 Ally PV and batteries with a Time of Use electricity tariff and you have an absolute no-brainer. In winter charge the batteries with super cheap electricity and then run the house during the day from them. In summer, PV will charge the batteries, run the house and heat the DHW. I have 2 x BEVs, air-to-air HP that does cooling in summer and heating in winter in some rooms. I also have a legazcy gas boiler for some heating and DHW in winter. PV and batteries have halved my electricity costs and slashed my gas bill.
Why ever not? You could easily run a gas boiler from solar electric, it only take a hundred watts or so for hot water and similar on top for the pump when the heating is on.
Solar will not produce much energy during the winter. A heat pump has to be on for something like 18 hours a day in the depths of winter. It will use something like 50kwh per day. A battery will not be of much use in such conditions. I know because I have a ground source heat pump and solar panels.
How many combis got replaced because a heating engineer couldn't be bothered or didn't know how to fix a simple fault ? Loads. Now imagine whats going to happen when the heat pump develops a fault.."oh you need a new heat pump mate". Nobody is going to want to spend the time to learn how to diagnose faults on these systems. A manufacturers engineer will check the heat pump, but won't touch the rest of the system. I have a six year old gas boiler and its not going anywhere quickly until the heat pump market has matured and is orderly. I still don't think a heat pump will keep my old house warm at anything like comparable cost. The next owner of this house can take all that on as insulating this 1885 property is a real headache. We've done the roof space, we've double glazed and we have insulated underfloor where we can get there. The walls are solid, so it will mean dry lining the whole house, or there is one gable wall we could exterior clad. The one thing I might be OK with is oversized radiators as mine are pretty big, but I need to get a calculator out and do a heat loss/heat output calculation to get a real idea of the requirement. I need to win the lottery and then have a borehole dug, in that order unfortunately.
I also agree that ROI is a useless way of looking at it. What is the ROI in having a nice garden double glazing, a new roof, these are simply investments made into your property for comfort, security and aesthetics.
Gas boilers are not more expensive to run. Combi’s are more efficient than a heat pump, cost wise. When you have a system boiler, maybe then it is comparable. But still can’t beat a well designed system with gas. The grant for heat pumps is finishing soon and it has only reached a quarter of the budget allocated by the government. Not much adoption. Also, the knowledge on heat pumps is very low with engineers, good luck fixing it.
Most of my installation have running costs around 25% cheaper than 90% efficient gas boiler. So yes, gas boilers are more expensive to run than my installations - fact.
Not forgetting that in the UK, electricity tariffs are around 4 times that of gas! Never going to beat a 90% efficiency gas boiler with a heat pump unless you have a good amount of solar panels a good battery for storage.
Yes that chilled water will be %100 air conditioning. You will simply need an Air handling unit to transfer the rooms heat back to the water for it to return to your outdoor unit where it will run in cooling mode (reverse cycle) to reject the heat to outside via refrigeration cycle. Then the chilled water heads back upstairs. HEATPUMP = reverse cycle air conditioning normally. Just another true advantage of replacing the old boiler
Not true air conditioning as no control on humidity but why not take advantage of the four way valve, I've done this to my house and I had a problem with very low humidity
@@MG-qo5ge The fan coil unit if set to a low enough flow temperature should bring some humidity out of the air, although the floor temperature's must be kept in check otherwise there'd be condensation on the floor and it would become uncomfortable. I'm not sure if its possible to have 2 different flow temps like that.
This will depend on the due point. The chilled water temperature will have to be above that point to reduce the dehumidification effect and the under floor temperature has to be controlled possibly through the 0-10v proportional signal serving a 3 port valve This does bring in cost and complexity considerations and also if it goes wrong try to find someone outside the industrial fraternity ....good luck @@MichaelFlatman
Another quality install (and video) as usual Szymon. Much as I'm loathed to admit it, I agree, gas is mad, ASHPs are the future - for many, if not most properties. Prices will reduce over time, & due to cutting-edge installers like yourself, effeciencies are getting better and better ready for when old-timers like me eventually break into the renrewables arena. Looks like I'll have to change my name, planned ahead & already own LondonASHP domain.
Great video but yet again, these heat pumps are only suitable in a new build situation where all of the insulation and pupework are built in to there latest standards Totally irrelevant to most of the existing housing stock in the UK unless major uplift is also included.
not true, i have a number of videos on my channel showing installation of heat pumps in period, uninsulated hosues, that not only are cheaper to run than gas boilers, but also provide much better comfort.
@@UrbanPlumbers for example, my house has roof insulation and double glazing. I attempted to run the boiler flow temp at 55C. the result was the house didn't reach desired temp in any sensible time on a cold day. I have cavity brick construction. It would appear that for most of the existing housing stock, these low flow temps are useless unless a much larger investment is made in insulation, radiator sizes and in some cases, pipework.
@@michaelhughes7706 radiators definitely, pipework only if it won’t support the required flow of water. Central heating is pumped so it isn’t so much if a problem, but the pipework still needs to be correct. Otherwise, get the rads sized properly and it’ll work fine.
@@jonh1808 yes but nuch larger radiators along with the insulation requirements is a significant budget uplift which for most of the UK housing stock would require. Comparing a simple heat pump installation with a gas boiler in anything other than a new build is usually nonsense.
@@UrbanPlumbershi yeah I’m gonna put 35 mil pipework all over your 60m2 terrace btw hope you have a yard and your kids don’t like playing outside cos that’s where the HP is going… PS you know that 1 cupboard you have? Cylinder cupboard now mate.
His comment about no body thinks about cost of investment….he’s having a laugh! If money is no object then great!most will likely consider the value of such improvement / modifications and what it adds to the value on a house in consideration of any future sale. Direct you comment to an Estate Agent!!!
Interesting you say that, as heat pump increases the value of the property as compared to a gas boiler. www.savills.co.uk/insight-and-opinion/savills-news/327804-0/buyers-paying-significantly-more-for-homes-with-low-carbon-technology--as-energy-prices-rise
On our deep renovation the first thing I did was call the plumber to cap the gas, a month later the meter got removed. Easy for me then with a house full of dead pipework to rip out. Had our heat pump fitted last month partway through renovation, really appreciate all your insights watching your videos this past year.
I'll wait until I see a whole street of Victorian terrace houses converted to HP before I'm convinced that they are the only solution And I mean a terrace of 2 up/2 down with small back yards that you find north of Watford and not some pimped up house in Islington
2 up 2 down are actual quite easy to with heat pumps, as heat loss of those terraces is sub 5kw, so the smallest unit can be installed and there is also usually space for the cylinder in the loft. I have done a number of those last year. What is best, is the fact that they don’t even need to be insulated. Just decent double glazing and loft insulation and they are fine with 45c flow and scop of 4
Yet again watching your work with properly designed and installed system the case for going with a heat pump gets stronger, very interesting indeed, I already have PV on the FiT but upgrading this system as well with the heat pump makes good sense
@@kevinmills5293 This is true but if you do your homework first and carefully for what you want to achieve or even if it’s positive for your application and select the right people to do the job then there is not really a problem
Where these have been fitted in hundreds/thousands of new estates i.e. Scotland they have a big problem with noise pollution - imagine a whole estate with these mega sized fans whirring away - photovoltaics and electricity is the way to go - why govt hasn't made law that all new builds should have PV panels fitted I will never know.
Totally agree. PV should be mandated on all new builds. We already have noise regulations regarding heat pumps. Modern heat pumps are no longer a noise issue if and when installed to current regulations
It's for the rich only.. normal working folk can't pay extortionate amounts for insulation and then the extortionate prices for a heat pump.. Makes no sense at all at the moment for the masses.
@@edc1569 Heat Pumps cost the same if not more to run. They're being pushed to de-carbonise, not to make heating cheaper. They use a more expensive fuel.. electricity
but done well they are 25-30% cheaper to run. If you take advantage of cheap overnight tarrif and batery stroage they become 50-70% cheaper to run. If you have storage and PV some people see a very quick payback time and are no longer tied to changing energy prices. Saving the planet is also a good reason to do it.
@@UrbanPlumbers I get your reasoning here.. but.. throw in battery storage and you're talking even more dosh for kit/install. I'm a gas engineer, predominantly S&R but do the odd install too. It's simply too expensive. If you're optimising the heat pump with UFH.. that's even more money.. It's simply not viable for the masses. For select income groups.. yes.. but not the mass market.
Totally agree, why install gas when as you rightly say the difference is so small and the feel good of doing something towards cutting emissions. As for running cost I suspect with those cops it’s cheaper to run and way more comfortable.. As a retired plumber / Heating installer may I say your workmanship is first class.
Hi Urban Plumbers, as always a really neat install and informative video. Please let us know what the installation cost is for this install, and also going forward the costing for your other installs please. I understand and agree we need to look forward regarding green energy measures to our homes ( which I have done with my existing 1950's property which is now EPC A) . Actually with no one in the property during the install ( luckily so when the tank is faulty and caused significant delay, which if you where installing in an existing property would be unacceptable for someone living in a property at the time) and with retrofit wall, floor and roof insulation it is possible to produce an energy efficient building. The problem comes with retrofit to existing housing stock in the UK, which is generally old and poorly insulated. The upgrade costs for a typical Victorian or Edwardian property are very high before the installation of an air source heat pump system. The typical install costs for an air heat source system including larger radiators etc is as per government figure £12K to £18K which is substantially more than a high efficiency boiler and Radiators. This figure plus any mitigation to the existing EPC value of a property make it very unlikely that those who could really do with benefiting the most would never be able to afford to install an air source heat pump.
Government says it will happen, without addressing any of the practicalities, costs or available equipment and installers. And its still 1 kw electric in for 3kw out!
Heat pumps require space for cylinder, buffer tank large radiators and bulky unit outside some time need planning permission and all costs associated with it therefore GAS BOILERS MAKES MORE SENSE works every time all the time 😄
Just top ! I agree with everything, i’m 23 years install business and i constantly crash in people who calculate cash back of heat pump driving a 90.000,00€ car 😂😂😂😂
This i do not agree with. 95% of people can just about afford to pay the mortgage and food on there table and many houses in the UK need to be properly insulated before installing a heat pump. To make use of a heat pump you also most likely need to upgrade your existing radiators for larger ones and ideally install solar panels with a batter(again more costs)
@@chriss4949 I'm talking about people who have a mortgage ie own there own property. Not sure what your point is regarding my post about costs for insulation and solar panels.
With Solar Pv panels yes its a no brainer, without them.... electricity is 3x the cost of gas. I have anecdotal stories of high running costs I'm sure you'd disagree with but my point is the argument is a lot closer call. We need cheaper more efficient panels, more installers and cheaper electricty. The future has started but its not quite there yet. Same with electric cars and vans
Whats the installation cost for one house all in? The builders I work for are very concerned about the costs. They fight me on pipe sizing all the time. The scops impressive and I'm moving away from working for builders full stop.
It’s not just solar panels you need. First gotta look at your properties insulation. Does it have cavity walls? 150mm insulation on the roof? 100mm insulation underneath your floorboards? Double glazing windows? Sufficient sized radiators? A place to store he hot water cylinder?😊
There are no shortage of forums/blogs with people discussing the relative merits of their own heat pumps, from a real world cost point of view. It’s never more than a 50/50 split between people who are happy and people who wish they’d never touched them, running costs being the single biggest problem. Some will have been poorly installed, and some incorrectly sized, but equally, a lot of people who were reasonably happy were off grid and dependent on oil/LPG with all the messing around and extra cost involved.
Your pipework is a work of art. How easy will it be to maintain the system and will it need an annual service. Will fault finding be more difficult than in a gas combi boiler system?
There is ONE huge issue that is overlooked when talking about all this ASHP stuff. That is, electricity supply. We were threatened with rolling blackouts last winter which would mean a cold house if you did everything with electricity. Having a gas boiler gives you a backup option (called diversification redundancy in tech speak). So for that reason alone I wont ditch my gas boiler or cooker any time soon. Niec to have options.
