Great video, I agree with you about ASHPs. My expectation though is that eventually so many people will use the night time cheap rate electricity to charge their batteries and thermal stores that these cheap rates will be withdrawn altogether.
According to Greg Jackson the CEO of OctopusEnergy cheap night rates are here to stay. He explained that as we all move to electric the grid will need to be balance. At the moment we are only 60% capacity on the grid. So if at night when there is excess (and green) isn’t used the grid will become unbalanced and more expensive. Ah I hear you say “if everyone plugs their car in and all charge at the same time when it becomes cheap won’t that cause a problem?” Answer is that apps such as octopus intelligence can stop and start charging at different times during the off peak period thus balancing the grid and using power when its most green. More renewables less gas used to generate electricity and therefore becomes cheaper. A lot is going on behind the scenes that we don’t see or even know about
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. For our house, we use central heating based on an oil boiler. So two things (at minimum) to consider - 1 cost of oil for us is £1500 - £2000 per year at current prices and 2 - Moving away from oil due to the environmental benefit (well, somebody's got to do it :) ) Ours is an old house and as heat pumps generate about 18 degrees celsius, one key factor is that there are no through draughts to strip that heat out. We've got a lot of work to do there. Modern better insulated and draught free properties are better suited to low temperature radiators I feel.
I use a reversible air to to air heat pump, self installed was 600 quid, we also have a pellet stove for heat if it gets real cold, the heat pump is mostly used to bridge the gap before the pellet stove comes on in winter and provide air con in the summer. But we have a new build house with shit tonnes of insulation on floors,walls and ceilings. I would do it again, then the house is a Passiv Hous so need very little heat to get warm. If you want to reduce bills, insulate, insulate, insulate, we have only had the heat on for 4 days this winter so far. If the temp outside is above 10 C human activity is enough to keep the house warm. It tends to drop off if it stays below that for more than 3 days. 10k of raw insulation materials = 160 quid a year heating bill. We also use a heat pump hot water heater, again, self installed, takes the heat from the loft area, yet to calculate exact energy use, but on eco mode, about 800 watt hours a day, 1/3rd of an identical immersion heater. It doesn' t seem to vary much from winter to summer.
I know the UK is dominated by hydronic heating but I will never understand why air-to-air does not even get in on any of the conversation! They're inexpensive to purchase and just as cheap to run as air-to-water. They can barely keep them in stock in North America the demand is so high. Seems like these would make way more sense!
@@markthomasson5077 not noisy, I used to live in a house in Oregon heated by air to air reversible air con, installed in the 90s, but still going strong, now they were noisy. The modern ones are way quieter and more effecient, inside it makes less noise as a fan on an electric oven. Just a gentle whirring. Summer is 4 kw of cooling, winter 3 kw of heat, this is normal, energy use is about 1/3rd of the equivalent heat. Bigger ones are available. They last well, cheap, you can add more with ease. Just a bit ugly on the outside of a house. Has a remote control, just set the temp and or time it comes on and forget it was jnstalled. Air to water heaters are for radiators and underfloor heating, this adds huge complexity and cost to a house and are not needed, my old Oregon house had 3 ineffecient air to air heaters, 200 M2 house, one was never used, one was just used to heat the master bedroom just before bed as it was at the far end of the house, and the other one did all the real work. Similar temps to UK in Oregon.
Regarding noise, we've had a Samsung 16kw heat pump for 6 years now. It's situated outside our living room window, which is also underneath our bedroom window. The noise it makes is not obtrusive, it's not the kind of noise that keeps us awake and we barely notice it. The Heat Pump has been great, we run it in a hybrid system alongside a 32kw Vaillant Gas Boiler, so the ASHP provides heating when the outside temp is above 5c, then the Gas Boiler automatically kicks in when temps drop to 5c or below. The Gas Boiler heats our water. This ensures the ASHP is always running efficiently. We are grid reliant, except we have a 4kw solar array,so during nice sunny days, the solar panels run the heat pump (we have cellars which we heat to ensure a constant temp of 19c, so even in the Summer the ASHP is often on). We also have a solar i-boost device which diverts excess solar energy to heat our hot water. The cellars have a wet underfloor heating system, everywhere else has oversized radiators. The house is an old Victorian detached, not super-insulated. We had to replace our heating system 5 years ago and we investigated gas only, hybrid and heat pump only (ground source and air source). Ground source was prohibitively expensive as we would have needed bore-holes to be dug to 80m below ground. Gas only was a possible option, but because we went for a hybrid system, the total VAT on the entire install was at 5% instead of 20% and this saving basically paid for the heat pump (we got an ex-demo one, 6 months old at a bargain price). Our energy bills are less than half what they used to be (still expensive as our house is large and not thermally efficient) and we are heating 33% more cubic metres now than we were with our old heating system as we didn't previously heat the cellars.
Isn't the i-boost a waste of energy, wouldn't it be better to push that energy to heat water via the heat pump? Even below 5deg is must have a higher than 1 cop?
@@simonhenry7867 absolutely not because you don't generally have enough spare solar to divert to the water heating in the Winter when the heat pump is being used. During Spring and Summer we get free hot water for most of the time, so it does its job perfectly. BTW, our heat pump does not heat our hot water, the gas boiler does that on days when the solar i-boost doesn't
@@hillppari So does ours, but it's cheaper and better to use gas for lower temps as to heat our house adequately in cold weather we would need two 16kw heat pumps, which is not cost effective or cost saving.
I’m with you on the Holiday accommodation with EV charging. We rented a house for a week in North Wales, which is a charging desert. The house had a Rolec 7kw charger so we never even had to think about charging. From now on I will only consider rental accommodation with chargers. There’s plenty available and the choice is growing all the time.
I stayed in a place - it had some 13Amp sockets. I ran an extension lead out to car and used the 'granny lead' adaptor that comes with the car. Thats get you 3kW - which is enough for perhaps 150 to 200mile range of charging if done overnight. If you think that every property in the UK has electricity then there are no real 'charging deserts'
We just had a retrofit the other week, all new rads, 11.2kw ecodan and plumbed cylinder, I'm over the moon with it, total cost was £13k, gonna put my RHI claim in soon to trigger around £8.5k over 7 years. The outdoor unit is very quiet, more so than our old gas boiler, no annual service needed. It fills the ecodan 210l cylinder with 55deg water in just over an hour in the period when electricity is 5p/kw The electricity usage on the couple of cold days we had so far has been perfectly acceptable.
Hi there, no need to heat your water to 55, most people find 48 - 50 will do, try experimenting with that. Also, most installers set the “legionella cycle” to every 7 days, really every 14 will do too, unless you have some very infirm people living there. There have been ZERO instances of household legionella that I can find in the last 20 years.
Middle setting for shower unit usually set to 45c. So also saves water if you have teenagers who will stand in shower for at least 1 hour they don't like it cool.
@@simonhenry7867 We had 11 rads upsized, the 4 towel rails remaining, the pipework is 10mm needed no replacement. It all performs better than I expected.
Great video EVM. We are on a similar journey to you, first to EV, now to decarbonise the house. The first easy step was to go electric for cooking, electric oven and induction hob replacing our gas cooker. Next is hot water, like you, we are on Octopus Go, program the timer to use immersion heater on cheap rate electricity. So all that is left is central heating; the problem is a gas boiler is hard to beat for central heating, so we have compromised. First was to really work on our insulation, fit TRVs (Thermostatic radiator valves) and use this to run the rooms at appropriate temps. Long term the gas boiler has to go, but technologies are emerging… infrared heat panels look interesting, I saw the Tepeo electric boiler on Fully Charged, looks interesting. However as EV adoption rises, I think cheap overnight electricity will not have a long shelf life.
Got a heat pump installed in my sons 2 bed bungalow here in lake district Its a rented council type houseing so was installed by councils and was previously electric storage heating Its only recently been done so no running costs yet It works fine but needs larger radiators as it warms the rads not hot like a gas boiler, yet the hot water tank is easyly as hot Like you said the outside unit makes noise For your own home i would insulate first , then air tight as much as possible then heat recovery ventilation A very interesting solar gain idea used in Canada is a solar panel that heats the incomeing air for the air vent system , just a simple black box hung on vertical wall south faceing for us in the UK You get the fastest return for your money with insulation and air leakage
I'd love to see some of the details of what you're basing this on. What's your floor area? What's you're yearly heating requirement in kWh? How many people in the house? Teenagers? Double or triple glazed? Air tightness value? Wall and insulation type?
I'm going with regular air-source heat-pump next year. But my circumstances are different. A) nearest household pressure pipe is over a kilometre away. Just getting the pipe to my house would cost over €30k. B)I'm going for air-to-air system, so I get air-conditioner in the summer as a bonus.
And for domestic hot water? Air to air is fine for space heating as source and target temperatures are much closer than for wet systems. However, individual room temperature control will be be more difficult to achieve.
@@towerdave4836 I'll keep immersion water heater for now. Air-to-water would be great if I had pre-existing heating loop. But I don't. And no space to install radiators either. If there is Air-to-air+water system, I'm open to recommendations. Especially if in summer that system can keep rooms cool by heating hot water tank.
I liked my old storage heaters. Cheap to buy, no servicing, no noise, made a lot of sense when I was home through the day. Apparently a "thermal store" is new technology?
They aren't great when it comes to rearranging the furniture though, are they? Plus many of the old ones have dodgy asbestos in them. An electrician opened ours up to repair and then just stopped when he found the asbestos. Couldn't blame him. I had to buy the kit and hump it out of the house myself.
@@londonwestman1 my original was mid 80s and replacement was early '00s Dimplex. No asbestos, dirt cheap, will never leak, just big and heavy. Original had elements fail and spares no longer available, otherwise it would have still been there when I sold the flat.
I have started to use a 20mm foam board that can be plastered onto on every external wall, especially the 4 reveals round the windows...... Amazing improvement! Doing upstairs ceilings next despite the thick loft insulation. Not worth heat pump until you can reduce the heat leakage.
@@fanfeck2844 yes on side and rear but a failed bead insulation on the front of our house, it's a 1970's stone/(PVC) panel front. It's great as doing this solution that is also water tolerant, solves cold spot issues on the inside.