I'm not sure about your gas boiler, but mine won't work if there's no electricity.. Same point with EVs, where people say: but I can still get gasoline if the power grid goes down! Nope, because the pumps and payment systems won't function..
Even if the power was out for 3 hours most houses aren't going to lose enough heat to be a problem. And with those, it makes the fabric upgrades all the more worthwhile doing to keep the existing heat in. UPSes are designed for keeping things running for a short period of time to enable someone to turn them off if power isn't due back on within the timeframe needed, not for sustained use.
@@BenIsInSweden That’s very true, I’d only need to use it in exceptional circumstances anyway as my home is well insulated and stays warm for a long time after the heating goes off. The main reason I purchased my power bank is so I can have light and other essentials if/when we have power cuts during winter which were predicted. Also use it when I go camping in remote places so it was bought for multiple purposes.
I enjoy your videos. Would really like to install ASHP plus solar panels in the renovation property I am buying. Did your client dig out the concrete floor in the existing part of the house for the UFH?
Total Bollox I've been installing gas boilers for 40 years and they have never been so reliable and Efficient and gas at the moment is half the price of electricity,a modern gas boiler will heat your home and hot water far more efficiently than a heat pump and having worked on heat pumps on repairs both expensive to repair and loads of complaints from customers on efficiency,heat output and very expensive to run.
“More efficient” “gas is half the price of electricity” - you have zero idea what you’re talking about, lmao. You literally proved that gas is worse, a decent heat pump is 4x more efficient than a gas boiler so if gas was half the price it would be 2x the running cost, hahahaha
@@Etacovda63doesn’t matter what imagined efficiencies are when electricity is so much more expensive. I have refitted my CH and sized everything for low flow temperature, I can run the boiler hot for a short while to warm the place up then let it run at low temperature after that. Very very efficient. You’re ASHP will never compete, if for no other reason than the exorbitant cost of installing them wipes out your mythical savings. And as I’ve posted elsewhere on here, Mitsubishi charge a minimum of £36pm to cover their heat pumps, and nothing else, which suggests they aren’t expecting them to be cheap to maintain either. You’re welcome to them.
Here's where heat pumps are set to be a major fail. My 16kw is happy in the 35° c bracket, I agree with proper insulation and underfloor it is well possible. Now, when I ask for 50°c hot water, on economic, its drawing over 6kw and gets to 47.5°c. Seeing that electricity is 4 times the price of gas it is hopeless at CoP 2.5. What's going to happen is; we're going to be offered very cheap electricity when there is a glut from wind and solar. I have a 4,000 litre buffer with this in mind, in reality I could do with another 4,000 litres. Heat pumps just grind away 24/7 irrespective of the Grid, no use at all for Grid balancing! Available phase change heat stores need sort of 65°c to operate so they are out the picture. You might as well use an immersion heater to make use of pcm's. When I first had my 16kw ashp I pressed the " instantaneous power function " and it showed something like 9.4 kw and it made me wet my knickers, I contacted the manufacturer and to be fair they advised me to stick to "economic" but 6.4 kw is still a hefty chunk at nearly £2.00 an hour. The next major problem I faced was the warranty, for the sake of efficiency I was running pure water. According to the manufacturer, to avail of the warranty it is necessary to use glycol. The next blow was the £300/ year maintenance charge they wanted to drop on me to get to 7 years cover, that's a quarter of a gas bill. Even then they'll do their utmost to wriggle out. So the plan is the boiler I removed is being serviced and will go back in to service to be used as a sort of hybrid system for when the cold winds strike or the ashp breaks down, which it will no doubt. And before anyone mentions it, I was not able to claim BUS and on reflection I'm glad I didn't.
Heat pumps are like cars, will use more energy during the startup phase. You aren't going to have it using 9.4kW/6.4kW per hour constantly, and once it reaches "maintaining the temperature", you will find it's using a lot less.
Your correct that no one thinks about ROI on a boiler but then your looking at £2-£3k. An ASHP installation like you just did must run to £12-£18k excluding underfloor heating I would estimate. Even if you deduct the £5k BUS that's a shit tonne of money so it's only reasonable to consider ROI in that situation. I mean I could have bought a decent 2nd hand electric car for that and saved myself more money overall and helped the environment just as much.
wait for electricity prices to jump 400% ... soon .... the idiocy of government ideas is never ending .. diesel cars ... etc DO the opposite of what government advises every time is my advice ... 👍
And Gas will stay the same? An increase in electricity prices will just drive more solar PV and batteries being installed because it will make it an even more worthwhile investment.
@@BenIsInSwedenYou don't understand. They are CRIPPLING the grid with changing to electric everywhere. In Belgiums they already officially announce possibility of blackouts. In case of a bad winter the power WILL go out. On purpose. Because they sold and decomissioned, disinvested, phased out the nuclear plants. And try to create new gas power plants to make up for it. You don't want to have a bad winter and rely on a heat pump that can't get a decent COP to then have the power go out completely. If I had a heat pump I would have a wood stove just to make sure. Then it's ok I guess. I think having wood fuel stove backup is essential regardless.
@@the1beard You mean Fracking that Liz Truss lifted the moratorium on in her short term and that Rishi swiftly recommitted to it? I'll file that under the same folder as Hydrogen for heating homes. The problem is even if electricity does jump by 400%, gas would need to rise by 100% or less in the same period to maintain how things stand today with regard to HP vs Boiler running costs. I don't see that happening.
I have been told by some of my former colleagues that under 5% of the UK housing stock are suitable for ASHP . And half of that figure are new build houses
I've not understood the heat pump method at all. I frankly still don't. But, that whole system looks expensive, I guess care of GOV 5k grant, I'm paying for a piece of it, and I look at the luxury of ploughing under floor heating and the space taken up with all the gear. Saving the planet just leads to insanity. That aside, I want to say great video. I did learn more about it than I have from other sources, and the info and detail was really good.
So the title should be 'Gas Boilers No Longer Make Sense on a Large Renovation , Here is Why.'. The message that it is economic if you rip out the house internals completely is not exactly encouraging. How many people are ever going to have underfloor heating? How many buildings are going up with it installed; you only ever see it on self builds and full rebuilds with radiators and microbore pipes for the masses. Look at the immense size of the utility room also and the multitude of manifolds needing setting up. It is interesting how much heat pump propaganda involves a spare utility room the size of the average living room. Not exactly useful for someone with a combi boiler in a little cupboard. Of course the pump is quiet when it is installed and hopefully during warranty but after this the manufacturer will not be concerned at all with longevity and you are on your own. Sorry not convinced at all as it just looks all the time as toys for rich boys which will be imposed on everyone like it or not.
Precisely, my thoughts entirely. In a few years time the technology will have moved on and this heat pump will be old hat. Most of us haven't got a convenient plant room conveniently near the heat pump to house all that stuff. And the complexity of the control and settings boggles the mind. But still I admire Szymon's skill and knowledge.
Because that’s all it is. Mitsubishi charge £36pm for maintenance cover on their Ecodan range, £40 without a Wi-Fi adaptor. They’re obviously expecting some maintenance bills over the 15 year lifespan. And that doesn’t cover the heating/hot water system or anything else, just the heat pump. Fair enough, if they were ubiquitous there’d be more people in the maintenance game and prices would be forced down, but only so much. Parts and labour still cost what they cost, and they get more expensive as time goes by, not cheaper. And if everyone got one tomorrow, we’d just have nationwide blackouts every winter because we currently have nothing like the electricity generating capacity we need. Let’s not even discuss how the antique grid would cope.
@@nickhickson8738 Agreed it looks like he does a great job and good luck to him. It is just that getting the likes of his obvious quality and dedication is probably a lottery and he has at least one video I have seen of him sorting out a disastrous installation of these pumps. Difficult times to live in with a potential money pit of nascent technology in store for anyone short of capital for investment. The government certainly looks short of the capital to maintain even basic services let alone finance the grand plans it has in store for us.
We have a Dimplex air to water heat pump for underfloor heating and then we ran a line up to our top floor attic for a water to air fan coil. It provides perfect air conditioning in the summer and is honestly one of the best reasons to use air to water heat pumps. They do perfect radiant heating and very good cooling, there are also smaller convector radiators from Jaga that are installed like radiators and provide decent room by room cooling. A technician like yourself should look into this as more people request aircon in your market.
Great video and unassailable logic for a new build or complete renovation IF the building is well insulated. Domestic boilers are responsible for more CO2 emissions in the UK than our passenger cars reputedly, yet this is yet to be widely known or discussed. The government will need to push much harder on ASHP support and publicity because guess what; hydrogen is NOT the answer!
ROI is still a valid concept, but it only applies to the additional investment you have to make to install a heat pump, if there is any. Now, if a heat pump is really cheaper to install from the start under some circumstances, there isn't any additional investment to consider, so ROI calculations would not be useful. But, the government subsidies and the high price of gas in the EU are both symptoms of the current political climate, and that may change in the future, so it makes sense for any homeowner to try to set aside enough space to accommodate changes in the future, including a switchable-source system if price or supply prohibits the use of either electricity or gas. Here in the USA, gas is still cheap for the time being, so the only case for a heat pump, at least in areas with cheap gas, is to support both heating and cooling with one system. There are some 1970s houses in my area with resistive electric heat and overhead ducts for air conditioning, and in those houses, there is a strong case for a conversion of the air-conditioning system to a heat-pump, with both heating and cooling capacity, in order to minimize the use of the incredibly expensive resistive heating. But with the way energy prices fluctuate, the only sure bet is on the insulation itself; it's hard to loose on that one.
Lovely job and you make a lot of good points in this video. But while it's a straightfoward job to install the system in a house that is practically stripped to the bricks for a renovation, it would be a right head-scratcher if someone didn't want to do that. Thinking about my own place (mid-size semi) frankly I would pretty much expect to move out for a month and put all the furniture in storage for the period, which would add a fair bit to costs. Still, I might one day just have to bite the bullet and do that, I guess.
So i have similar plan to do in my new house now since i still didn't do any consultation with Vaillant i was wondering how the system will work with solar panels, so heat pump, solar panels i was thinking to put massive buffer tank probably 1000L one twin coil and everything feed from that, since we have plenty of sun here where i live but very cold winters - 15c
Future proofing project done by a real professional. And it makes perfect sense in a multi-£100k house undergoing top-to-toe renovation But my renovation uses the existing gas boiler and multi-zone plumbing. You can buy a lot if gas gir the £10k price differential. Maybe in the future when these systems are near-commodity items and electricity cists much less. Hurry up with that offshore wind...
Let's have a think about the Grid, solar and ashp's. I won't use heating for at least six months, possibly more. The summer is when the Grid receives most of it's solar, come late October there's not enough solar to be useful as far as heat pumps go. The winners here are the ones with solar and batteries, they can adjust their Grid use whereas ordinary powered heat pumps will just bumble along regardless. The powers that be tell us this or that solar farm is enough for 20k houses. In reality that solar farm won't supply any houses unless half the daily output is stored by some means. Another thing that's of concern is the amount of power we seem to be importing at present. I watch the stats every day, at the moment it's at 5% and gas is 43.9% but recently imported power has been over 20%. I honestly didn't realise all this stuff when I ordered said heat pump. If I had invested the £16k in 10kw solar and 10kw battery I would have had a ROI of about 13 % whereas I'm encountering massive depreciation. Hey- ho! You,sir are an artist, I love your videos and admire the beautiful installations that your providing for your customers.