Yes, but if you really insulate you house well, you wouldn't need a heat pump. It is my opinion, knowing how automotive air-conditioning works, that air source heat pumps will be the next 'ppi claim'. They are simply not efficient.
@@johnharrison373 I'm thinking the same TBH. I'm just thinking about when the boiler ban kicks in. I think extremely good insulation combined with well automated resistance heaters would work out far cheaper and probably more reliable and longer lasting with basic installation knowledge required.
Hi I don’t really comment much on many videos. But I think I need to say I am not sure we’re people are going with this heat pump thing. I purchased a 1869 cottage in 2008. And fully rebuilt it as it had many problems. I packed every wall floor and ceiling with insulation. I fitted a heat pump as it was right for me . If you buy right it will last well . I have had no problems as yet and noise well nothing to right home about and I live in a quiet village. I have a video coming out on this as I think people should now . Unless you’re full insulated and have under floor heating it is just not the way to go. The way you are going I think is the way. I hope to see your up and coming video on which way you go .
I've got a ground source heat pump and a rental house with an air source. We noticed the same quandary. Gas is a lot cheaper, but is also a pollutant. As long as the gas is subsidised (or the CO2 isn't calculated in) not many town dwellers are going to shift. Here we can't get town gas so being cheaper didn't make any difference, and because of where we are, off peak isn't really viable. Bottled gas, oil and coal wouldn't be a better bet because their prices are higher than our electricity costs are. In the end these 'alternative' heating methods are used for two reasons. They can be cheaper, especially long term and they can be greener. So it is generally a matter of balancing money against ecology, if you can afford it. For now I'd say stick with gas unless the price goes up a lot, and maximise your insulation. If you can fit an off peak heat storage tank, or add a bigger one that will help. We are a bit off your return track (EH55) but feel free to drop in and have a chat.
CO2 is not pollution. Every plant is made mostly from CO2 as an input and every stick of coal in the ground was made from CO2 in the ancient atmosphere so how can putting it back into the atmosphere cause any issues?
@@brec5879 yes biogas ie methane can be used for heating house and hot water cooking and drying clothes you can buy units ready made or go online to find out how to build your own check out solar city's they have how to videos on using a IBC tote and from that comes many more with verious tweeks to make them better} best of all they keep yard and kitchen waste out of the landfill thereby cutting down on methane gas being released into the atmosphere which is 10 times a worse green house gas than the carbon that released from burning fossil fuels currently I'm looking at building one another thing you can use methane for is a duel fuel automobile duel fuel because if you run out or have a long road trip there are no methane filling stations now that's something for someone to do is create a list of people who have methane vehicles that might have the ability to sell some another one might be on conecting those who use used cooking oil for running their vehicles on those who filter it and use it and those who make their own biodiesel
Saw the Tepeo on fully charged and liked the idea too. I'd need a combi replacement that they apparently have in the works. Really pleased to see new tech in this space!
Thanks, well argued. For me the ASHP is a non starter, the COP can be very low, ground source better but you need the land, and very expensive, low temp output means bigger radiators etc. May be OK for new builds, but very difficult for older properties, like mine, 300 years old. I am still working through insulation, better glazing, draught proofing etc. With regard to holiday cottages, I think we are where it was 10 years ago with wifi, I used to choose my rental/hotel etc only if it had decent wifi, now it is universal. I choose now only if it has charging, just an external 3 pin will do. The granny can do up to 100 miles overnight.
Depends on what low COP means? COP will be definitely be low if the system is poorly designed or installed, and many of the older heat pumps have terrible efficiency if not used only at very low flow temperatures. I have a new Daikin Alterma III in a Victorian mid terrace, running at flow temp between 42C and 47C. January was the coldest month so far, COP was 3.0. I'm expecting overall heating COP to be 3.3 or 3.4 for the whole winter (SCOP). Given that most gas boilers are 75-90% efficient (real world efficiency) and electricity is usually 4x the price of gas, a COP between 3.0 and 3.6 would be equivalent to gas. However, electricity is currently 5x gas price, so I am paying a bit more than if I had stayed with gas. But in my case I had 25 year old Worcester Bosch to replace, GHG was available, and there was no way I was going to install another gas boiler.
Have you looked at Infrared Heating panels. I have 2 panels that I fitted this summer and still have not turned the central heating on yet. They heat the house in a different way which make you feel warm right away and the room (and objects in the room) gets warm very quick. The panels I have are 800W so much lower than many other options. I may need more panels during winter but I need to monitor and decide where they will be needed. I've also added Instant hot (or more like warm) water taps. I have a dishwasher so only need warm water for hand washing most of the time. The solution I have give 38C from 15C incoming which is more than enough for hand washing.
@Richard Wood My rooms are about 3.5M by 4.5M and the panels raises the temperature by around 2C in 1.5 hours. If the room is at temp, it comes on for 5 to 10 minutes at a time to keep the temp up to your requirements. I have a very well insulated house which is the first thing you need to sort out but once that is done, the panels are fantastic.
A heat pump will only make sense if price of gas trebles. Then we'll all run to get one. Till then does not make sense to retrofit a house. I'm with you as well @EVM
Interesting that I came to the same conclusion. My plan is also predicated upon the Octopus Go tariff staying at circa 5p per kWh in the dead of night. May I ask, what led you to say this tariff will remain for the foreseeable future? To me, this seems the only risk to ‘our’ plan. Thanks for great channel.
Great analogy which is my situation exactly. Tepeo seems to be a good choice but I then found they want a £25 per month maintenance fee. Sorry this will kill the idea in my opinion. I have an existing thermal store (210ltrs) but is too small to cater for both hot water and heating. I have the space and may consider a larger water based thermal store to fulfil my usage, thus remaining on octopus go which is a great deal at present.
Have you figured out what size of store you would need? I have a 300l tank for hot water, it lasts for about 30 minutes running showers at 40 degrees. To store enough heat for my home heating at 70 degrees would require several tons of water per day I'd reckon!
Hi EVM i am a renewable energy engineer and EV adopter 2007, have you looked at a daikin hybrid ASHP this has integrated HP and boiler and small outdoor unit, you can program if for carbon savings or running costs, you also get RHI by fitting a heat meter, you dont need to oversize the rads, the ash runs most and boiler tops up ,peak top up and DHW top up.
Glad you mentioned Tepeo, that's my long term plan once my gas boiler dies too. I hope they are an established company or there are plenty of similar products in the marketplace by then.
Hi EVM, we've recently moved into a purpose built house with ASHP amongst other energy efficiency technologies. I'm still getting used to optimising and understanding the whole setup but eventually I'd love to share my experiences with you and the other viewers of the channel
I think that there appears to be a heat pump gold rush going on right now. I doubt that they will account for more that 40-50 percent of boiler replacements in the end. So I am delighted to see this video. I have moved into a house with a very old system gas boiler that is slap bang in the middle of the house with about 20 feet of ducting to vent it. There is no chance of installing a heat pump as everything is just too far away to work properly or economically. I like the the look of the Zeb and sunamp too.
Living in Spain we have ASHP (or mini-split A/C) in each bedroom and in the living room. They are great because not only do they provide efficient cooling in the summer (A requirement when every day from May to October is >30C) but also efficient electric heating in the winter. We have them combined with a 6kW hybrid solar Pv system which means we effectively get to cool and heat the house for free. But where we live we make ~20kWh per day in the winter and ~40kWh per day in the summer. As an FYI, here we can buy a Hitachi Mini Split ASHP that rates at 3.5kW heat and 5kw Cooling equivalents for about 250 euros from the local DIY superstore.
We run (at present) hot water and heating on OIL - no gas available. The boiler sprang a leak (after only 11 years). Managed to fix it with a self tapping screw silicon rubber and rubber tap washer. This will obviously not last and a new boiler plus fitting will come to £5k approx. Boiler is rated at 26 to 36kW - a bit too big! Looked at heat pumps, but will probably get only 50°C water - barely hot enough to keep the legionella down (55 to 65°C) and at these temperatures radiators are a poor heating source. All radiators are thermostatically controlled and 4 have smart controls (Wiser from Drayton). Rooms are individually controlled and bedrooms tend to rely on ground floor heat passing through uninsulated floors to beds etc. Beds are usually 5 to 7°C cooler than living space in 0°C ambient. House is double glazed with wall insulation (and inadequate loft insulation about 50mm) there are 7 radiators upstairs and 8 down. Water heating is only from the boiler (on for about 1hour per day - 2 people) Looking at 14kw electric boilers (inadequate for this number of radiators according to boiler people) you are requiring 50 Amps from the single phase mains (bigger 3 phase are available but this would require extra money to grid!). House is looped onto next door so this would require fixing (could then get faster charging for EV!). In general fuse rating is 100Amps to grid connection so cooker/boiler/car/ would perhaps overload this. It will be cheaper replacing oil with electric boiler (perhaps £2000 less) We have 10 SOLAR panels east 10 panels west and a 5.6kWh battery. Very little power available to charge battery when dull in autumn. Battery is charged for 4 hours on octopus go but with cooking etc will not last 24 hours. and charging vehicle at 2kw wrecks any storage time, you get increase ev charge time at end of 4hr low rate by 2 hours. With saving from boiler we could offset some of the cost of 2 more 5.8kw batteries but these still will not run heating as we have it in cold winter. financial We use about 1900 litres of oil per year which currently costs about £800 - £900 per year. oil gets you between 10.35kWh and 10.76kWh per litre so a years energy is about 20,000kWh - Perhaps 133kWh/day over winter at 15p/kWh that is £3000 = unacceptable or if we could have sufficient batteries to charge at 5p and use during the day it would be £1000 = acceptable Batteries required = 22?! If you then add in an air source heat pump then the energy cost would be good with a 3x efficiency it could be run during normal rate. Still don't know what to do. And RUST is gradually eating the water jacket!
As you sound like a fellow DIYer, I hope I can help you a bit. There's a podcast out there called Betatalk, where heat engineers talk shop. Heatgeek seems to be the certification they are going for. In any case quite enlightening. One item I learned is that there are different plans to set up heating and DHW like Y plan S plan plus etc. If you Google these diagrams one might get stuck on the notion that both DHW and radiators have to have the same temperature. But if you add some intelligence and give the heat pump control over the valves say in an S plan we can run them at different temperatures! So assume the ASHP might only get the cylinder to 50°C as a heat pump, that's easily compensated with a bigger cylinder. A modern R32 or especially R290 will definitely get higher, but bear with me. Then we'd ask ourselves, what about legionella every fortnight? This is where the resistive heating built in the HP can kick in and add the missing few degrees. It's also the backup for extremely cold days. Search terms design temperature and heat loss calculation at this point. So going back to the plan once the hot water cycle is through, likely overnight at EVM's 5p. Main demand is the heating, but if it's properly designed with bigger radiators etc. It won't ever need to run at those high temperatures, it can dial itself back, engage the other valve and putter along all day giving you 35 or 40°C at a COP of 5. System design is the key. You seem to be lucky to have some space to put to some use. Maybe even add solar thermal to the mix, flies under the radar unreservedly. Good luck! This is the perfect starter episode, good overview: betatalk.buzzsprout.com/509671/9314412-can-all-homes-be-heated-with-heat-pumps-theoretically-yes
@@marcexec hi thanks for the info. a couple of years ago we spent a couple of hundred on replacing a dead heating controller wit an "intelligent" system that controlled start and end times depending on weather and time to reach set room temp. The system we added (wiser) had 4 coupled radiator valves which could demand boiler on if the set room temperature was too low. All controlled via mobile phone (of course). All other radiators were controlled by standard trvs. The coupled valves enable individual control of lounge dining hallway and landing (now defunct batteries flatten within a month or 2!!!). The master unit also controlled heating time but only powered the boiler when the hw or coupled valves demanded. So no cycling of boiler when trvs were shut. The master also controlled motorised valves on hot water and radiator flow so each was independent (no heat syphoning of boiler output when there was no demand). This seems to work well for comfort (not sure how much oil has been saved). Now the boiler is limping along the question is what to replace it with. 12kw would be the limit for our supply. the hw tank is newish and good thermally. the wiser control is good. but what cost of energy in the future? (same applies to oil of course). Solar and batteries would never be sufficient in winter. Even if heat pump were installed we would still need more efficient radiators = more cost. The wiser controller would learn the heating time of the electric boiler and turn on well in advance of the set time so perhaps the reduction in boiler power of 2-3 times may be ok? Electric boiler man coming for survey on 18th Nov will see what he suggests. will also see what 2/3 more 5.8kW batteries with/without 6 more solar panels would cost. In the 70s I was really impressed with reports of ultra efficient solar heating arrays. At that time the problems seemed to be that they would explode when transfer fluid vaporised. Have not looked at them recently but there is not a lot of roof left (e-w roof so perhaps would need thermal panels both sides. In 1976 there was a Granada TV programme series "A House For The Future" which went over available tech (no solar pv panels) but obviously builders took no note over 50 years!!! a latter look at the house www.hevac-heritage.org/electronic_books/M&NW_anniversary/Section-13_Houseforthefuture.pdf So many decisions not a lot of money (retired electronic engineer!). Perhaps the best bet would be more chewing gum to plug new leaks in the current boiler?!!!
Have a think about Air to Air heatpumps ? Fast Heating and cooling with high COP ( much lower temp differential needed ) Free cooling if you have PV. Not so good if you have lots of rooms, best for open plan or combined with whole house pasive heat recovery to move the warm or cool air around. Cheap £300 - £800. 3Kw - 5kw output. 0,8 - 1.5 kw input. Modern units have quiet inverter driven compressors.
The main reason for me to go the air con heat pump route was the promise of reducing the amount of electricity that I was using, I am an all electric no gas or oil, I had been was using storage heaters total usage per year 24,000kw I now use 12,000kw most of which is from solar 6.5kw and battery storage 14kw. As you can imagine my bill is now extremely small. The house is warm in winter and free air-conditioning in the summer and you don't notice any noise. The cost of air con heat pumps is a lot less than the boiler replacement heat pumps and have a much greater cob rating mine is 10kw of heat 2.2kw of electric, ok if it's really cold the cob drops off a bit but the house stays really warm. The house is 140 years old and not the best insulated. But it not alway about the money but reducing your carbon footprint.
With the current record-breaking UK heat wave, and more frequent heat waves in the UK generally, the argument in favour of heat pump upgrades in the UK just got stronger, unfortunately.
I've got herschel infrared panel which I have just slowly added more panels in last month very happy with them have different time setting and use octopus outgoing so 5p time is blasted with changing home battery, under floor heating and infrared radiators then I export everything I can in the day to off set as much brought kwhs as possible. Will be looking to add sunamp heat battery for hot water early next year for my water needs to charge in off peak times aswell. Hope to get off gas ASAP
I have got a Herschel infrared panel in my home office which used to be the garage. I was sceptical at first about getting the infrared panel but it's excellent. It's installed on the ceiling and works very well. It's also quite inexpensive to run as our electric bill hasn't increased significantly in the last 3 years since we have it.
Interesting video. 2 years ago we opted for an ASHP as we have no mains connected gas and therefore replacing heating oil was a little more feasible. I also run octopus go for car charging and all electrical loads that I can move to the cheaper hours. Apart from the fact that electricity continues to go up exponentially I am also finding one other concern that it is worth noting. I am on an 80A incoming main which much of the UK are on, some are even on a 60A main. By running the heat pump for the hot water, Batteries, the car charger, washer, dryer, hot tub etc you very quickly get to a point that your maximum demand is likely to be exceeded. There is a maximum that you can draw for those 4 hours so storing enough heat for the whole day is just unfeasible. I regularly look at Solar but again for the cost of the install and when I would get the power I don't see it as feasible either. I think I am going back to wood burning stoves:)
Great info thank you. I know its a couple of months but.... "5p per unit from Octopus Go, not changing any time soon"... checks Octopus Go, 7.5 per unit now.
I’m on my second house with an air-source heat pump. The first was an old property (1700s!) and now I’m in an AAA house. The old house had radiators and now I have underfloor heating. Both heat pumps were excellent and affordable.
Hi thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge. I have a longer term plan for a full house build with renewable system. But for now I've just bought a tiny 37 square meter flat. It has a gas boiler and 3 rads that all need replacing and moving. So my dilemma is this- pay a gas plumber to move the boiler and fit a new 3- rad wet system. Or spend the money in another way. Electric combi boiler with a back up emersion connected to a solar panel on a 2square meter roof. Make sense? I reckoned evening bath would at least get free heat, or retain enough heat for morning shower. The tiny wet heating system can be handled by an electric boiler and they're 100% efficient. What do you think. Any other angle?
Interesting take. Have you worked out what your daily heating load is per day in KW? Is it possible to store enough heat your for your house for 24 hours with just 4 hours input given your heat losses? The first step may be getting an accredited professional to visit your property and conduct a whole house heat loss calculation.
Rather energy per day than power per day, so the relevant unit will be one such as kWh per day rather than W per day. Spelling wise, the letters are regarded as symbols rather than abbreviations (even when the chosen symbol is an abbreviation), so they change meaning whether a letter is small or capital. Kilo has the small k as symbol, and watt has the capital W as symbol. Milli has m and mega has M. Very relevant question, though! Can the heat be replenished fast enough with the immersion heater, and is the mains supply large enough to accommodate both heating and EV charging within 4 hours?
BTW.. I'm with Octopus Go and went through renewal a few days ago. I'm pleased to tell you they kept us automatically on the same tariff!! I also had Solar, Battery and ASHP installed a few months ago. I don't have gas in our vilage, but had oil for years, and now my house is warm all day and night and my overall costs have dropped significantly. This is mostly because of the battery and the time of use during the winter period. I'm averaging 7p per kwh every day' using around 45kwh per day. I own a tesla M3P too, so that includes charging that every day too. Can't be happier, but I have to say that everything around ASHP is about the specs and fitting for your house. If that's not done properly, you'll have a poor experience. I'd be very happy to share my experience now that I've gone through it all from end-to-end. Basically, I have exactly what you are looking into.
Would there be an issue with the maximum load if everything is being done in the same 4 hours eg car charger, battery charging, thermal store and potentially hot water heater perhaps pulling 14 - 20 kWh assuming a 100 amp main fuse would that work?
We have the Go Faster tariff, at 5.5p for 5 hours. We chose the 5 hour slot to suit our needs. Start time can be at any time between 20:30 and 01:30, depending upon 'available slots', which means that Octopus are already smoothing out demand somewhat. Daytime tariff is the same as several others; 15.35p per kWh.
I live in a house which was built in 1974. The boiler was originally 500 litres and only heated during off peak. The main fuse 3x63A allows almost everything even with current standards. Nowadays we have PV cells, about 180 m deep geothermal heat well, a 12 kW heat pump and an electric car charger. However the climate is colder and electricity cheaper here in Finland. I would consider investing in a big enough water reservoir to store the energy during off-peak hours if the main fuse is enough or go for a heat pump.
Why not have a look at joining a co operative owned wind farm via Ripple Energy. Your share of the generation will be taken off your Octopus bill each month. Their first turbine build is well underway and they have plans for others. Its a 25year punt but at least you can take your share with you if you move home. Own the root source of the generation. Not pay some fat cat utility for it !
I agree on the noise production of the air source heatpump. I know of one exeption, the Nevit Enviline monoblock, that is dead quitet and even has a higher COP. You might want to have a look at that one.
Have you checked the total load during those 4 hours off peak? I could imagine a night (many maybe) where you are running whatever thermal store device you get flat out to get enough heat (in whatever form) to last through a frigid winter's day AND charging up a car AND charging up your house battery. You might be pushing it for your power lines into your house and I would imagine the power grid companies wanting people to go to 3 phase if a lot of folk do this. That could significantly change the installation cost. Also, if this becomes a popular option in the years to come then demand during those 'off peak' hours will skyrocket meaning your 5p rate will not last. I guess you need to make the most of this price while you can. My gut feeling is that within 5-10 years the off peak price will be getting close to the peak as the grid gets more load from EVs, powerwalls and electric heating. That is, afterall, the purpose of the pricing - to encourange an evening out of demand.