ASHP is the way forward for new builds as a transitional period providing the electricity to run them coming from renewable sources only. I don't know why, especially when energy prices are always going up, no one is talking about geothermal energy harvest. I'm talking about industrial geothermal plants. Cornwall on its own has potential to provide whole entire UK with energy. Years ago they(so called experts) used to say it's beyond economical threshold. The old properties should have option to connect to the district heating system run by geothermal plants using HIU. This would require major changes to our infrastructure. Sadly major giant companies/corporations and government has no intrest, unless is quick in and out with mega profits. Geothermal energy is endless and fairly clean, with the right scientific approach/investment we could make a difference.
not everybody can afford heat pumps and space for cylinder, buffer tank them therefore GAS BOILERS MAKES MUCH MORE SENSE cheaper to buy works every time all the time instant not like heat pumps
I’m looking for a career change and have considered trying to get into heat pump installation. Would you recommend retraining in heat pump installations and as someone with no experience in plumbing, where is the best place to start ? I was thinking of attending evening college courses to learn the basics of plumbing first. Thanks 👍
Good work and what appears to be a good system but only really applicable and practical for a new build, but forgive me when i see the comparative costs of all that pipework .....with the increasingly high costs of copper now days , and all the extra components needed , thats like for like with a combi system has to be cheaper , in component and installation costs ......remove the grant, remove the zero vat and the true cost difference would be enormous thats the reality , another VHS versus Betamax ......electric car versus petrol scenario ...........Green agenda/Net Zero is pushing this for corporate interests , that looks to be a £30K system all in crazy how these days we are being lead down the path that this is an acceptable cost but in reality out of reach for the majority of people ......its what is driving the younger generation into debt and the next must have for us to be one up on the neighbours by being even more green , therefore we are better because we are saving the planet much more than you .......I can see the line of sheep now , all queueing up for the next round of grants lol
This installation only makes sense because there is low temperature underfloor heating. When well below freezing outside, an air heat pump with only radiators will struggle, with expensive to run resistance heating having to come in. An alternative to gas, is having the whole all electric. First ensure the house is highly insulated: cavity wall insulated, insulated external doors, triple glazing. Eliminate air leaks as much as possible. Seal up loft and loft hatch. Have cheaper to fit electric underfloor heating. Heat hot water via immersion heaters. Now have solar panels on the roof and elsewhere. Then fit a home battery set. Eliminating a gas meter save £100 per year in standing charges. That can buy a lot of electricity. The solar panels and home battery set can near eliminate buying electricity from the grid, depending on solar size of course.
After many years pricing heating jobs (45) I have meet lots of smart arses that oh that's to much or what's the payback time,I simply say compared to what?and I will keep repeating it to them.these people often have a fancy car on the drive and loose thousands on it as soon as they drive it of the forecourt.. unless the can give you a comparison walk away,it saves alot of stress.three heart attacks taught me that.good luck.
Always great to see one of your videos, especially a heat pump one! Given sufficient space to create a proper installation, there really is no reason at all to install a brand new gas boiler in new or heavily refurbished properties, it really is a shame to see it continue to be done. Even if the running costs are comparable right now, they will without a doubt decrease in the future. With so much misinformation currently circulating, do you find you have to suggest a heat pump yourself to customers and correct some of their misunderstandings or do potential clients come to you specifically requesting them?
I have to fight ignorant builders and plumbers all the time! The amount of misinfomration coming from our trade is just frightening. That is why I HAVE TO keep posting those videos to fight it. Customers that come to me are less of a problem, as they are usually well educated in heat pumps already.
@@UrbanPlumbers It really is a shame to hear, especially that the misinformation is also coming from within the industry and not just the general uninformed media. You're doing a great service to the industry for sure, your videos are fantastic!
@@UrbanPlumbers Shame you don't work in my area i am working at the moment as would be great to have you do an install in Nw2. Probably going to have to go with a new gas boiler instead.
Good morning, Sorry, but what you are saying about “Heat Pumps” is totally incorrect. Can you please show us a Price comparison between Gas boilers and Heat Pumps E.g. Install costs, Yearly service costs, True Running costs, and Possible Repair costs? Also, fans are always quiet when they are new but after a short time (6 Months?) not only will the owners complain about the Fan noise but the neighbors will also be complaining as well. If you are honest you should easily be able to prove what you are telling people, but I think we will be wanting a long time for the figures and facts to be shown. I am not a plumber, but I do understand figures and data.
Since the summer of last year, any major renovations (or new builds) of properties by law (building regs) need to basically be a low-temperature heating system. So for this project, the only difference is the cost of the heat pump vs. the cost of a boiler. Given you can make use of the £5K grant you're basically covering the cost of the heat pump, so a boiler in this scenario will currently cost more at the outset. Yearly servicing costs you're probably looking at around £150 at the moment depending on who does it. These units have a 7-year guarantee, and after that most home insurances cover major breakdown costs in heating. My heat pump got replaced 9 months ago - it was about 15 years old and still wasn't noisy. Even the ones in my area that I would classify as "noisy" aren't loud enough to complain about.
Good morning Ben, As I have already said “I am not a Plumber” but I do understand Facts and figures. Facts: - You said that the costs of installing a gas boiler and a Heat pump (with the £5K grant) are about the same. This is totally untrue, Boiler = about £5K, whereas Heat Pump = about £20K and that’s with the grant already removed. Year service charges are about three times higher for a Heat pump system due to the size and number of components used. Yearly running costs for a boiler V’s Heat Pump, are about 3 to 4 times dearer due to heat pumps running all the time. Also, I have never heard that you can use a heat pump for “air-con “in the summer. Please be honest with people about the running and installation costs of these Heat pump systems. Will @@BenIsInSweden
@@williamk4280 Heat Pumps aren't £20K. You can Google the model of these, and you'll see they cost less than £6K for a 5kW unit with a cylinder combined (though Szymon goes for a different cylinder), and with the grant that brings it down to
Good morning Ben, Thank you for your detailed reply, which shows you know a lot about Heat Pump Systems. I will do a lot more research on these systems over the next few months but with so many different people saying totally different things about these new systems, I think you can easily understand why I and many others are so confused. Thanks again for all the info and time taken to reply. Will @@BenIsInSweden
@@williamk4280 Yup, for sure. There are a few aspects that haven't helped, e.g. American brands (irrelevant in the UK) still seem to be about a decade behind the rest. So you often get people from the States with issues that aren't relevant in the UK market, and claiming they work in the industry so they "know what they're talking about". Bad installers have also given the industry a bad reputation, so there is truth to some of the complaints. e.g. if you check EVM's Heat Pump journey, he had expensive quotes (think over £16K) from people wanting to replace his pipes and radiators, and a massively oversized heat pump - which would have made it expensive to run. He did the calculations himself and got a heat geek to do them as well to see if they matched up. In the end, he needed to replace 5 radiators, and his running costs were basically what he expected.
It's impressive, but Urban Plumbers clients are in a different wealth league compared to mine by the looks of the properties. It's the compulsion that gets me. Sold out.
You just said exactly that i told to customers regarding investment returns. They are hasn't answers - what time investment return if they replaced old gas boiler onto new one :-) Same for their cars :-)
ROI - accountants only. House needs heating, put in the most upto date and easily run off renewables, and just stop paying for carbon. One less bill per month.
Questions please 1 how much an average per install 2 life expectancy on average of each install 3 percentage price savings annual against average gas boiler per year Thankyou
i personally would of gone down the air to air heat pump and fitted a ducted system. Then fitted the daikin heat pump cylinder. that makes more sense as the client clearly wants to be able to cool the house as well.
I see you've installed quite a lot of these Valiant systems over the last year or so. It will be interesting to see how reliable they are and with that in mind, please make videos covering any significant faults you get over the coming years... If there are any.
within our group of heat geeks and Vito Energy (compnay that does the umbrella sheme) - we have installed propably around 200 units in the last 12 months, so we have a pretty representative sample of Vaillant units now. I will report on any issues. So far I have had issues with 3 Vaillant cylidners but none with heat pumps.
@urbanplumbers i'd love to switch from the Valiant 937 ecotec to a heat pump, but my 20 year old house has nowhere to install an unvented cylinder, nowhere to site heat pump, is piped in 15mm flow and return with 10mm drops to under sized radiators. I've had three companies come and survey and price. Two wouldn't touch it, and one said £28k, so if gas comes to an end, this house will be getting electric storage heaters.
yes, you can use direct electric, but in a long run it makes more sense to actually spend 28K, as electric storage heaters will cost around £8K a year to run in an everage UK home. If you cannot afford a heat pump, then you surely will not be able to afford storage heaters, unless on a cheaper tarrif. Heat pumps are unlikely to reduce in price when it comes to installation ot supply. We need more training and better engineers and better incentive to attract better quality of people to the industry. What we need is better financing for this tech with lower bills savings to pay for the loan.
My brother has a small 3rd story flat. We pulled out an old boiler, DHW tank and header tank and fitted a combi boiler. The change freed up a lot of space in the bathroom where the DHW tank was located. If gas boilers are banned, an ASHP would not be a viable option. There would be no space for all the gubbins needed and with the ASHP mounted outside, the cost of servicing it would be astronomical as scaffolding would have to be erected to reach it.
@@UrbanPlumbers but this isn't a job site. This is my home. It's £28k for the plumbing but that doesn't include reinstatement of the flooring that would need to be ripped up to get to the floor boards, and the reality that we would need to be out of the house for several days (including pets) while the work is taking place. I know your clients have big properties and bigger pockets, but for your average working man, financially it's a stretch and it's a massive inconvenience for a small reduction in heating costs (on a well insulated home with weather compensation) for what? It doesn't increase the value of the property and if electricity prices increase (which they will, because we can't produce enough of the stuff), then an additional+£20k in solar PV and battery is needed? I'm not saying burning gas is right, but we need a less disruptive alternative, that doesn't lock us in to a single energy source (electricity).
@@StuartTaylorEsquire do you think there are electricity mines? electricity wells? Electricity is energy source agnostic like no other fuel. We used to heat our homes with open fires, a guy would deliver us coal. Central heating was an unbelievable expensive luxury with so much disruption to install, but in a decade or so burning coal became the luxury.
I usually don't seeing pipes or cables. I prefer to hide them away. But this pipe work needs to be on display. Very nicely done, very professional, great job. I do have one question. Ar around 8:15 of the video you have you left hand on the controls, right under that control I see some strange looking 4 way valve system. Can you please explain what that is and what its for? Is it some kind of automatic refill for the system?
@@UrbanPlumbers 100%, if you're ever unfortunate enough to install a lg heatpump, they often come with 750mm long hoses, absolute nightmare to deal with!
The other alternative would be straight forward electric heating, especially if costs of electricity relative to gas falls. The thousands saved not installing heat pump system should keep you going for a while.
Direct electric would be over 4 times more expensive to run in this case. It would be a difference of around £3k per year more to use direct electric heating. It would take only 3-4 years in bills to be more expensive that supply of the heat pump alone or around 8 years for the full system. Direct electric make very little sense, unless it is for well insulated flats where there is no space for a heat pump
@@UrbanPlumbers Thanks, but I imagine you are basing that on current costs. Maybe in the future electricity from wind farms etc could be so cheap that direct electric heating would not be so expensive.
@@firstlast5350 You might want to check with an electrician on how much it would cost to replace all waterborne radiators in a typical house with electric ones, with all the wiring that needs doing, and likely a change to the CU. I'm not sure you'd get much change out of £10K for a proper job. Even if you have solar panels where the electricity is "free", it's still a limited quantity, so if you had a battery, that "free" electricity would go further on a heat pump than it would on resistive heating, meaning you're less reliant on buying extra electricity from the grid.
As much as this excellent work, it's not the real world for the vast majority of home owners. The massive jumps for most people will be price and space, adoption is likely to remain low.
it dpeneds. If we can assure that all new HP installations are cheaper to run than existing gas systems and then offer finance that is paid by the diffence saved, then it is a no brainer. Hoever it shoud be a much wider soultion, not only heat pumps but also: insulation, windows if needed, solar PV and battery storage at the same time to get the absolute most of the new system.
Why gas boilers wouldn't make sense anymore ? I congratulate you for your technical knowledge,your are number one on my list.But you never talk about the price of electricity and gas.Electricity price is 27 pence per kw and gas price is around 6.9 per kw.(without the standing charge).Thats a factor of around 3.9 .... and we can match this with the COP of the pump.In the end,you could get cheaper with gas,because the boilers also modulate the power,and a 25kw with a modulation of 1:10 can burn 2.5kw per hour.And maybe in practice a condensing boiler isnt 100% efficient but it's definitely close to 90%.So where is the saving ? You use 1 kw of energy to make a total of 4 but the price is equal to 4kw of gas.From what I see in your clips ( like the one with the 2 gas boilers,where one wasnt necessary) is that a lot of systems are badly implemented and the boilers are running 100% power.If all installers would have your knowledge not so many people would get ASHP because you know hot to install a gas boiler and make it run efficient.And lets not forget the price of a heat pump instalation compared to the price of a gas boiler.