That 5p rate ... its not about an "at night" one, its about intelligent power delivery, so getting charge to cars/ in house batteries at the cheapest rate at any time, and 'splitting' this up over the 24 hours to stagger across all. So the 5p might become more/less depending on overcapacity (when Scotland is independent it will have a lot of overcapacity on windy days for example), so at least in Scotland, those cheap periods might turn up at 3 in the afternoon at times. A bit of intelligence at the demand end is all thats needed and is already happening.
I will only run the heat pump in the day. Thick duvets at night but have considered a second supply especially if my wife also wants an EV as fuel prices increase
@@stevezodiac491 it is the economics really. The wind does not stop blowing at night. Turning off the turbines puts more wear on them. If the energy company can soak up excess generation by selling at a fixed price to consumers, then it is better than paying other companies to use the excess! Look what happens on agile. There are limits to a single phase installation and voltage drop becomes more of a worry as the load increases, we see as low as 210v when charging everything on some parts of the installation and as high as 255v during the summer. These are challenges of local generation. With careful planning it is possible to maximise that 4 hour window, but the planning has to be careful not to blow the fuses !
Robert, Scotland has too much wind capacity installed and on occasions it has to be constrained as the grid can't carry all the current. If you are insinuating that an Independant Scotland would isolate itself from the U.K. grid you will find that Scotland's grid will collapse in short order. The reson is that wind turbines cannot load follow which means insufficient synchronous generation to keep it stable. Now the U.K. grid stabilises Scotland when the wind is strong. Your government is fixated on wind genertaion and seems to ignore it's very real technical difficulties. Incidentally if an isolated Scotish grid trips, wind turbines can't restart it, uncontrollable wind generation means you can't regulate frequency with it.
Hey EVM. I’m a heating engineer & heat pump installer. I completely get your theory. However for the winter you simply cannot store enough energy for the day without HUGE storage. 200l of water (an average size hot water tank) holds around 11 - 12kw of heat. Mid winter that would last the average U.K. home around 2 hours for heating before it’s all gone. You would need to store 1000’s of litres of water to achieve this and that kind of energy cannot be got from a domestic electricity supply, along with car and battery charging in just 4 hours.
@@paul_null yes it can. But that 40kwh sounds a lot, but spread over the remaining 20 hours of high rate electricity is only 2kw per hour. Could you heat the entire home in the depths of winter with an average fan heater? (If output 2kwh is exactly matching load 2kwh it has to be applied for the entire 24hr period)
I got a funny feeling Economy 7 storage heaters could make a comeback. That aside i had an air source heat pump over summer to heat our above ground 13,000 litre pool to 29c. Worked a treat.
More info on you heat pump for your pool please? Don't fuel the bring back storage heaters brigade, they are last century, lets leave them there. Why? Because you can't turn them off so cold one day but warm the next, oh well lets make it warmer still by wasting the energy we have stored.
@@givemethejob3293 Modernise them so controlled via an app. To be honest we have underfloor heating in a property built in 2015. It is almost similar to storage heaters so slow to warm up and hard to control. Temperatures can easily overshoot smartstats. Very cheap to run though and heat is evenly distributed throughout house with nice warm floors.
@@fiveminuteman Yes I get that to (underfloor heating) with a good level of insulation would you not think it would be better to have almost instant heating when you need it and saving energy when you don't. I worked on a very insulated building and if anyone kept their electric panel radiator on for more than 45mins per day it was unbearable, now thats energy saving! To my way of thinkink.
I have a 30 year old thermal store boiler - a GEC nightstor. I was going to move to ASHP but discovered that the solution I have, although old, is superior to ASHP. You just need to manage the heat carefully. Not sure why these were discontinued. It charges at off-peak and will charge to 100kWh in 5 hours. Only problem is that you really do need 3-phase (which we are looking at) if you are to run a battery, chargers, etc. Good thing is that there is no maintenance. Hot water is done through immersion heaters. There is a new one coming out soon but they are expensive (around 10k) and they are pretty big (about the size of a fridgefreezer)
I also have a GEC Nitestor 100 on 2 phase, our cats love it as stuck in a utility room. We live in a village with no gas & getting oil to out house would be difficult plus the smell. The cost of the Nitestore is something around £20 per day (SO energy DD £640pm gulp, will have to question that) even using a woodburner to heat the main rooms at night. Replacement with more efficient room storage heaters at £500-£1000 each buying & installing new wiring is unrealistic. An airsource heat pump would need all new pipework (8mm microbore is unsuitable) as well as new radiators. Struggling between ceiling fitted FIR heaters or bite big bullet for Airsource, what ever even keeping existing system will mean eating into savings at an untenable rate. Have signed up for Tepo Zeb as it would work with Solar Panels but no response from them & I don’t know the cost, if the existing pipework is suitable & when it will be available for normal customers.
@@Paul.Woodcraft Wow. That is extreme. Our elec bill is only now £320 p/m. Are you on a dual rate (e.g. economy 7?). We pay 9p/kwh off peak (at the moment) meaning that if we charge our boiler to 75% (which is what our engineer advised), then it costs about £7.50 a day as they are 100kwh (heat) boilers
@@mooselinf You have an excellent supplier. Our old night economy 7 tariff was 15p now doubled to 30p & day tariff 40p. If we used the same amount of electricity with a standard tariff, most seem to be 35p, we would be around £500pa worse off. Obviousely we will be looking to change the system to improve the controllability to heat rooms we are using most. I have discovered some Storage Heaters that are WiFi controlled, with fan to release heat when needed, that can link to solar panels to boost their charge during the day, made by "Elnur Gabarron". Apart from an unfamiliar company they are as ugly as sin but could be more economical heating rooms we use rather than keeping the cats warm! They apparently can charge from the grid during the day as well but only at one selected time. Unless we can sign up for Octopus Agile Tariff & work out approximate times when electricity is cheaper that isn't much help. I have also signed up with a request for Octopus to contact me when they are taking new customers & have also contacted the heater company to find out if home batteries might be linked & therefore feed power to these heaters. My hope is that if the home batteries charge from the grid when solar is low they might also feed electricity from the grid at the same time into the heaters to increase our energy store in both battery & thermal at the cheapest available tariff. I Hope you don't mind me waffling it would be fantastic if someone had some knowledge of these heaters read this & could give an opinion or someone with more knowledge gave other thoughts before we committed hard earned cash. It is also helpful writing thoughts down rather than them going around in my head, so thanks for your time. Regards Paul Woodcraft
Girlfriends rented house has ASHP. . Pump is directly outside the downstairs bedroom window and sounds like a VW Beetle trying to start so with you on the noise. Also the running cost is ridiculously expensive. Both floors have underfloor heating and turning it on for the first time her smart meter was saying £25 for ONE DAY. She's on a 30p standard tariff. . Heating each room with a cheap 2KW fan heater was far warmer and a hell of a lot cheaper !!!!
I have the Bunsen air system for my hot water purchased from a company close to me which has sorted out our hot water system nearly 2 years ago. We were not looking to replace our system at all until we had a major failure. A year later we used the same company to install our GivEnergy system with 2 batteries. Best decision ever. We are also looking at how to get away from a gas boiler which is only about 4 years old.
I have a solar battery setup very similar to yours in output. My old combi boiler was 14 years old and I was in the same boat, do I go with the heat pump? In the end I went with a valiant boiler with a 10 year guarantee. Reason being cost and functionality. My thinking is hopefully in 10 years a better cheaper solution may be available to replace the existing heating system.
We have PV and battery, with iboost. This cuts our electricity bill hugely, and saves a lot of gas in summer for hot water. But when our old boiler died, we went for a vaillant high efficiency boiler and joule cyclone cylinder. I looked at a sunamp thermal store but the costs was ever so much higher than the joule, and we have very hard water so I was worried about the heat exchanger furring up.
We have just bought two 400w Herschel IR heaters that are AAA+ We are going to have them mounted on the ceiling and use the last hour of our cheap rate to heat the objects in the room which will then be slowly released during the day. Day time top up from our solar and battery. The electrician who is fitting them said that they are very efficient and cheap to run. He now plans installing a few himself. The beauty of IR panels you can fit a room at a time as finance allows. Also apart from the white panels you can get them in mirrors (good for bathrooms to stop mould) pictures even one of your own or other styles. They come in various sizes and outputs. Like having your own sun indoors.
I am wondering if a hybrid approach might work (and certainly be the least disruptive) rather than the all or nothing of a heat pump. For example, night storage radiators in a few main rooms, no trying to heat the whole house . These take the cheap rate at night and warm up those rooms enough that the usage of the gas boiler is much cut down perhaps to say half its normal use in the coldest 3 or so months and maybe not needed at all in the shoulder periods.
You are so right in your conclusions. We have a new build, super insulated way over spec. Heating and hot water by ASHP. It's a 16kw Samsung with 300ltr thermal store with an iboost device to use any excess solar rather than exporting to the grid. We have a 4kw Solar array. When the outside temp drops below 10 deg it becomes very expensive to run, many many times gas. Last winter we were using £12 to £15 elec per day, god knows what this winter will be with the price increases. ASHP are not the answer to replace gas. In a leaky old house it will bankrupt people.
We run an oil boiler for heating and hot water. We have been offered free supply and fitting of solar panels and heat pump to replace the old oil boiler..we don’t have mains gas in the countryside. Can he solar panels and heat pump combo replace the oil boiler system ? Are we mad to change over or just keep going with our existing system …?
So much depends on future energy prices here so it’s important not to completely dismiss heat pumps due to their expense. At the end of the day on average they multiply your heat in by a factor of 3. They also mean you’ll have a warm house all the time which I like the sound of. You do need to massively insulate to keep the cost down though. One technology you haven’t mentioned is Infrared Panels. I think these could actually be the answer for a lot of people. You can ceiling mount them out of the way and they are not too expensive either. If I was speccing up a new-build, that’s what I’d go for 👍
Just about to move into a property with no mains gas and currently on storage heaters and the infrared panels are what I am going for. So much easier to retrofit into an existing property.
I realise this was broadcast a couple of weeks ago but I have only just seen it. It is fascinating for me to see the different dynamics at play in each country around the world. I live in Perth, Western Australia and I have 10kW of solar on my roof and a 10kWh battery bank. So the system regularly generates 45 to 50kWh per day in summer. We can chose a flat tariff for electricity of approx 14p per kWh or a split tariff of 14p during the day, 27p between 3.00 and 9.00pm and 7p overnight. All good you say and you are right, compared to Yorkshire we general a heap more solar and pay so much less for power. However we also use much more power during the summer due to the use of aircon, almost always by reverse cycle (heat pump). So we generate sufficient power to run our house all day every sunny day, but the challenge is storing that power. Our current 10kWh battery is simple too small such that we feed about half of our solar each day into the grid for only 1.5p per KWh. One question re using gas/heat pump hybrid systems, are you not going to be phasing out gas in the next few years to meet net 0 targets?
Installed one in our Victorian terraced house - costs the same as gas for us. Get an ultra quiet Ecodan if you’re worried about noise, v quiet. Biggest benefit for us was ditching fossil fuels.
Take care to look at your power supply. Running everything in the 4 hour window at night will draw a LOT of power and your supply probably maxes out at 100A? This might be a limiting factor on what is possible (unless you go to the expense of having a beefier supply installed...).
Thank you. I have been an avid follower of your videos on here. I have followed your advice on an EV and am currently looking at the Tepeo ZEB for heating. I’d never heard of the Sunamp so I shall do a comparison of both systems. I agree that an ASHP is noisy and I do not think in our little village the sound would be acceptable to neighbours. I recently holidayed in Norfolk, where we stayed had no Charger but the Zap Map recommended the local Tesco Superstore which offered charging for FREE! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
I have a small 2 bed welsh cottage end terrace. DIY insulated inside of external walls, and had an air sourced heat pump installed (hot water is separate). The HP is our central heating system, cost was just under £2k 11 years ago (probably about £1600 now). Costs about £200 pa to run. But it does struggle when the temp outside drops below about -5 centigrade (which isn't that often around here, the Rhondda).
the mixergy boiler/store would be a decent choice, as you can set it up to fill up at 2-6 am at the cheap rate, as for the heat pump i have the exact same issue.
Of course, you are right EVM. There will be those that a heat pump may be a good fit for. But realistically most of us will be looking at trying to retrofit - my house is a great example - concrete slab ground floor incorporating 10mm microbore pipes feeding pretty weak radiators - hanging tiles upstairs ( so no cavity) and a lovely big flat roof extension at the back. I’d love a heat pump but it’s not add on. This push will become another miss-selling fiasco and any grant just pushes the prices up. My Mrs also likes the window open but.... what can you do?
We came to the same conclusion concerning air to water heat pumps despite the fact that our 30 kW gas central heating system costs a fortune to run. We have just installed an air to air heat pump aircond split to heat our fairly large living room. Early results indicate that this is the way to go. The split is powered by our 5 kW array and falls back on cheap overnight battery stored electricity if needed. The 3.5 kW split needs about 0.5 kW when heating the room from cold and less than that when the room is up to temperature. Cost of installation was £2200. Heating the whole house is beyond what we want to pay and we're happy with a warm living room.
Andy, I agree with your analysis that, for your own home, a heat pump is not a good solution. The issues you identify of the construction of the property and the noise generated are correct. I would like to throw in an alternative solution as you said that your gas boiler is over 10 years old and therefore I recommend that you replace it. Please research the market for a boiler that, at some time in the future, can be converted to burn hydrogen gas that would come down the same pipes that come down your street at present. I recommend Bosch being the best boiler manufacturer and who have this type of product.
Have you considered a dry store electric boiler for CH and hot water? It heats a pile of bricks off peak which then heat the water for the system for the rest of the day.
The charger in a holiday let is a good idea, but we went to a lodge in the Cotswold run by a well known company, and they fined you (a hefty flat £ rate for being naughty) if they found out you were charging your car from their properties, it would have been with a 3 pin plug so trailing out the door would be a giveaway 😁. Think they are missing a trick as you say, unless you are going gadding about all day and never there you would probably only use a charger a couple of times or just once for a journey home.
If I went to your house and ran your kettle and immersion continuously for hours most nights and didn’t pay for it, I believe you would have a different outlook.....
My gas boiler vs ASHP search fell at the first hurdle, finding an installer. So gas boilers: got three reasonable quotes from recommended installers. They could all install within a 3-4 week timescale. ASHP on the other hand: one quote of £14,000, one no reply, one company saying they did not recommend ASHP for my type of property, as I would see no cost or CO2 savings. My other consideration was our current solar panel+battery set up of 3.3Kw panels and 2.9Kw battery. Its provided practically all of our electricity since installation in March. An ASHP would triple our electricity use. The battery can upgraded but we'd still need more grid power. I might still upgrade the battery to take advantage of night time tariffs - once the electricity market has settled down.
Cant argue with the logic as a fellow Yorkshireman, always looking for ways to not spend what I dont have to. Currently using a unique battery development for the house and for my son to go glamping. I will let you know how it goes. Thanks
Good video. My thinking has been on the same lines . Like you we soak what generation we have into batteries and power the house and car. There is not much left for much else. Most of the year we heat the hot water has well from solar. As the days get shorter we top the batteries up with cheap rate electricity. To run a heat pump I believe we need at least another 10kwh a day in winter, which is roughly another 10kw of panels needed, meaning a total solar size of 20kw or a bit more. Properties do not have the space for that kind of solar with the current efficiency of panels. I agree the best way is to store the heat so mixegy or sunamp might be the way forward and maybe coupled with thermal panels to heat the water up to the 50c range and top up with electricity. At least thermal panels would be quiet and almost do the same as a heat pump.
Hi there, Just hitting on a point you briefly hit on at the beginning... I'm currently in the planning stage for a new house build, just looking around at my options. My current thinking was solar panels, battery storage and a heat pump for heating house and water. I was hoping that the battery would be big enough to hopefully run the heat pump for the day along with lights etc. on an average day. You made a brief point that the battery wouldn't be able to run the heat pump, it would need to go to the grid to power it. Why is that, are they very energy intensive? Or is it the size of your current battery that just couldn't include a heat pump to last the day? Thanks for the videos BTW 👍🏻 Cheers, Mac
We have a 180l mixergy tank waiting to be installed. Should help us be more flexible with our power usage. The building only has mains electricity, which simplifies our options. Would investing in a wind farm through Ripple be a viable option, so you aren’t trying to charge everything in 4 hours plus solar?
5 years ago i wrote to a major hotel chain saying how disappointed I was to stay overnight and not be able to top up my vehicle. they agreed, and said they were planning to install charge points. Nothing has changed. Still no charge point at that hotel. When i plan a trip away from home, like many people now, i look for places with a charge point. Hotels are missing out big time.
I've looked into heat pumps as well and reached the same conclusion. I am now looking at infrared panels to heat the house. They can be set up to only heat the rooms that you are actually in. I see a big saving there.
@@ciaransherry6021 might be ok in the States but I live in the UK. No real need for an air con system. Also, anything with a fan on is going to get noisy eventually.
@@mikegullick A mini split high wall unit is a reversible heatpump. Noise from a fan? Not an issue. Dont waste your money on resistive heaters with only ¹/³ the efficiency.
@@ChrisLee-yr7tz It's not that straightforward. With gas boilers, you've got a £3k new boiler every 10 years, that's an extra £300 a year. £150 yearly boiler service, gas standing charge another £100 a year. That's £550 extra for gas before you even get to efficiencies. Gas boiler is 90% efficient at best, but that's before the water has even left the boiler. If you have pipes in cavities, in the floor, you can lose another 30% of heat easily. Direct electric is maintenance free, and true 100% efficient.
I got a viessmann boiler 100w 2021 model it has H2 ready and it will adjust the mix of gas and air to burn less gas and give out less CO2 and I got smart controls with opentherm and smart radiator thermostats. I find the heating is running longer but the water in the radiator is holding at around 35 to 40c vs the normal 80c
There are a couple of companies planning this. I want heat on demand rather than constant heating. One company is making a 40kw heat store which would be enough for days of hot water and home heating. I would not panic for a year or two and reassess the market as everyone is going heat pump (the next mis-selling case I’m sure of). My solar installer said he seen a 300l hot water tank being installed on the radiator return. Easy to heat during off peak and it just need the pump and controls to remove the boiler. Remember that in any calculations you will save 20-30p in standing charge by removing gas.
Have a look at Convert Energy: they use hybrid panels to heat a chunk of your garden and use that as a thermal store. A 250W panel produces 630w of heat. I’m not doing it, but it seemed a really interesting solution: you need to store heat in the same way you store electricity in your batteries, and there’s no change of state: heat goes in and heat comes out. The Sunamp changes electricity in to heat, which has a conversion effficiency penalty.
Hello. Same dilemma I had. However after a lot research I came to the conclusion that it also wasn't for me. The problem is that unless you find a competent heat engineer and fitter who know to properly design pipe runs and with realistic heat loss calculations you may after commissioning the system find it highly inefficient. The real problem is that unless you have a garage the space required for two tanks is crazy even for your average 3 bed semi detached hose built in the late 40s or 60s. Ripping up your house to fit 22mm into 12mm rads is doable but at huge expense etc. For a self builder you can design in from inception but to retrofit the house? Also what happens when things go wrong as I have heard some shocking stories. Also with our alternating climate the heat pumps struggle to find the right amount of power through the software to modulate the water temp and often overmodulate to compensate leading to huge electric bills again down to poor installs. The country does not have enough qualified heating engineers period. Selling them is the easy part but aftersales is very much an afterthought. I may go with a mixergy setup but am looking at Worcester Bosch hydrogen ready combi boilers with a view to future proofing as a stop gap as my old WB is on it's last legs. For heat pump fan boys look at Heat Geeks in discussion with Roger Bixley or EZ Puzzle and check out Nigels setup which is quite neat. Good luck.
I think you’ve summed this up really well. Problem with ASHPs is the cost. Capex and revenue. ASHPs are more efficient, but it’s cheaper to generate 1kW of heat using an efficient gas boiler over an ASHP using electricity. In terms of using one with solar, you’ll see some small benefit, but they work at opposite times of the year - solar produces energy in summer when heating isn’t needed. A wind turbine and ASHPs would be a better combination! GSHPs are slightly more efficient (higher COP) but generally more hassle to install. Personally, think homeowners need to hold on for hydrogen. There are new hydrogen boilers coming on the market that generate H2 from H2O through electrolysis. They work as a conventional heat pump to raise the temp to a certain level, then top up with H2 to raise further. Something to keep an eye on I think. Keep up the good work 👍
I've got a sun amp for the hot water. And I'm getting another one for my heating. There is no maintenance on them with a ten year warranty, I'm on octopus go it make sense for me. There are four of us in the house mid terrace radiator's up stairs and underfloor down stairs. And if we move we can take the batteries with us if we wanted to.