4kW of gas won't provide 4kW of usable heat though, you're looking at around 3.6kW of heat. So you're ending up paying 10% extra with gas. Also, for many 2.5kW of heat from a gas boiler is still going to be too much for much of the heating season, so it will need to turn off and on, reducing efficiency as well. This video was also done before the increase in the grant from 5k to 7.5k, which in most cases covers the difference in appliance cost. As he has said, when doing major renovations - because in this situation if a gas boiler was put in, the changes with the UFH etc would still be done, so would be a separate renovation cost.
Love your workmanship, but that home looks like it's A-Rated, with all the work done to the building fabric. Perfect for a 7kW heat pump, running at a low temperature. However, the additional extras required to get a home "heat pump ready", is a big turn-off. Insulation, new glazing, UFH system, new piping, new rads, new HP cylinder, new controls, space for plant etc. A £5000 grant isn't going to go very far.
That's all lovely, but the plant room alone looks about half the floor area of my entire house! I'd wish there was some integrated unit which reduced a lot of the external pipe work etc. and perhaps could sit outside, or in a garage. Even going back to having a water cylinder is problematic for those with small houses.
Yes, this is going to be a problem for lots of people, in the real world modern houses don't seem to have much spare room and lots of older houses aren't properly insulated.
All that ‘stuff’ compared to a combi in a kitchen cupboard lol
The internals can be fitted into much smaller spaces than that.
A pre plumbed cylinder would sit in the corner of a garage. The biggest issue would be for 2 up, 2 downs with very little cupboard space. Flats etc will need to move to district heating assuming we are all coming off gas.
Even in larger homes, a larger plant room vs an extra/larger storage-/bath-/bedroom/kitchen is a hard sell. This is the main reason I went with an oversized combiboiler last year: sure I have the space to put a seperate hot water cylinder and it would have multiple advantages in my home, but I happily waste a few Euro's of gas and water each month in order to have a larger kitchen with more storage for dry and frozen food so I don't have to drive my car to the supermarket as often and don't have to think about how much room I have in my freezer and pantry.
The low-and-slow character of a heatpump is perfect for heating a well insulated home in mild climates, and can be compact (monoblock outside, flow/return from radiator to radiator), but I think it doesn't make sense for hot water production.
This video should be called "Gas boilers no longer make sense if installing an HP in a brand new, hugely insulated home with plenty of space for a plant room". Gas boilers still make a lot of sense for your average older home. Just my opinion.
Exactly what I was going comment. This guy knows his stuff and love some of his videos. But I can’t help but think he’s on the heat geek bandwagon and pushing his own little heat pump agenda
That is what I was thinking, how can you fit all that lot in an airing cupboard.
He actually made a video of a heat pump installation in a Victorian uninsulated house.
The one where he ruined it by sticking huge vertical steel rads all over the lovely period property 😂
@@jamiebrown8437 it'll be interesting to see if he does a follow-up video on that victorian property in the height of winter 🤔
Great to watch your videos, very interesting with the details you share. Please keep it up 👍
And add the extra cost for an AC unit when going the gas boiler route. Add solar and the running costs become even lower. With a big property is easily achieveable getting around 500-600w of power from an array in cloudy weather. Thats easily a 2kva heater running all day, for free. And during the summer you get free power for basically everything.
I went the new build route, intergas xource 7 heat pump, 10kw of solar and my heating costs are ZERO. (mind you, a government law dictates that every KW i put on the grid, i can reuse for free the same fiscal year). Even without that rule, i would be much cheaper than gas, since having the connection to the gas grid alone is 400 euros a year, and gas is over 1,30 per m3. We run a jacuzzi and triple split AC all summer aswell, for free of that 10kw system.
Concerning ROI, i dont really care. With a bit of luck my system lasts 20 years or more. Building gasless here has massive government grants, making it a no brainer. Maintenance aside, I wont have to worry about heating costs at all anymore. Many people get sick and are out of a job, plummeting into poverty. Lowering your monthly bills is SO important. Many people have to pay over 400 a month just on gas alone these days here. Thats half my mortgage, FOR THE ENTIRE PROJECT!!
(also knowing im not funding the UA war as much is nice)
I wish I could get this guy down to Cornwall to design oversee and install my system in a passive house
try me ;)
Glad to see 5 grand of hard up people's gas and electric money going to someone who needs it,
Can a heat pump work in a flat though?
Yes. There are internal integrated units suitable for flats that do not require an external unit.
With flats it can be much smaller and simpler as the heat loss is usually much lower and dhw demand is also lower
@@UrbanPlumbers I guess then it's just a case of the reduced for space for the water tank being the major drawback versus an on demand gas boiler?
Thank you for your videos, they're excellent btw.
I just installed a new gas boiler. I cant afford a air source heat pump as it requires me to first insulate all my external walls from the outside, get new doors and windows and add floor insulation . It’s just not viable for most people here in the UK.
Yes, I was told this updated insulation is necessary to be done first to my 1940 house. The heat pump installation alone with grant was a quote for £6000, but it’s £2000 for a good new gas boiler swap. Maybe in a few years it will be affordable , but not at the moment.
@@Greguk444 One of Urban Plumber's recent videos was about an installation in a Victorian house with solid brick walls. I don't think they added wall insulation and it seemed to work perfectly well. I get the same comments whenever I discuss the idea of having a heat pump in my house (part 200 year old cob/stone, part 25 year old extensions with fairly paltry cavity insulation), but we already have a wet underfloor heating system driven by a 6kW electric flow boiler with flows temps of around 38-40C (already here when we bought it, and no options for anything other than electric owing to various logistical reasons I won't go into). The only difference with a heat pump would be I'd use less power for the same heating effect I have now, which is fine. Granted, I have improved the windows since they were utter junk, but I'd have done that no matter what. The bigger issue, at least for me and also for many others where a pump might work, is as someone else commented: The space required for the tank etc, and the running of pipes to it. I expect one day I will have a heat pump, but I am rather hoping that advances might make the space required less of an issue, but that's probably wishful thinking on my part.
@@stevepettifer4896 Even if I ignored the insulation recommendation, I still have the cost issue. I have not had a quote under £6000, including the grant, most were more and most wanted me to replace my radiators which I am not convinced need replacing as they are double layer type 22. It seems inevitably that I will have to get a heat pump eventually but I don’t think I will do it now as it is so much cheaper to swap out my old combo heater for a new gas version. Also, I just cannot see where I could put the tank and control equipment in my small house. Thank you for your comments.
All this business about heat pumps 'requiring' external wall insulation is misleading. Just as with a gas boiler you can always install a higher-rated boiler to cope with heat loss, you can do the same with heat pumps: but you'll need a bigger installation, which will cost more and will almost certainly run at lower efficiency too, putting running costs up further. It's just the usual question of compromising on costs here versus costs there.
@@Greguk444 yes, true, it is the cost of the system installation that gets most people. I have seen complete heat pump kits (7kW with tank etc) for under £4k, but usually seems to be the labour costs in most cases that really pushes things up. For the moment, installing a heat pump when you are not doing a full refurb is something you have to want to do in the full knowledge that it's possible you will not really recover the costs. The running costs can be made to be on par or even sometimes less than a gas system, but the most people can't see past the capital cost, or of those who can, it's simply out of reach. I hope this will change in time, but for now I suppose we are where we are.
I'm not a plumber/ engineer but I find this channel a MUST watch. I love watching craftspeople working at the top of their game. We are just about to do a 4 metre extension to our house and I'm in the process of trying to find someone of the same class to sort out the heat calculations/ loss needed - wish me luck!
Same here
The very best of luck, enthusiastic professionals such as these are very thin on the ground and obviously in high demand.
Choose carefully and wisely.
good luck, at least you can talk shop now!
Use the heat geak recommended installers, thats what i did and found a great engineer close by
@@duds2423 I approached a company that was Heat Geek approved specifically and got them to survey my home for Solar Panels. I thought there was a good chance that the layout meant there wasn't sufficient space for an effective installation. I thought the survey went well, the surveyor left making all the positive sounds. A month later I rang him for an update and see where the quotaton was. He gave me some BS about how he'd emailed me to say property wasn't suitable. Needless to say I didn't believe him. The point of this post is Heat Geek acreditation is no guarantee the company is any good if the people working there aren't honest.
That will be £30k please, how do you retro fit to a normal house with no space for a plant room.
It all depends . We live in a rural area in a 1840's detached house that is not to big but has high ceilings . We have had 3 prices for air source heat pumps they range from £27 k to £32 k . before any insulation up grades . We have no spare internal space for the plant to go and the wall space
available in most rooms do not have space for the upgraded radiators. All of the projected running costs are only just marginally below what we spend all ready and will likely be more as the tariffs they have used in the calculations are not available to use. The prices for replacing our 25 year old boiler are from £3.5k to £4.6 k . If you add on the the fact that the ASHP has to be paid up front and the government £5k is not available if your EPC is as lower as ours its just not worth bothering with . ASHP are an answer but the answer to the 1.4 million oil boilers .
£32k. Unless your house is bigger than you’re letting on that’s just a scam. Mind you, so is £27k. £5-6k of that is just VAT! I’d be that fuming I wouldn’t need a heating system.
zero vat on renewables tough. Some period properties will be expensive to install, expecially if high efficiency is required.
Agree with you on this. I have put in all the insulation I can (there was none in my loft in 2021!) and replaced an old gas boiler with new. With the much more efficient boiler (95% compared with about 70%) and insulation, I have got the consumption down to about half what it was.
@@jonh1808 he prices all include VAT . But did not include the 5 windows that would need to be double glazed and the extra roof insulation. All of the quotes said we needed the biggest available pump and we checked all the calculations using industry figures. The money was in the considerable work needed to the existing plumbing and building a place for the tank and plant to go . So I do not think we were scammed at all. High ceilings really throw the calculations out.
Now lets look at a normal 3 bed semi with an old boiler. These high end projects don’t reflect the majority UK housing stock.
he did a bungalow project, you seen that one?
And a regular Victorian terrace as well, plus ex council one too. Check my other videos
Looks great. I agree about the cost on a big complete renovation like that, no brainer. But for the average home when the boiler is end of life its a more complicated question. Also for someone like myself thats a geeky DIYer (i'm doing a full house renovation, so far prob 95% on my own) that wants to do most of it themselves the grant and the vat thing is not much help :-/. Interested in the cooling idea the customer is going for, be interested to see what that looks like if the customer will let you film it. Anyway, great video. Thanks.
Maybe you can find a friendly plumber who will order in the rads for you, they tend to get discounts anyway so you might both benefit
If you're interested in cooling as well as heating, have you considered a heatpump AC system (HPAC)? Simple and cheap to install but weirdly, no grant available. Ours has a CoP of 5 and is so cheap to run as it is easy to direct the heat. We run the system on Octopus Go battery stored electricity@7.5p/kWh plus solar. We've retained our boiler for now to provide hot water for showers.
Gas boilers are awesome, 50 years of usage is not wrong…….however I do like this installation, but it is a rich persons game.
Total install costs after grants may be still very high compared with a gas system. Maintenance and servicing costs also need to be compared as does the life expectancy of the main piece of kit. If a house is well ventilated and has heat recovery systems the actual heat input should be very little. In fact I remember an experimental house being constructed 45 years ago to a low budget. It had thick insulation, treble glazing and heat recovery. The only heat producing appliance was a gas fire in the living room which only needed to be switched on for a couple of hours a day!
Im not sure how you get comfort with a gas fire in one room.