I have a Sunamp for my hot water and it's great, the water heats up from the taps faster than the combi boiler did. We have solar panels and that seems to cover our handwashing etc all year. Had not thought of using one for the heating tell us more please? Do you get all your heating via a Sunamp charged overnight?
I've got a 6kw sunamp for general hot water uses, and a separate 12kw one for the hot water which has not been installed yet but I will be a guinea pig for sunamp. We used to have gas storage heaters in every room they came with the house. I just didn't like the idea of having a volatile poisonous gas in every room. So the 6kw is charged up at night every night or if you go away for the weekend and not charge it. There will be still hot water coming out of it by Monday. The temperature of the water is around 55c which is to hot for me for a shower. If we run out of hot water (daughter using all up which is rare) there is a boost button and in 1 hour it's back. So in theory I can charge my 18kw system at 0.05 pence if it's fully empty to fully charged for 4 hours under a pound a night. Which is £330 a year and thats working it a full capacity all year round. Any more questions please ask.
@@jaydode6601 That's interesting, will both Sunamps be able to supply hot water to the radiators or does the larger one have to be big enough to cover all your heating needs. Currently, I have a 9kWh Sunp for my hot water and I think it's oversized, but collects almost all my solar energy in the Summer.
@@mrhignettshorses It will only be the 12kw heating the house. So then I can turn it off during the warmer months. Then still have the 6kw just for the hot water all year round.
Very good overview of the issues, thank you 👍 In your view, how long can "cheap" night electricity continue in the UK? Personally, I believe it wont be here for much longer.
good point, and needs to be factored into any solution longer term. As long as there is over supply at night time, and insufficient grid storage overnight rate should be cheaper. However with transition to grid renewable generation, increase in off peak usage and increase in grid storage it is logical that the price differential will decrease over time.
@@airevalleyclassics I think you are right. As the full effect of the April 1st tariff increase starts to bite the focus on shifting to using/storing at off peak rates is only going to increase. Then we have the next tariff review (October '22 just as we head into winter) to consider which some commentators are saying could be as much as 50% of the April increase. If people make changes purely on the basis of financial savings (as opposed to environmental benefits) then it strikes me there is an ever increasing chance that low priced off peak rates may not continue to exist as we currently know them.
@@jeta1f35 - which is why it makes sense to get solar panels so you can charge your battery sans-grid energy. However, what we are no also seeing is a slow creep up of the standing charge, so the energy companies can still make money from those who time shift or have solar etc...
I've had air/air heat pumps in two houses now. 1. I was on an estate with no gas so replaced all the storage heaters but one in the hall, that I used as a fall back in cold weather, with a DIY plug and play 3.5kW heat pump heating my livingroom and my heating bill halved and the house was actually warm at the times I needed it to be warm. I just left doors open to let the heat move to where I needed it. The heat pump is great in a Scottish summer when you only need to boost the temperature slightly say from 15DegC outside to 20DegC inside. The only downside was that in Winter it struggled to even heat one room never mind the whole house and below freezing it had serious icing issues as it was desfrosting the coils constantly and all the water dripping from them formed mounds of ice which I had to clear regularly with boiling water. The external unit does make a noise but I hid it behind a fence panel that cut the noise down but didn't restrict airflow greatly. 2. When I moved to a large Victorian house with gas I couldn't possibly heat it all to 20DegC in Winter due to the costs of gas so I heat the thermostat room to 15DegC during the day while other rooms are set to 10 DegC or similar and the heating rarely if ever comes on at that thermostat setting as the thermostat is purposely put in a sunny room and I fitted a heat pump to add heat to the area where I spend most time and the cost of heat pump heating is comparable to gas. So I can heat a small area efficiently without turning the boiler on just to heat one room. Again the great thing is in summer when you need a boost only in one small area it is great and saves putting teh gas heating on but the downside is when it goes below 5DegC outside and you most need the heat there is a dramatic drop off on the heat you get from the heat pump so I revert to using my wood stove when the temperature goes much below 5DegC. I help neighbours and friends to chop small trees and big shrubs in the summer and I save all the wood I get from that to power my stove. MY brother also gives me scraps of wood he has left over from his small building business. Heat pumps are great if you live in an area where the noise won't affect people, imagine 8 of these attached to the back of one close of tenement flats and it would be noisy, and they are great if you need to heat anywhere from 5DegC outside to 20DegC inside but in the depths of a Scottish winter out in the sticks where it regularly plummets to -10DegC they are useless for heating and people with no stove or fossil fuel heating would have to freeze or turn on an old fashioned blow heater or similar for warmth which is horrendously expensive. I also have 3kW of solar panels set six SE and six SW and on a dull winter's day they often don't switch on at all. Solar for car charging, I have a 6A setting on my charger to maximise panel charging, is great in the UK for six months of the year but pretty naff from late Autumn to mid-Spring.
We've got a Jaspi 500L thermal store and Mitsubishi heat pump. It's fantastic. Wish we'd got the bigger version as doesn't store enough HW for 6, so HP comes on during the day. Also boost the DHW and CH at night on Octopus Go Faster - 5p/kwh from 2-30am to 6-30am. Perfect for pre-heating the downstairs. Also have a look at air-to-air HP (AC). We also have one of those that can heat most of downstairs if doors are open.
Jaspi can hold DHW up to 105 degrees, so i've started boosting the immersion heater for 90 minutes at night after the HP has heated it to about 58 degrees.
If you moved, how difficult would it be to move your battery set up.... But the solar obviously... Wondering whether to get battery... But will move in maybe 3 years... What do you think?
Thinking out loud, I'm getting increasingly apprehensive about domestic energy solutions where the economic case hinges almost entirely on having comparatively cheap overnight electricity. My concern stems from the fact that many of the current energy trends (e.g. towards EVs, pushign people towards overnight charging, storage solutions like Tepeo, etc) are inevitably going to move a lot more people towards using that overnight energy source. If demand increases relative to supply, the price differential seems likely to fall, possibly even disappear? What's the business case then? Solutions like solar and heat pumps are recovering 'free' energy from the environment, and the cost of those solutions is falling.
The thing is that there are plenty of loads which will not move. And so the overnight will always be cheaper (since wherever you make cheaper that’s where the EVs/battery owners go). It might be that difference closes, but I doubt it. It might be that more tariffs like agile turn up - or at least more tariffs that smear peoples cheap rates around.
Partially agree, as far as tomorrows market not looking like todays, I don't think the important factors are going to be demand side though. my primary points are. A. big companies will be able to do battery storage, solar and wind cheaper than we'll be able to do at home, so long term it probably isn't worth the individual doing these things. B. how cheap will batteries get? cheap batteries would imply arbitrage and electricity costs would be much more constant through the day. expensive batteries would imply extremely cheap -> free electricity at night. between these 2, I wouldn't like to predict what is and isn't going to make financial sense long term. Hell if you look at seasonal wind generation, electricity prices could be lower in the winter.
@@benholroyd5221 I suggest you look at videos from Tony Seba. He predicts that cost of home PV generation will fall below grid transmission costs. Read that sentence again. At that point, electricity from the grid becomes and remains more expensive than home generation, however cheaply a company can generate it. Won't apply to all consumers, but will work for many.
What you’re saying sounds good, and the heat pump is not really the best option for what you say you need. But as others have pointed out and assuming that you have a one phase installation, have you checked what would be the max load during those 4 hours. How much in percentage of the max load you can pull from the grid would that be? I think this is your bottleneck trying to get the energy you need for 24h only during those 4h. Looking forward on to your final decision.
It will be interesting to understand the initial and ongoing costs of these thermal stores. I don’t think the tepeo ones are available yet, Caldera are and cost £12k, no RHI, takes 100 kWh to charge (and up to 8 hours from cold) which they say will heat a 4 bed house for a day during winter. So it wouldn’t seem to be a much cheaper option than a heat pump given the 90% efficiency rather the 300%+.
Have a look at the new style infrared heaters made by the Jigsaw company. Fully Charged featured their smart sensor system not long ago. This type of system might work well with a background level gas boiler.
If you're thinking of utilising cheap rates at certain times of the day (such as octopus go) to 'charge' a store so you can release it during the day. Then you can always consider thermal storage. We at tepeo have produced a boiler that stores 40 KwH that does exactly that. Just a thought, ASHP, thermal storage, smart water tanks etc all have there place and there isn't a one stop solution for all
Does the same argument not apply to Solar/Battery installation? If you can fill a second battery for 5p (now 7.5p), would you not be better off having a second battery instead of Solar? You also need to be careful about the battery storage output, even a Tesla Powerwall will only put out 5Kw. If you start heating your house in winter (not to mention a 7-8Kw electric shower), you could easily exceed the max output of the inverter.
We were looking at being completely off grid a few years back and bought some properly built hurts to make that dream possible, the land had to be sold with the farm though and that dream was put on the back boiler, pun intended. I' designed a base that would have an underfloor heating system and heat storage unit that could be linked to the back boiler on the aga if it was needed in the winter the rest of the time the heating would rely on a panel of evacuated solar tubes to provide the heat to the storage system with a little pump that relied on the solar panels to circulate in under the hurts and to heat the hot water. As you already have a battery system and solar and can also utilise the cheaper rate at night for back up one of those systems might be worth looking at, they get hot even in freezing temps.
Great video, I agree with you about ASHPs. My expectation though is that eventually so many people will use the night time cheap rate electricity to charge their batteries and thermal stores that these cheap rates will be withdrawn altogether.
According to Greg Jackson the CEO of OctopusEnergy cheap night rates are here to stay. He explained that as we all move to electric the grid will need to be balance. At the moment we are only 60% capacity on the grid. So if at night when there is excess (and green) isn’t used the grid will become unbalanced and more expensive. Ah I hear you say “if everyone plugs their car in and all charge at the same time when it becomes cheap won’t that cause a problem?” Answer is that apps such as octopus intelligence can stop and start charging at different times during the off peak period thus balancing the grid and using power when its most green. More renewables less gas used to generate electricity and therefore becomes cheaper. A lot is going on behind the scenes that we don’t see or even know about
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. For our house, we use central heating based on an oil boiler. So two things (at minimum) to consider - 1 cost of oil for us is £1500 - £2000 per year at current prices and 2 - Moving away from oil due to the environmental benefit (well, somebody's got to do it :) ) Ours is an old house and as heat pumps generate about 18 degrees celsius, one key factor is that there are no through draughts to strip that heat out. We've got a lot of work to do there. Modern better insulated and draught free properties are better suited to low temperature radiators I feel.
The Heat Geek is a brilliant channel for anyone after a heat pump
I use a reversible air to to air heat pump, self installed was 600 quid, we also have a pellet stove for heat if it gets real cold, the heat pump is mostly used to bridge the gap before the pellet stove comes on in winter and provide air con in the summer. But we have a new build house with shit tonnes of insulation on floors,walls and ceilings. I would do it again, then the house is a Passiv Hous so need very little heat to get warm.
If you want to reduce bills, insulate, insulate, insulate, we have only had the heat on for 4 days this winter so far. If the temp outside is above 10 C human activity is enough to keep the house warm. It tends to drop off if it stays below that for more than 3 days.
10k of raw insulation materials = 160 quid a year heating bill.
We also use a heat pump hot water heater, again, self installed, takes the heat from the loft area, yet to calculate exact energy use, but on eco mode, about 800 watt hours a day, 1/3rd of an identical immersion heater. It doesn' t seem to vary much from winter to summer.
I know the UK is dominated by hydronic heating but I will never understand why air-to-air does not even get in on any of the conversation! They're inexpensive to purchase and just as cheap to run as air-to-water. They can barely keep them in stock in North America the demand is so high. Seems like these would make way more sense!
Thanks, very interesting. Can you give details of each heat pump? Are they noisy?
@@markthomasson5077 not noisy, I used to live in a house in Oregon heated by air to air reversible air con, installed in the 90s, but still going strong, now they were noisy. The modern ones are way quieter and more effecient, inside it makes less noise as a fan on an electric oven. Just a gentle whirring. Summer is 4 kw of cooling, winter 3 kw of heat, this is normal, energy use is about 1/3rd of the equivalent heat. Bigger ones are available. They last well, cheap, you can add more with ease. Just a bit ugly on the outside of a house. Has a remote control, just set the temp and or time it comes on and forget it was jnstalled.
Air to water heaters are for radiators and underfloor heating, this adds huge complexity and cost to a house and are not needed, my old Oregon house had 3 ineffecient air to air heaters, 200 M2 house, one was never used, one was just used to heat the master bedroom just before bed as it was at the far end of the house, and the other one did all the real work. Similar temps to UK in Oregon.
What's the brand and model of that £600 unit? Sounds a good option.
Can you do a video explaining the differences between sunamp, mixergy and tepeo? Im confused....Thanks!
Regarding noise, we've had a Samsung 16kw heat pump for 6 years now. It's situated outside our living room window, which is also underneath our bedroom window. The noise it makes is not obtrusive, it's not the kind of noise that keeps us awake and we barely notice it. The Heat Pump has been great, we run it in a hybrid system alongside a 32kw Vaillant Gas Boiler, so the ASHP provides heating when the outside temp is above 5c, then the Gas Boiler automatically kicks in when temps drop to 5c or below. The Gas Boiler heats our water. This ensures the ASHP is always running efficiently. We are grid reliant, except we have a 4kw solar array,so during nice sunny days, the solar panels run the heat pump (we have cellars which we heat to ensure a constant temp of 19c, so even in the Summer the ASHP is often on). We also have a solar i-boost device which diverts excess solar energy to heat our hot water. The cellars have a wet underfloor heating system, everywhere else has oversized radiators. The house is an old Victorian detached, not super-insulated. We had to replace our heating system 5 years ago and we investigated gas only, hybrid and heat pump only (ground source and air source). Ground source was prohibitively expensive as we would have needed bore-holes to be dug to 80m below ground. Gas only was a possible option, but because we went for a hybrid system, the total VAT on the entire install was at 5% instead of 20% and this saving basically paid for the heat pump (we got an ex-demo one, 6 months old at a bargain price). Our energy bills are less than half what they used to be (still expensive as our house is large and not thermally efficient) and we are heating 33% more cubic metres now than we were with our old heating system as we didn't previously heat the cellars.
Isn't the i-boost a waste of energy, wouldn't it be better to push that energy to heat water via the heat pump? Even below 5deg is must have a higher than 1 cop?
Get a proper winter heatpump that gets good effiency below -20c. mine gets like 2x to -25c.
@@simonhenry7867 absolutely not because you don't generally have enough spare solar to divert to the water heating in the Winter when the heat pump is being used. During Spring and Summer we get free hot water for most of the time, so it does its job perfectly. BTW, our heat pump does not heat our hot water, the gas boiler does that on days when the solar i-boost doesn't
@@hillppari So does ours, but it's cheaper and better to use gas for lower temps as to heat our house adequately in cold weather we would need two 16kw heat pumps, which is not cost effective or cost saving.
@@davidstorm4015 oh, I'd assume water heating would be primary thing you would do due to the lower temp requirement and the higher than 1:1 cop.
I’m with you on the Holiday accommodation with EV charging. We rented a house for a week in North Wales, which is a charging desert. The house had a Rolec 7kw charger so we never even had to think about charging. From now on I will only consider rental accommodation with chargers. There’s plenty available and the choice is growing all the time.
I stayed in a place - it had some 13Amp sockets. I ran an extension lead out to car and used the 'granny lead' adaptor that comes with the car. Thats get you 3kW - which is enough for perhaps 150 to 200mile range of charging if done overnight.
If you think that every property in the UK has electricity then there are no real 'charging deserts'
We just had a retrofit the other week, all new rads, 11.2kw ecodan and plumbed cylinder, I'm over the moon with it, total cost was £13k, gonna put my RHI claim in soon to trigger around £8.5k over 7 years.
The outdoor unit is very quiet, more so than our old gas boiler, no annual service needed.
It fills the ecodan 210l cylinder with 55deg water in just over an hour in the period when electricity is 5p/kw
The electricity usage on the couple of cold days we had so far has been perfectly acceptable.
Hi there, no need to heat your water to 55, most people find 48 - 50 will do, try experimenting with that. Also, most installers set the “legionella cycle” to every 7 days, really every 14 will do too, unless you have some very infirm people living there. There have been ZERO instances of household legionella that I can find in the last 20 years.
@@Muppetkeeper yep it's already set to hold 60 degrees for 5 minutes every 14 days
Middle setting for shower unit usually set to 45c. So also saves water if you have teenagers who will stand in shower for at least 1 hour they don't like it cool.
I'd get a heat pump at the drop off a hat but I'm worried about radiators.
UFH is really disruptive and potentially expensive.
@@simonhenry7867 We had 11 rads upsized, the 4 towel rails remaining, the pipework is 10mm needed no replacement. It all performs better than I expected.
Great video EVM. We are on a similar journey to you, first to EV, now to decarbonise the house. The first easy step was to go electric for cooking, electric oven and induction hob replacing our gas cooker. Next is hot water, like you, we are on Octopus Go, program the timer to use immersion heater on cheap rate electricity. So all that is left is central heating; the problem is a gas boiler is hard to beat for central heating, so we have compromised. First was to really work on our insulation, fit TRVs (Thermostatic radiator valves) and use this to run the rooms at appropriate temps. Long term the gas boiler has to go, but technologies are emerging… infrared heat panels look interesting, I saw the Tepeo electric boiler on Fully Charged, looks interesting. However as EV adoption rises, I think cheap overnight electricity will not have a long shelf life.
Got a heat pump installed in my sons 2 bed bungalow here in lake district
Its a rented council type houseing so was installed by councils and was previously electric storage heating
Its only recently been done so no running costs yet
It works fine but needs larger radiators as it warms the rads not hot like a gas boiler, yet the hot water tank is easyly as hot
Like you said the outside unit makes noise
For your own home i would insulate first , then air tight as much as possible then heat recovery ventilation
A very interesting solar gain idea used in Canada is a solar panel that heats the incomeing air for the air vent system , just a simple black box hung on vertical wall south faceing for us in the UK
You get the fastest return for your money with insulation and air leakage
I'd love to see some of the details of what you're basing this on.
What's your floor area?
What's you're yearly heating requirement in kWh?
How many people in the house? Teenagers?
Double or triple glazed?
Air tightness value?
Wall and insulation type?
I'm going with regular air-source heat-pump next year. But my circumstances are different.
A) nearest household pressure pipe is over a kilometre away. Just getting the pipe to my house would cost over €30k.
B)I'm going for air-to-air system, so I get air-conditioner in the summer as a bonus.
And for domestic hot water? Air to air is fine for space heating as source and target temperatures are much closer than for wet systems. However, individual room temperature control will be be more difficult to achieve.
@@towerdave4836 I'll keep immersion water heater for now. Air-to-water would be great if I had pre-existing heating loop. But I don't. And no space to install radiators either.
If there is Air-to-air+water system, I'm open to recommendations. Especially if in summer that system can keep rooms cool by heating hot water tank.
What's a household pressure pipe?
Well thought out, good balanced view
I liked my old storage heaters. Cheap to buy, no servicing, no noise, made a lot of sense when I was home through the day.
Apparently a "thermal store" is new technology?
They aren't great when it comes to rearranging the furniture though, are they?
Plus many of the old ones have dodgy asbestos in them. An electrician opened ours up to repair and then just stopped when he found the asbestos. Couldn't blame him. I had to buy the kit and hump it out of the house myself.
@@londonwestman1 my original was mid 80s and replacement was early '00s Dimplex. No asbestos, dirt cheap, will never leak, just big and heavy.
Original had elements fail and spares no longer available, otherwise it would have still been there when I sold the flat.
I have started to use a 20mm foam board that can be plastered onto on every external wall, especially the 4 reveals round the windows...... Amazing improvement! Doing upstairs ceilings next despite the thick loft insulation. Not worth heat pump until you can reduce the heat leakage.