The target is passive heating (was planned for building regs before the govt pulled it...). Most houses have a total of around 4MWh/y of heating from electrical appliances (it all ends up as heat) and occupants. This CAN be enough to keep the house warm, with the appropriate insulation and air control as you mention. The complex water systems as shown in this video play no part in this- it is all about air management. Imagine the cost and complexity of keeping such legacy systems running...
@@edc1569 Hi, it worked by the heat recovery system drawing it via ventilation to other parts of the house, then the heat is recovered and re-introduced with the fresh air coming in. The high insulation levels do the rest.
Extreme insulation isn't necessarily a great idea anyway. A lot of these modern materials are made of many materials that might not be that great to your health to breath in all the time.
@@chunkymonkey55555 And why would the air you breathe pass anywhere near the house insulation? Passive heating (the ultimate goal) requires active control of air change. This involves (as a minimum) a heat exchanger between incoming and exhaust air. This controls the flow of air within the building, which is otherwise sealed. Moisture and dust control of this air is an obvious addition. None of this is part of the crude A2W2A system in this video. This will form part of the dated and expensive redundant systems we are so keen to install in this country.
I’ve watched a lot of your videos and you do a brilliant job, however there are not enough installers yet and certainly not many who fully understand the installation. My two bed property was going to cost 25k for HP, rads, solar and battery, at my age it was a no brainer to install a new combi and some rads for 2K. Now only if I was 25 years younger 👍
Completely agree with you, my property is heat pump ready. But for some reason I'm still being quoted £5k for the install that is including £7.5k gov grant. £12.5k seem steep, especially as I don't need any new radiators, or pipework upgraded.
@@Pav_1983 You are ripped off in UK and many western countries. I've installed a 6kW monoblock unit from Gree that was bought from Spain and shipped to Romania, where I live, with 2.600 EUR. No boiler was installed, DHW is still the job of the gas boiler. Last winter I've used only the heat pump for heating and the cost was 357EUR for the season (winters are harsher here then UK i think). With gas would have cost me 632 EUR. Using heating at 24°C inside from October until May for a 135 sqm house, but it's well insulated.
This year I managed to install through a government grant a 7,3 kWp solar system with 4.000 EUR so obviously from now will be cheaper.
Any recommendations if you don’t have space for a “plant room”. Genuinely interested in one of these for our two-bed maisonette, but a combi boiler takes up no space at all, whereas it seems these need a lot more space (both inside and outside) for an equivalent system?
What space do you have? Do you have an airing cupboard? A loft?
@@pumpkinhead456 There was formerly an airing cupboard that now has a washing machine and tumble dryer stacked where the old hot water cylinder used to stand. But it’s only just big enough for those two and has no external walls, so even if it wasn’t full, I’m not sure it would be suitable. The only other place is a coat cupboard on the 1st floor, but that’s even smaller. We’d also have to get permission to hang a unit on the outside wall (which is currently prohibited in our block). I’m just not sure these are a good alternative to a combi boiler in small flats / apartments (as much as I’d like them to be)…
Im not a plumber but I haveworked on building sites, im prettysure that floor joists should not be notched to accomodate that pipework, will it not seriosly weaken the floor?
That pipework and installation is a work of art. :)
thank you :)
Why do you use copper instead of maybe the Geberit Flowfit system?
I'm prepaired to bet that this man has an extemely high IQ. I have never seen such proffesionalism in this field. His work looks so clean.
He’s definitely over qualified for a uk heat engineer. Maybe it’s different in other countries
@@immers2410he actually is an engineer, most UK plumbers can’t even be arsed to do any calcs they just chuck something on the wall and then charge you more money later to install the right size radiator.
It doesn't require a genius intellect to install a heat pump system. He's just a plumber, with pride in his work, and eye for detail.
@@hvacdesignsolutions there are a lot of variables involved in designing and implementing a system that runs at optimum efficiency
It is not rocket science. All you need is to measure all walls, windows etc, apply the correct U values and stick it into a standard app. As far as radiator upgrades are concerned it is usually a case of changing from single panel to double panel and increasing the number of convectors rather than any increase in wall area.@@edc1569
I am very impressed by such professional work, the plumbing, knowledge and experience. Well done.
thank you for watching!
On a large renovation like this you are absolutely right, if it's cost neutral then HP is a no brainer. Gas is only going to get more expensive and there is a strong impetus on government now to bring down the cost of electricity. The bigger issue is the replacement market where a new gas boiler is often a distress purchase (after failure) which householders are therefore looking to do quickly at the minimum cost. Sorting out radiators and insulation then becomes something they don't want to think about even if it makes sense in the long run. IMO the government therefore needs to put a strong focus on making all homes 'heat pump ready' and unfortunately the incessant lobbying for hydrogen by the gas industry has made this very difficult.
Great work and professional, but an install like that I’m guessing is about 10 - 20k. Well out of the price range for most people regardless of grant.
Another very impressive install. I’d love to see a follow up video to understand the real world efficiencies after the heating season.
I will definetly be done!
Very impressive workmanship and women saw a young woman helping , sorry I digress, wow can’t think of anyone in my lifetime that I’ve been so impressed with , keep in mind that I was born that long ago rainbows was only in black and white, if you ever find yourself in Devon please pop in and give me a price no change that just come and do the job , very small house so would be your quickest install on record,
That's going to be such a high performing system! Top work as always 👏. What's the KW rating of the unit you fitted? It looks like a 5kW unit? You should do a follow up video to document the performance and how well cooling works. I think the option for cooling could be a great selling point for a ASHP. What made you go for a Vaillant cylinder? It looks like the Telford HP cylinders have a larger coil and slightly lower cost.
After the oil crisis of the 1970`s in rural areas straw burner was the rage my cousin built wood framed house house installed the strawburner in the garage he had to abadon his house one night and call the fire brigade luckily thay saved his house but gave them all a scare
Reading the comments, it’s funny seeing the confirmation bias from the gas boiler / radiator die hards. North America, Northern Europe & apac have converted to heat pumps a long time ago, with building standards & insulation “R” values often below that of the UK. They work & are cheaper than gas boilers even in radiator systems. But yeah, heat pump deniers…..
I live in a semi-detached 3 bed house that is on an estate that was built in the early 1930s. So, any quote that includes a complete CH replacement, redecoration, storage of furniture ect, and accommodation for the duration of the project, and can be achieved for £5000, we're in.
Nice installation and I'm sure it makes perfect sense for a contractors bank balance, however this is a renovation of a house that no ones in a rush to move into and if this is a builder who will sell the project on he will be looking for a return on investment. A couple of questions what was the total cost for supply and installation ?, what's the warranty period, why have you specified such a large installation when you will run the system around 40% capacity ?. Where are people expected to put a cylinder of that size when houses have been built for the last 20 years without emersion heater tanks. what savings against gas will be made ?........... think of the disruption to the average family household with no guarantees........ yeah makes perfect sense.
You can also add solar and batteries to your house when you have a heat pump and run it on that energy instead of grid energy, can't do that with a gas boiler :)
More added costs though. It is not cheap to add solar panels and batteries
Problem is in the UK, solar output is inverse of heating requirements
@@ctid107 Ally PV and batteries with a Time of Use electricity tariff and you have an absolute no-brainer. In winter charge the batteries with super cheap electricity and then run the house during the day from them. In summer, PV will charge the batteries, run the house and heat the DHW.
I have 2 x BEVs, air-to-air HP that does cooling in summer and heating in winter in some rooms. I also have a legazcy gas boiler for some heating and DHW in winter. PV and batteries have halved my electricity costs and slashed my gas bill.
Why ever not? You could easily run a gas boiler from solar electric, it only take a hundred watts or so for hot water and similar on top for the pump when the heating is on.
Solar will not produce much energy during the winter. A heat pump has to be on for something like 18 hours a day in the depths of winter. It will use something like 50kwh per day. A battery will not be of much use in such conditions. I know because I have a ground source heat pump and solar panels.
How many combis got replaced because a heating engineer couldn't be bothered or didn't know how to fix a simple fault ? Loads. Now imagine whats going to happen when the heat pump develops a fault.."oh you need a new heat pump mate". Nobody is going to want to spend the time to learn how to diagnose faults on these systems. A manufacturers engineer will check the heat pump, but won't touch the rest of the system. I have a six year old gas boiler and its not going anywhere quickly until the heat pump market has matured and is orderly. I still don't think a heat pump will keep my old house warm at anything like comparable cost. The next owner of this house can take all that on as insulating this 1885 property is a real headache. We've done the roof space, we've double glazed and we have insulated underfloor where we can get there. The walls are solid, so it will mean dry lining the whole house, or there is one gable wall we could exterior clad. The one thing I might be OK with is oversized radiators as mine are pretty big, but I need to get a calculator out and do a heat loss/heat output calculation to get a real idea of the requirement. I need to win the lottery and then have a borehole dug, in that order unfortunately.
I also agree that ROI is a useless way of looking at it. What is the ROI in having a nice garden double glazing, a new roof, these are simply investments made into your property for comfort, security and aesthetics.
Gas boilers are not more expensive to run. Combi’s are more efficient than a heat pump, cost wise. When you have a system boiler, maybe then it is comparable. But still can’t beat a well designed system with gas. The grant for heat pumps is finishing soon and it has only reached a quarter of the budget allocated by the government. Not much adoption. Also, the knowledge on heat pumps is very low with engineers, good luck fixing it.
Most of my installation have running costs around 25% cheaper than 90% efficient gas boiler. So yes, gas boilers are more expensive to run than my installations - fact.
Not forgetting that in the UK, electricity tariffs are around 4 times that of gas! Never going to beat a 90% efficiency gas boiler with a heat pump unless you have a good amount of solar panels a good battery for storage.
Yes that chilled water will be %100 air conditioning.
You will simply need an Air handling unit to transfer the rooms heat back to the water for it to return to your outdoor unit where it will run in cooling mode (reverse cycle) to reject the heat to outside via refrigeration cycle.
Then the chilled water heads back upstairs.
HEATPUMP = reverse cycle air conditioning normally.
Just another true advantage of replacing the old boiler
Not true air conditioning as no control on humidity but why not take advantage of the four way valve, I've done this to my house and I had a problem with very low humidity
@@MG-qo5ge The fan coil unit if set to a low enough flow temperature should bring some humidity out of the air, although the floor temperature's must be kept in check otherwise there'd be condensation on the floor and it would become uncomfortable. I'm not sure if its possible to have 2 different flow temps like that.
This will depend on the due point. The chilled water temperature will have to be above that point to reduce the dehumidification effect and the under floor temperature has to be controlled possibly through the 0-10v proportional signal serving a 3 port valve This does bring in cost and complexity considerations and also if it goes wrong try to find someone outside the industrial fraternity ....good luck @@MichaelFlatman
Very nice install. Like yourself, I really hate the “what is the payback” question.
Another quality install (and video) as usual Szymon. Much as I'm loathed to admit it, I agree, gas is mad, ASHPs are the future - for many, if not most properties.
Prices will reduce over time, & due to cutting-edge installers like yourself, effeciencies are getting better and better ready for when old-timers like me eventually break into the renrewables arena.
Looks like I'll have to change my name, planned ahead & already own LondonASHP domain.
Thank you Gary. Hope all is well with you!
Buying that domain was smart.
Spend 40 k to get it all working as it should, by redesign of whole house.
Great video but yet again, these heat pumps are only suitable in a new build situation where all of the insulation and pupework are built in to there latest standards Totally irrelevant to most of the existing housing stock in the UK unless major uplift is also included.
not true, i have a number of videos on my channel showing installation of heat pumps in period, uninsulated hosues, that not only are cheaper to run than gas boilers, but also provide much better comfort.
@@UrbanPlumbers for example, my house has roof insulation and double glazing. I attempted to run the boiler flow temp at 55C. the result was the house didn't reach desired temp in any sensible time on a cold day. I have cavity brick construction. It would appear that for most of the existing housing stock, these low flow temps are useless unless a much larger investment is made in insulation, radiator sizes and in some cases, pipework.
@@michaelhughes7706 radiators definitely, pipework only if it won’t support the required flow of water. Central heating is pumped so it isn’t so much if a problem, but the pipework still needs to be correct. Otherwise, get the rads sized properly and it’ll work fine.
@@jonh1808 yes but nuch larger radiators along with the insulation requirements is a significant budget uplift which for most of the UK housing stock would require. Comparing a simple heat pump installation with a gas boiler in anything other than a new build is usually nonsense.
@@UrbanPlumbershi yeah I’m gonna put 35 mil pipework all over your 60m2 terrace btw hope you have a yard and your kids don’t like playing outside cos that’s where the HP is going… PS you know that 1 cupboard you have? Cylinder cupboard now mate.
His comment about no body thinks about cost of investment….he’s having a laugh! If money is no object then great!most will likely consider the value of such improvement / modifications and what it adds to the value on a house in consideration of any future sale. Direct you comment to an Estate Agent!!!
Interesting you say that, as heat pump increases the value of the property as compared to a gas boiler.
www.savills.co.uk/insight-and-opinion/savills-news/327804-0/buyers-paying-significantly-more-for-homes-with-low-carbon-technology--as-energy-prices-rise
On our deep renovation the first thing I did was call the plumber to cap the gas, a month later the meter got removed. Easy for me then with a house full of dead pipework to rip out. Had our heat pump fitted last month partway through renovation, really appreciate all your insights watching your videos this past year.
Thank you for your support!
Wait until January................
@@philipharris5201 i know what I'm doing big man, appreciate the concern though, enjoy your boiler
I'll wait until I see a whole street of Victorian terrace houses converted to HP before I'm convinced that they are the only solution
And I mean a terrace of 2 up/2 down with small back yards that you find north of Watford and not some pimped up house in Islington
2 up 2 down are actual quite easy to with heat pumps, as heat loss of those terraces is sub 5kw, so the smallest unit can be installed and there is also usually space for the cylinder in the loft. I have done a number of those last year.
What is best, is the fact that they don’t even need to be insulated. Just decent double glazing and loft insulation and they are fine with 45c flow and scop of 4
Yet again watching your work with properly designed and installed system the case for going with a heat pump gets stronger, very interesting indeed, I already have PV on the FiT but upgrading this system as well with the heat pump makes good sense
Thank you for watching!
ASHPs are like EVs, they won’t suit everyone.
@@UrbanPlumbers Never miss your presentations
@@kevinmills5293 This is true but if you do your homework first and carefully for what you want to achieve or even if it’s positive for your application and select the right people to do the job then there is not really a problem
Where these have been fitted in hundreds/thousands of new estates i.e. Scotland they have a big problem with noise pollution - imagine a whole estate with these mega sized fans whirring away - photovoltaics and electricity is the way to go - why govt hasn't made law that all new builds should have PV panels fitted I will never know.
Totally agree. PV should be mandated on all new builds. We already have noise regulations regarding heat pumps. Modern heat pumps are no longer a noise issue if and when installed to current regulations
your pipe layout is a work of art, great job as usual
It's for the rich only.. normal working folk can't pay extortionate amounts for insulation and then the extortionate prices for a heat pump..
Makes no sense at all at the moment for the masses.
just keep throwing your money at the energy companies then
@@edc1569 Heat Pumps cost the same if not more to run. They're being pushed to de-carbonise, not to make heating cheaper.
They use a more expensive fuel.. electricity
but done well they are 25-30% cheaper to run. If you take advantage of cheap overnight tarrif and batery stroage they become 50-70% cheaper to run. If you have storage and PV some people see a very quick payback time and are no longer tied to changing energy prices. Saving the planet is also a good reason to do it.
@@UrbanPlumbers I get your reasoning here.. but.. throw in battery storage and you're talking even more dosh for kit/install.
I'm a gas engineer, predominantly S&R but do the odd install too.
It's simply too expensive. If you're optimising the heat pump with UFH.. that's even more money.. It's simply not viable for the masses. For select income groups.. yes.. but not the mass market.
Great video, thanks as always 👍 Fully agree with what you say regarding the installation of gas boilers especially on a project like this one.
Totally agree, why install gas when as you rightly say the difference is so small and the feel good of doing something towards cutting emissions. As for running cost I suspect with those cops it’s cheaper to run and way more comfortable.. As a retired plumber / Heating installer may I say your workmanship is first class.
Hi Urban Plumbers, as always a really neat install and informative video. Please let us know what the installation cost is for this install, and also going forward the costing for your other installs please. I understand and agree we need to look forward regarding green energy measures to our homes ( which I have done with my existing 1950's property which is now EPC A) .
Actually with no one in the property during the install ( luckily so when the tank is faulty and caused significant delay, which if you where installing in an existing property would be unacceptable for someone living in a property at the time) and with retrofit wall, floor and roof insulation it is possible to produce an energy efficient building.
The problem comes with retrofit to existing housing stock in the UK, which is generally old and poorly insulated. The upgrade costs for a typical Victorian or Edwardian property are very high before the installation of an air source heat pump system. The typical install costs for an air heat source system including larger radiators etc is as per government figure £12K to £18K which is substantially more than a high efficiency boiler and Radiators. This figure plus any mitigation to the existing EPC value of a property make it very unlikely that those who could really do with benefiting the most would never be able to afford to install an air source heat pump.
Government says it will happen, without addressing any of the practicalities, costs or available equipment and installers. And its still 1 kw electric in for 3kw out!
Let me see, 2-3k for a gas boiler replacement, or 20k for a heat pump, for the vast majority it’s still a no brainier.
Heat pumps require space for cylinder, buffer tank large radiators and bulky unit outside some time need planning permission and all costs associated with it therefore GAS BOILERS MAKES MORE SENSE works every time all the time 😄
Guessing this is from a gas engineer who doesn't know how to install a heat pump. Feeling a bit inadequate, are we?😅
I`m mcs qualified heat pump installer have worked on many heat pump installations just can`t see future in heat pumps@@mikeypc3592
Just top ! I agree with everything, i’m 23 years install business and i constantly crash in people who calculate cash back of heat pump driving a 90.000,00€ car 😂😂😂😂
thank you! makes no sesne does it?
Yes no sense … when you tell to the people truth they are accepting it as a lie 😂
This i do not agree with. 95% of people can just about afford to pay the mortgage and food on there table and many houses in the UK need to be properly insulated before installing a heat pump.
To make use of a heat pump you also most likely need to upgrade your existing radiators for larger ones and ideally install solar panels with a batter(again more costs)
@@jonneymendoza well if you are going to quote stats….less than 40% of people have a mortgage
@@chriss4949 I'm talking about people who have a mortgage ie own there own property.
Not sure what your point is regarding my post about costs for insulation and solar panels.
At 5:33 you used plastic pipe holders. Are they a special brand? I only know the steel ones with a screw at the back.
With Solar Pv panels yes its a no brainer, without them.... electricity is 3x the cost of gas. I have anecdotal stories of high running costs I'm sure you'd disagree with but my point is the argument is a lot closer call.
We need cheaper more efficient panels, more installers and cheaper electricty. The future has started but its not quite there yet. Same with electric cars and vans
this system will run at scops of 4.5 or higher though, so even without PV it will still be much cheaper to run than gas.
Whats the installation cost for one house all in? The builders I work for are very concerned about the costs. They fight me on pipe sizing all the time. The scops impressive and I'm moving away from working for builders full stop.
Yeah, builders are a nightmare in this country
It’s not just solar panels you need. First gotta look at your properties insulation. Does it have cavity walls? 150mm insulation on the roof? 100mm insulation underneath your floorboards?
Double glazing windows? Sufficient sized radiators? A place to store he hot water cylinder?😊
There are no shortage of forums/blogs with people discussing the relative merits of their own heat pumps, from a real world cost point of view. It’s never more than a 50/50 split between people who are happy and people who wish they’d never touched them, running costs being the single biggest problem. Some will have been poorly installed, and some incorrectly sized, but equally, a lot of people who were reasonably happy were off grid and dependent on oil/LPG with all the messing around and extra cost involved.
Your pipework is a work of art. How easy will it be to maintain the system and will it need an annual service. Will fault finding be more difficult than in a gas combi boiler system?
There is ONE huge issue that is overlooked when talking about all this ASHP stuff. That is, electricity supply. We were threatened with rolling blackouts last winter which would mean a cold house if you did everything with electricity. Having a gas boiler gives you a backup option (called diversification redundancy in tech speak). So for that reason alone I wont ditch my gas boiler or cooker any time soon. Niec to have options.
I'm not sure about your gas boiler, but mine won't work if there's no electricity..
Same point with EVs, where people say: but I can still get gasoline if the power grid goes down! Nope, because the pumps and payment systems won't function..
@@trashmail8 get a small ups or generator - a boiler only uses like 60w running
@@mattsan70That’s what I’ve done 👍
Even if the power was out for 3 hours most houses aren't going to lose enough heat to be a problem. And with those, it makes the fabric upgrades all the more worthwhile doing to keep the existing heat in. UPSes are designed for keeping things running for a short period of time to enable someone to turn them off if power isn't due back on within the timeframe needed, not for sustained use.
@@BenIsInSweden That’s very true, I’d only need to use it in exceptional circumstances anyway as my home is well insulated and stays warm for a long time after the heating goes off. The main reason I purchased my power bank is so I can have light and other essentials if/when we have power cuts during winter which were predicted. Also use it when I go camping in remote places so it was bought for multiple purposes.
I enjoy your videos. Would really like to install ASHP plus solar panels in the renovation property I am buying. Did your client dig out the concrete floor in the existing part of the house for the UFH?
Total Bollox I've been installing gas boilers for 40 years and they have never been so reliable and Efficient and gas at the moment is half the price of electricity,a modern gas boiler will heat your home and hot water far more efficiently than a heat pump and having worked on heat pumps on repairs both expensive to repair and loads of complaints from customers on efficiency,heat output and very expensive to run.
“More efficient” “gas is half the price of electricity” - you have zero idea what you’re talking about, lmao. You literally proved that gas is worse, a decent heat pump is 4x more efficient than a gas boiler so if gas was half the price it would be 2x the running cost, hahahaha
@@Etacovda63doesn’t matter what imagined efficiencies are when electricity is so much more expensive. I have refitted my CH and sized everything for low flow temperature, I can run the boiler hot for a short while to warm the place up then let it run at low temperature after that. Very very efficient. You’re ASHP will never compete, if for no other reason than the exorbitant cost of installing them wipes out your mythical savings.
And as I’ve posted elsewhere on here, Mitsubishi charge a minimum of £36pm to cover their heat pumps, and nothing else, which suggests they aren’t expecting them to be cheap to maintain either. You’re welcome to them.
I mean if gas did cost half the price of electricity it would be a no brainer for the heat pump.
Here's where heat pumps are set to be a major fail. My 16kw is happy in the 35° c bracket, I agree with proper insulation and underfloor it is well possible.
Now, when I ask for 50°c hot water, on economic, its drawing over 6kw and gets to 47.5°c.
Seeing that electricity is 4 times the price of gas it is hopeless at CoP 2.5.
What's going to happen is; we're going to be offered very cheap electricity when there is a glut from wind and solar. I have a 4,000 litre buffer with this in mind, in reality I could do with another 4,000 litres. Heat pumps just grind away 24/7 irrespective of the Grid, no use at all for Grid balancing! Available phase change heat stores need sort of 65°c to operate so they are out the picture. You might as well use an immersion heater to make use of pcm's.
When I first had my 16kw ashp I pressed the " instantaneous power function " and it showed something like 9.4 kw and it made me wet my knickers, I contacted the manufacturer and to be fair they advised me to stick to "economic" but 6.4 kw is still a hefty chunk at nearly £2.00 an hour.
The next major problem I faced was the warranty, for the sake of efficiency I was running pure water. According to the manufacturer, to avail of the warranty it is necessary to use glycol. The next blow was the £300/ year maintenance charge they wanted to drop on me to get to 7 years cover, that's a quarter of a gas bill. Even then they'll do their utmost to wriggle out.
So the plan is the boiler I removed is being serviced and will go back in to service to be used as a sort of hybrid system for when the cold winds strike or the ashp breaks down, which it will no doubt. And before anyone mentions it, I was not able to claim BUS and on reflection I'm glad I didn't.
Heat pumps are like cars, will use more energy during the startup phase. You aren't going to have it using 9.4kW/6.4kW per hour constantly, and once it reaches "maintaining the temperature", you will find it's using a lot less.
Poor design. My GSHP produces plenty of very hot water and the SCOP is over 3.5.
Should have installed a GSHP.
Yes here we have a typical normal home as usual funking unbelievable.
Your correct that no one thinks about ROI on a boiler but then your looking at £2-£3k. An ASHP installation like you just did must run to £12-£18k excluding underfloor heating I would estimate. Even if you deduct the £5k BUS that's a shit tonne of money so it's only reasonable to consider ROI in that situation. I mean I could have bought a decent 2nd hand electric car for that and saved myself more money overall and helped the environment just as much.
Octopus quoted me £6k for an install onto my 3 bed semi, with the discount.
comparable weahter compensated boiler with unvetned is around the same cost once vat and grant are taken into the account
wait for electricity prices to jump 400% ... soon ....
the idiocy of government ideas is never ending .. diesel cars ... etc DO the opposite of what government advises every time is my advice ... 👍
And Gas will stay the same? An increase in electricity prices will just drive more solar PV and batteries being installed because it will make it an even more worthwhile investment.
@@BenIsInSwedenYou don't understand. They are CRIPPLING the grid with changing to electric everywhere.
In Belgiums they already officially announce possibility of blackouts.
In case of a bad winter the power WILL go out.
On purpose. Because they sold and decomissioned, disinvested, phased out the nuclear plants.
And try to create new gas power plants to make up for it.
You don't want to have a bad winter and rely on a heat pump that can't get a decent COP to then have the power go out completely.
If I had a heat pump I would have a wood stove just to make sure.
Then it's ok I guess.
I think having wood fuel stove backup is essential regardless.
@@BenIsInSweden yes gas will probably get relatively cheaper
Shale gas coming soon
@@the1beard You mean Fracking that Liz Truss lifted the moratorium on in her short term and that Rishi swiftly recommitted to it? I'll file that under the same folder as Hydrogen for heating homes. The problem is even if electricity does jump by 400%, gas would need to rise by 100% or less in the same period to maintain how things stand today with regard to HP vs Boiler running costs. I don't see that happening.
So true! But we eill get shafted any ways!
I have been told by some of my former colleagues that under 5% of the UK housing stock are suitable for ASHP . And half of that figure are new build houses
4x times less efficient so cost 4 times more to run
I've not understood the heat pump method at all. I frankly still don't. But, that whole system looks expensive, I guess care of GOV 5k grant, I'm paying for a piece of it, and I look at the luxury of ploughing under floor heating and the space taken up with all the gear. Saving the planet just leads to insanity.
That aside, I want to say great video. I did learn more about it than I have from other sources, and the info and detail was really good.
So the title should be 'Gas Boilers No Longer Make Sense on a Large Renovation , Here is Why.'. The message that it is economic if you rip out the house internals completely is not exactly encouraging. How many people are ever going to have underfloor heating? How many buildings are going up with it installed; you only ever see it on self builds and full rebuilds with radiators and microbore pipes for the masses. Look at the immense size of the utility room also and the multitude of manifolds needing setting up. It is interesting how much heat pump propaganda involves a spare utility room the size of the average living room. Not exactly useful for someone with a combi boiler in a little cupboard. Of course the pump is quiet when it is installed and hopefully during warranty but after this the manufacturer will not be concerned at all with longevity and you are on your own. Sorry not convinced at all as it just looks all the time as toys for rich boys which will be imposed on everyone like it or not.
Precisely, my thoughts entirely. In a few years time the technology will have moved on and this heat pump will be old hat. Most of us haven't got a convenient plant room conveniently near the heat pump to house all that stuff. And the complexity of the control and settings boggles the mind. But still I admire Szymon's skill and knowledge.
Because that’s all it is. Mitsubishi charge £36pm for maintenance cover on their Ecodan range, £40 without a Wi-Fi adaptor. They’re obviously expecting some maintenance bills over the 15 year lifespan. And that doesn’t cover the heating/hot water system or anything else, just the heat pump. Fair enough, if they were ubiquitous there’d be more people in the maintenance game and prices would be forced down, but only so much. Parts and labour still cost what they cost, and they get more expensive as time goes by, not cheaper.
And if everyone got one tomorrow, we’d just have nationwide blackouts every winter because we currently have nothing like the electricity generating capacity we need. Let’s not even discuss how the antique grid would cope.
@@nickhickson8738 Agreed it looks like he does a great job and good luck to him. It is just that getting the likes of his obvious quality and dedication is probably a lottery and he has at least one video I have seen of him sorting out a disastrous installation of these pumps. Difficult times to live in with a potential money pit of nascent technology in store for anyone short of capital for investment. The government certainly looks short of the capital to maintain even basic services let alone finance the grand plans it has in store for us.
Lots of money being spent there.
If I win the lottery I'll be flying this guy up to do my installation
We have a Dimplex air to water heat pump for underfloor heating and then we ran a line up to our top floor attic for a water to air fan coil. It provides perfect air conditioning in the summer and is honestly one of the best reasons to use air to water heat pumps. They do perfect radiant heating and very good cooling, there are also smaller convector radiators from Jaga that are installed like radiators and provide decent room by room cooling. A technician like yourself should look into this as more people request aircon in your market.
Heat pump dont suit every property, look at the size of that utility room!
i have a number of installs where full plant room was fitted inside a small airing cupboard.
Great video and unassailable logic for a new build or complete renovation IF the building is well insulated. Domestic boilers are responsible for more CO2 emissions in the UK than our passenger cars reputedly, yet this is yet to be widely known or discussed. The government will need to push much harder on ASHP support and publicity because guess what; hydrogen is NOT the answer!
ROI is still a valid concept, but it only applies to the additional investment you have to make to install a heat pump, if there is any. Now, if a heat pump is really cheaper to install from the start under some circumstances, there isn't any additional investment to consider, so ROI calculations would not be useful. But, the government subsidies and the high price of gas in the EU are both symptoms of the current political climate, and that may change in the future, so it makes sense for any homeowner to try to set aside enough space to accommodate changes in the future, including a switchable-source system if price or supply prohibits the use of either electricity or gas. Here in the USA, gas is still cheap for the time being, so the only case for a heat pump, at least in areas with cheap gas, is to support both heating and cooling with one system. There are some 1970s houses in my area with resistive electric heat and overhead ducts for air conditioning, and in those houses, there is a strong case for a conversion of the air-conditioning system to a heat-pump, with both heating and cooling capacity, in order to minimize the use of the incredibly expensive resistive heating. But with the way energy prices fluctuate, the only sure bet is on the insulation itself; it's hard to loose on that one.
Love you and your work, but asking ROI on an ASHP installation is not a silly question
Lovely job and you make a lot of good points in this video. But while it's a straightfoward job to install the system in a house that is practically stripped to the bricks for a renovation, it would be a right head-scratcher if someone didn't want to do that. Thinking about my own place (mid-size semi) frankly I would pretty much expect to move out for a month and put all the furniture in storage for the period, which would add a fair bit to costs. Still, I might one day just have to bite the bullet and do that, I guess.
Depends on how well insulated your house is and whether you also want UFH. You could just require a pipe and radiator upgrade, if that.
that is what we do. Clear parts of properties so we can upgrade rads and some pipework and some people move out for around 2-3 days.
So i have similar plan to do in my new house now since i still didn't do any consultation with Vaillant i was wondering how the system will work with solar panels, so heat pump, solar panels i was thinking to put massive buffer tank probably 1000L one twin coil and everything feed from that, since we have plenty of sun here where i live but very cold winters - 15c
Future proofing project done by a real professional. And it makes perfect sense in a multi-£100k house undergoing top-to-toe renovation But my renovation uses the existing gas boiler and multi-zone plumbing. You can buy a lot if gas gir the £10k price differential.
Maybe in the future when these systems are near-commodity items and electricity cists much less. Hurry up with that offshore wind...
Let's have a think about the Grid, solar and ashp's. I won't use heating for at least six months, possibly more. The summer is when the Grid receives most of it's solar, come late October there's not enough solar to be useful as far as heat pumps go. The winners here are the ones with solar and batteries, they can adjust their Grid use whereas ordinary powered heat pumps will just bumble along regardless.
The powers that be tell us this or that solar farm is enough for 20k houses. In reality that solar farm won't supply any houses unless half the daily output is stored by some means.
Another thing that's of concern is the amount of power we seem to be importing at present. I watch the stats every day, at the moment it's at 5% and gas is 43.9% but recently imported power has been over 20%.
I honestly didn't realise all this stuff when I ordered said heat pump. If I had invested the £16k in 10kw solar and 10kw battery I would have had a ROI of about 13 % whereas I'm encountering massive depreciation. Hey- ho!
You,sir are an artist, I love your videos and admire the beautiful installations that your providing for your customers.
ASHP is the way forward for new builds as a transitional period providing the electricity to run them coming from renewable sources only. I don't know why, especially when energy prices are always going up, no one is talking about geothermal energy harvest. I'm talking about industrial geothermal plants. Cornwall on its own has potential to provide whole entire UK with energy. Years ago they(so called experts) used to say it's beyond economical threshold. The old properties should have option to connect to the district heating system run by geothermal plants using HIU. This would require major changes to our infrastructure. Sadly major giant companies/corporations and government has no intrest, unless is quick in and out with mega profits. Geothermal energy is endless and fairly clean, with the right scientific approach/investment we could make a difference.
not everybody can afford heat pumps and space for cylinder, buffer tank them therefore GAS BOILERS MAKES MUCH MORE SENSE cheaper to buy works every time all the time instant not like heat pumps
I’m looking for a career change and have considered trying to get into heat pump installation.
Would you recommend retraining in heat pump installations and as someone with no experience in plumbing, where is the best place to start ? I was thinking of attending evening college courses to learn the basics of plumbing first.
Thanks 👍
Good work and what appears to be a good system but only really applicable and practical for a new build, but forgive me when i see the comparative costs of all that pipework .....with the increasingly high costs of copper now days , and all the extra components needed , thats like for like with a combi system has to be cheaper , in component and installation costs ......remove the grant, remove the zero vat and the true cost difference would be enormous thats the reality , another VHS versus Betamax ......electric car versus petrol scenario ...........Green agenda/Net Zero is pushing this for corporate interests , that looks to be a £30K system all in crazy how these days we are being lead down the path that this is an acceptable cost but in reality out of reach for the majority of people ......its what is driving the younger generation into debt and the next must have for us to be one up on the neighbours by being even more green , therefore we are better because we are saving the planet much more than you .......I can see the line of sheep now , all queueing up for the next round of grants lol
This installation only makes sense because there is low temperature underfloor heating. When well below freezing outside, an air heat pump with only radiators will struggle, with expensive to run resistance heating having to come in.
An alternative to gas, is having the whole all electric. First ensure the house is highly insulated: cavity wall insulated, insulated external doors, triple glazing. Eliminate air leaks as much as possible. Seal up loft and loft hatch. Have cheaper to fit electric underfloor heating. Heat hot water via immersion heaters.
Now have solar panels on the roof and elsewhere. Then fit a home battery set. Eliminating a gas meter save £100 per year in standing charges. That can buy a lot of electricity.
The solar panels and home battery set can near eliminate buying electricity from the grid, depending on solar size of course.
After many years pricing heating jobs (45) I have meet lots of smart arses that oh that's to much or what's the payback time,I simply say compared to what?and I will keep repeating it to them.these people often have a fancy car on the drive and loose thousands on it as soon as they drive it of the forecourt.. unless the can give you a comparison walk away,it saves alot of stress.three heart attacks taught me that.good luck.
Always great to see one of your videos, especially a heat pump one! Given sufficient space to create a proper installation, there really is no reason at all to install a brand new gas boiler in new or heavily refurbished properties, it really is a shame to see it continue to be done. Even if the running costs are comparable right now, they will without a doubt decrease in the future.
With so much misinformation currently circulating, do you find you have to suggest a heat pump yourself to customers and correct some of their misunderstandings or do potential clients come to you specifically requesting them?
I have to fight ignorant builders and plumbers all the time! The amount of misinfomration coming from our trade is just frightening. That is why I HAVE TO keep posting those videos to fight it.
Customers that come to me are less of a problem, as they are usually well educated in heat pumps already.
@@UrbanPlumbers It really is a shame to hear, especially that the misinformation is also coming from within the industry and not just the general uninformed media. You're doing a great service to the industry for sure, your videos are fantastic!
@@UrbanPlumbers Shame you don't work in my area i am working at the moment as would be great to have you do an install in Nw2. Probably going to have to go with a new gas boiler instead.
Good morning,
Sorry, but what you are saying about “Heat Pumps” is totally incorrect.
Can you please show us a Price comparison between Gas boilers and Heat Pumps E.g. Install costs, Yearly service costs, True Running costs, and Possible Repair costs?
Also, fans are always quiet when they are new but after a short time (6 Months?) not only will the owners complain about the Fan noise but the neighbors will also be complaining as well.
If you are honest you should easily be able to prove what you are telling people, but I think we will be wanting a long time for the figures and facts to be shown.
I am not a plumber, but I do understand figures and data.
Since the summer of last year, any major renovations (or new builds) of properties by law (building regs) need to basically be a low-temperature heating system. So for this project, the only difference is the cost of the heat pump vs. the cost of a boiler. Given you can make use of the £5K grant you're basically covering the cost of the heat pump, so a boiler in this scenario will currently cost more at the outset. Yearly servicing costs you're probably looking at around £150 at the moment depending on who does it. These units have a 7-year guarantee, and after that most home insurances cover major breakdown costs in heating. My heat pump got replaced 9 months ago - it was about 15 years old and still wasn't noisy. Even the ones in my area that I would classify as "noisy" aren't loud enough to complain about.
Good morning Ben,
As I have already said “I am not a Plumber” but I do understand Facts and figures.
Facts: -
You said that the costs of installing a gas boiler and a Heat pump (with the £5K grant) are about the same. This is totally untrue, Boiler = about £5K, whereas Heat Pump = about £20K and that’s with the grant already removed.
Year service charges are about three times higher for a Heat pump system due to the size and number of components used.
Yearly running costs for a boiler V’s Heat Pump, are about 3 to 4 times dearer due to heat pumps running all the time. Also, I have never heard that you can use a heat pump for “air-con “in the summer.
Please be honest with people about the running and installation costs of these Heat pump systems.
Will
@@BenIsInSweden
@@williamk4280 Heat Pumps aren't £20K. You can Google the model of these, and you'll see they cost less than £6K for a 5kW unit with a cylinder combined (though Szymon goes for a different cylinder), and with the grant that brings it down to
Good morning Ben,
Thank you for your detailed reply, which shows you know a lot about Heat Pump Systems.
I will do a lot more research on these systems over the next few months but with so many different people saying totally different things about these new systems, I think you can easily understand why I and many others are so confused.
Thanks again for all the info and time taken to reply.
Will @@BenIsInSweden
@@williamk4280 Yup, for sure. There are a few aspects that haven't helped, e.g. American brands (irrelevant in the UK) still seem to be about a decade behind the rest. So you often get people from the States with issues that aren't relevant in the UK market, and claiming they work in the industry so they "know what they're talking about". Bad installers have also given the industry a bad reputation, so there is truth to some of the complaints. e.g. if you check EVM's Heat Pump journey, he had expensive quotes (think over £16K) from people wanting to replace his pipes and radiators, and a massively oversized heat pump - which would have made it expensive to run. He did the calculations himself and got a heat geek to do them as well to see if they matched up. In the end, he needed to replace 5 radiators, and his running costs were basically what he expected.
It's impressive, but Urban Plumbers clients are in a different wealth league compared to mine by the looks of the properties. It's the compulsion that gets me. Sold out.
You just said exactly that i told to customers regarding investment returns. They are hasn't answers - what time investment return if they replaced old gas boiler onto new one :-) Same for their cars :-)
ROI - accountants only. House needs heating, put in the most upto date and easily run off renewables, and just stop paying for carbon. One less bill per month.
Questions please
1 how much an average per install
2 life expectancy on average of each install
3 percentage price savings annual against average gas boiler per year
Thankyou
i personally would of gone down the air to air heat pump and fitted a ducted system. Then fitted the daikin heat pump cylinder.
that makes more sense as the client clearly wants to be able to cool the house as well.
I see you've installed quite a lot of these Valiant systems over the last year or so. It will be interesting to see how reliable they are and with that in mind, please make videos covering any significant faults you get over the coming years... If there are any.
Vaillant I mean 😂
within our group of heat geeks and Vito Energy (compnay that does the umbrella sheme) - we have installed propably around 200 units in the last 12 months, so we have a pretty representative sample of Vaillant units now.
I will report on any issues.
So far I have had issues with 3 Vaillant cylidners but none with heat pumps.
@@UrbanPlumbers excellent, thanks 👍
What was the cost?
@urbanplumbers i'd love to switch from the Valiant 937 ecotec to a heat pump, but my 20 year old house has nowhere to install an unvented cylinder, nowhere to site heat pump, is piped in 15mm flow and return with 10mm drops to under sized radiators.
I've had three companies come and survey and price. Two wouldn't touch it, and one said £28k, so if gas comes to an end, this house will be getting electric storage heaters.
yes, you can use direct electric, but in a long run it makes more sense to actually spend 28K, as electric storage heaters will cost around £8K a year to run in an everage UK home. If you cannot afford a heat pump, then you surely will not be able to afford storage heaters, unless on a cheaper tarrif.
Heat pumps are unlikely to reduce in price when it comes to installation ot supply. We need more training and better engineers and better incentive to attract better quality of people to the industry.
What we need is better financing for this tech with lower bills savings to pay for the loan.
My brother has a small 3rd story flat. We pulled out an old boiler, DHW tank and header tank and fitted a combi boiler. The change freed up a lot of space in the bathroom where the DHW tank was located. If gas boilers are banned, an ASHP would not be a viable option. There would be no space for all the gubbins needed and with the ASHP mounted outside, the cost of servicing it would be astronomical as scaffolding would have to be erected to reach it.
@@UrbanPlumbers but this isn't a job site. This is my home.
It's £28k for the plumbing but that doesn't include reinstatement of the flooring that would need to be ripped up to get to the floor boards, and the reality that we would need to be out of the house for several days (including pets) while the work is taking place.
I know your clients have big properties and bigger pockets, but for your average working man, financially it's a stretch and it's a massive inconvenience for a small reduction in heating costs (on a well insulated home with weather compensation) for what? It doesn't increase the value of the property and if electricity prices increase (which they will, because we can't produce enough of the stuff), then an additional+£20k in solar PV and battery is needed?
I'm not saying burning gas is right, but we need a less disruptive alternative, that doesn't lock us in to a single energy source (electricity).
@@StuartTaylorEsquire do you think there are electricity mines? electricity wells? Electricity is energy source agnostic like no other fuel. We used to heat our homes with open fires, a guy would deliver us coal. Central heating was an unbelievable expensive luxury with so much disruption to install, but in a decade or so burning coal became the luxury.
I usually don't seeing pipes or cables. I prefer to hide them away. But this pipe work needs to be on display. Very nicely done, very professional, great job.
I do have one question. Ar around 8:15 of the video you have you left hand on the controls, right under that control I see some strange looking 4 way valve system. Can you please explain what that is and what its for? Is it some kind of automatic refill for the system?
it is unvented cylinder combination valve
14000 gbp for my installation quote ?? -annual savings £294 Boiler £4000??
I put Flexi hoses through the wall all the time, it looks neat, well insulated and it's less fittings, win win if you ask me
good to know I am not the only one. As long as connections are accessible I do not see a problem myself.
@@UrbanPlumbers 100%, if you're ever unfortunate enough to install a lg heatpump, they often come with 750mm long hoses, absolute nightmare to deal with!
Yes, I agree with flexi connections. They help reduce the transmission of any vibration noise into the property pipework.
10:37 Tell us the numbers then!!! What was the overall cost? Split it out for us...please...
The other alternative would be straight forward electric heating, especially if costs of electricity relative to gas falls. The thousands saved not installing heat pump system should keep you going for a while.
Direct electric would be over 4 times more expensive to run in this case. It would be a difference of around £3k per year more to use direct electric heating. It would take only 3-4 years in bills to be more expensive that supply of the heat pump alone or around 8 years for the full system. Direct electric make very little sense, unless it is for well insulated flats where there is no space for a heat pump
@@UrbanPlumbers Thanks, but I imagine you are basing that on current costs. Maybe in the future electricity from wind farms etc could be so cheap that direct electric heating would not be so expensive.
@firstlast5350 it will always be 4 times more expensive than a heat pump though
@@firstlast5350 You might want to check with an electrician on how much it would cost to replace all waterborne radiators in a typical house with electric ones, with all the wiring that needs doing, and likely a change to the CU. I'm not sure you'd get much change out of £10K for a proper job. Even if you have solar panels where the electricity is "free", it's still a limited quantity, so if you had a battery, that "free" electricity would go further on a heat pump than it would on resistive heating, meaning you're less reliant on buying extra electricity from the grid.
@@BenIsInSweden Thanks but a few oil or convection heaters for small property shouldn't come to 10k Also halogen and fan heater available.
As much as this excellent work, it's not the real world for the vast majority of home owners. The massive jumps for most people will be price and space, adoption is likely to remain low.
it dpeneds. If we can assure that all new HP installations are cheaper to run than existing gas systems and then offer finance that is paid by the diffence saved, then it is a no brainer.
Hoever it shoud be a much wider soultion, not only heat pumps but also: insulation, windows if needed, solar PV and battery storage at the same time to get the absolute most of the new system.
Why gas boilers wouldn't make sense anymore ? I congratulate you for your technical knowledge,your are number one on my list.But you never talk about the price of electricity and gas.Electricity price is 27 pence per kw and gas price is around 6.9 per kw.(without the standing charge).Thats a factor of around 3.9 .... and we can match this with the COP of the pump.In the end,you could get cheaper with gas,because the boilers also modulate the power,and a 25kw with a modulation of 1:10 can burn 2.5kw per hour.And maybe in practice a condensing boiler isnt 100% efficient but it's definitely close to 90%.So where is the saving ? You use 1 kw of energy to make a total of 4 but the price is equal to 4kw of gas.From what I see in your clips ( like the one with the 2 gas boilers,where one wasnt necessary) is that a lot of systems are badly implemented and the boilers are running 100% power.If all installers would have your knowledge not so many people would get ASHP because you know hot to install a gas boiler and make it run efficient.And lets not forget the price of a heat pump instalation compared to the price of a gas boiler.
4kW of gas won't provide 4kW of usable heat though, you're looking at around 3.6kW of heat. So you're ending up paying 10% extra with gas. Also, for many 2.5kW of heat from a gas boiler is still going to be too much for much of the heating season, so it will need to turn off and on, reducing efficiency as well. This video was also done before the increase in the grant from 5k to 7.5k, which in most cases covers the difference in appliance cost. As he has said, when doing major renovations - because in this situation if a gas boiler was put in, the changes with the UFH etc would still be done, so would be a separate renovation cost.
Love your workmanship, but that home looks like it's A-Rated, with all the work done to the building fabric. Perfect for a 7kW heat pump, running at a low temperature. However, the additional extras required to get a home "heat pump ready", is a big turn-off. Insulation, new glazing, UFH system, new piping, new rads, new HP cylinder, new controls, space for plant etc. A £5000 grant isn't going to go very far.
If you can afford a big home you can afford to pay a bit more towards your heating system.