Did you already have cavity wall insulation?
@@fanfeck2844 yes on side and rear but a failed bead insulation on the front of our house, it's a 1970's stone/(PVC) panel front. It's great as doing this solution that is also water tolerant, solves cold spot issues on the inside.
Yes, but if you really insulate you house well, you wouldn't need a heat pump. It is my opinion, knowing how automotive air-conditioning works, that air source heat pumps will be the next 'ppi claim'. They are simply not efficient.
@@johnharrison373 I'm thinking the same TBH. I'm just thinking about when the boiler ban kicks in. I think extremely good insulation combined with well automated resistance heaters would work out far cheaper and probably more reliable and longer lasting with basic installation knowledge required.
@@Dr-EV I misread you. I thought it was the internal walls you did. That sounds great
Hi I don’t really comment much on many videos. But I think I need to say I am not sure we’re people are going with this heat pump thing. I purchased a 1869 cottage in 2008. And fully rebuilt it as it had many problems. I packed every wall floor and ceiling with insulation. I fitted a heat pump as it was right for me . If you buy right it will last well . I have had no problems as yet and noise well nothing to right home about and I live in a quiet village. I have a video coming out on this as I think people should now . Unless you’re full insulated and have under floor heating it is just not the way to go. The way you are going I think is the way. I hope to see your up and coming video on which way you go .
I've got a ground source heat pump and a rental house with an air source. We noticed the same quandary. Gas is a lot cheaper, but is also a pollutant. As long as the gas is subsidised (or the CO2 isn't calculated in) not many town dwellers are going to shift. Here we can't get town gas so being cheaper didn't make any difference, and because of where we are, off peak isn't really viable. Bottled gas, oil and coal wouldn't be a better bet because their prices are higher than our electricity costs are. In the end these 'alternative' heating methods are used for two reasons. They can be cheaper, especially long term and they can be greener. So it is generally a matter of balancing money against ecology, if you can afford it. For now I'd say stick with gas unless the price goes up a lot, and maximise your insulation. If you can fit an off peak heat storage tank, or add a bigger one that will help. We are a bit off your return track (EH55) but feel free to drop in and have a chat.
Could bio gas be used, made from waste material? No emissions? Not sure
CO2 is not pollution. Every plant is made mostly from CO2 as an input and every stick of coal in the ground was made from CO2 in the ancient atmosphere so how can putting it back into the atmosphere cause any issues?
@@brec5879 yes biogas ie methane can be used for heating house and hot water cooking and drying clothes you can buy units ready made or go online to find out how to build your own check out solar city's they have how to videos on using a IBC tote and from that comes many more with verious tweeks to make them better} best of all they keep yard and kitchen waste out of the landfill thereby cutting down on methane gas being released into the atmosphere which is 10 times a worse green house gas than the carbon that released from burning fossil fuels currently I'm looking at building one another thing you can use methane for is a duel fuel automobile duel fuel because if you run out or have a long road trip there are no methane filling stations now that's something for someone to do is create a list of people who have methane vehicles that might have the ability to sell some another one might be on conecting those who use used cooking oil for running their vehicles on those who filter it and use it and those who make their own biodiesel
Saw the Tepeo on fully charged and liked the idea too. I'd need a combi replacement that they apparently have in the works. Really pleased to see new tech in this space!
Thanks, well argued. For me the ASHP is a non starter, the COP can be very low, ground source better but you need the land, and very expensive, low temp output means bigger radiators etc. May be OK for new builds, but very difficult for older properties, like mine, 300 years old.
I am still working through insulation, better glazing, draught proofing etc.
With regard to holiday cottages, I think we are where it was 10 years ago with wifi, I used to choose my rental/hotel etc only if it had decent wifi, now it is universal. I choose now only if it has charging, just an external 3 pin will do. The granny can do up to 100 miles overnight.
Depends on what low COP means? COP will be definitely be low if the system is poorly designed or installed, and many of the older heat pumps have terrible efficiency if not used only at very low flow temperatures. I have a new Daikin Alterma III in a Victorian mid terrace, running at flow temp between 42C and 47C. January was the coldest month so far, COP was 3.0. I'm expecting overall heating COP to be 3.3 or 3.4 for the whole winter (SCOP). Given that most gas boilers are 75-90% efficient (real world efficiency) and electricity is usually 4x the price of gas, a COP between 3.0 and 3.6 would be equivalent to gas. However, electricity is currently 5x gas price, so I am paying a bit more than if I had stayed with gas. But in my case I had 25 year old Worcester Bosch to replace, GHG was available, and there was no way I was going to install another gas boiler.
Have you looked at Infrared Heating panels. I have 2 panels that I fitted this summer and still have not turned the central heating on yet. They heat the house in a different way which make you feel warm right away and the room (and objects in the room) gets warm very quick. The panels I have are 800W so much lower than many other options. I may need more panels during winter but I need to monitor and decide where they will be needed.
I've also added Instant hot (or more like warm) water taps. I have a dishwasher so only need warm water for hand washing most of the time. The solution I have give 38C from 15C incoming which is more than enough for hand washing.
@Richard Wood My rooms are about 3.5M by 4.5M and the panels raises the temperature by around 2C in 1.5 hours. If the room is at temp, it comes on for 5 to 10 minutes at a time to keep the temp up to your requirements. I have a very well insulated house which is the first thing you need to sort out but once that is done, the panels are fantastic.
A heat pump will only make sense if price of gas trebles. Then we'll all run to get one. Till then does not make sense to retrofit a house. I'm with you as well @EVM
Interesting that I came to the same conclusion. My plan is also predicated upon the Octopus Go tariff staying at circa 5p per kWh in the dead of night. May I ask, what led you to say this tariff will remain for the foreseeable future? To me, this seems the only risk to ‘our’ plan. Thanks for great channel.
The 'foreseeable future' ended a long time ago! Currently 7.5p.
Great analogy which is my situation exactly. Tepeo seems to be a good choice but I then found they want a £25 per month maintenance fee. Sorry this will kill the idea in my opinion. I have an existing thermal store (210ltrs) but is too small to cater for both hot water and heating. I have the space and may consider a larger water based thermal store to fulfil my usage, thus remaining on octopus go which is a great deal at present.
Have you figured out what size of store you would need? I have a 300l tank for hot water, it lasts for about 30 minutes running showers at 40 degrees. To store enough heat for my home heating at 70 degrees would require several tons of water per day I'd reckon!
Hi EVM i am a renewable energy engineer and EV adopter 2007, have you looked at a daikin hybrid ASHP this has integrated HP and boiler and small outdoor unit, you can program if for carbon savings or running costs, you also get RHI by fitting a heat meter, you dont need to oversize the rads, the ash runs most and boiler tops up ,peak top up and DHW top up.
Glad you mentioned Tepeo, that's my long term plan once my gas boiler dies too. I hope they are an established company or there are plenty of similar products in the marketplace by then.
Hi EVM, we've recently moved into a purpose built house with ASHP amongst other energy efficiency technologies. I'm still getting used to optimising and understanding the whole setup but eventually I'd love to share my experiences with you and the other viewers of the channel
I reached exactly the same conclusion. Slightly more fortunate in that I have south facing roofs and alternative heat sources for the coldest weather…
I think that there appears to be a heat pump gold rush going on right now. I doubt that they will account for more that 40-50 percent of boiler replacements in the end. So I am delighted to see this video.
I have moved into a house with a very old system gas boiler that is slap bang in the middle of the house with about 20 feet of ducting to vent it. There is no chance of installing a heat pump as everything is just too far away to work properly or economically.
I like the the look of the Zeb and sunamp too.
Living in Spain we have ASHP (or mini-split A/C) in each bedroom and in the living room. They are great because not only do they provide efficient cooling in the summer (A requirement when every day from May to October is >30C) but also efficient electric heating in the winter. We have them combined with a 6kW hybrid solar Pv system which means we effectively get to cool and heat the house for free. But where we live we make ~20kWh per day in the winter and ~40kWh per day in the summer.
As an FYI, here we can buy a Hitachi Mini Split ASHP that rates at 3.5kW heat and 5kw Cooling equivalents for about 250 euros from the local DIY superstore.
We run (at present) hot water and heating on OIL - no gas available. The boiler sprang a leak (after only 11 years). Managed to fix it with a self tapping screw silicon rubber and rubber tap washer. This will obviously not last and a new boiler plus fitting will come to £5k approx. Boiler is rated at 26 to 36kW - a bit too big!
Looked at heat pumps, but will probably get only 50°C water - barely hot enough to keep the legionella down (55 to 65°C) and at these temperatures radiators are a poor heating source.
All radiators are thermostatically controlled and 4 have smart controls (Wiser from Drayton). Rooms are individually controlled and bedrooms tend to rely on ground floor heat passing through uninsulated floors to beds etc. Beds are usually 5 to 7°C cooler than living space in 0°C ambient. House is double glazed with wall insulation (and inadequate loft insulation about 50mm) there are 7 radiators upstairs and 8 down. Water heating is only from the boiler (on for about 1hour per day - 2 people)
Looking at 14kw electric boilers (inadequate for this number of radiators according to boiler people) you are requiring 50 Amps from the single phase mains (bigger 3 phase are available but this would require extra money to grid!). House is looped onto next door so this would require fixing (could then get faster charging for EV!).
In general fuse rating is 100Amps to grid connection so cooker/boiler/car/ would perhaps overload this.
It will be cheaper replacing oil with electric boiler (perhaps £2000 less)
We have 10 SOLAR panels east 10 panels west and a 5.6kWh battery. Very little power available to charge battery when dull in autumn. Battery is charged for 4 hours on octopus go but with cooking etc will not last 24 hours. and charging vehicle at 2kw wrecks any storage time, you get increase ev charge time at end of 4hr low rate by 2 hours.
With saving from boiler we could offset some of the cost of 2 more 5.8kw batteries but these still will not run heating as we have it in cold winter.
financial
We use about 1900 litres of oil per year which currently costs about £800 - £900 per year.
oil gets you between 10.35kWh and 10.76kWh per litre
so a years energy is about 20,000kWh - Perhaps 133kWh/day over winter
at 15p/kWh that is £3000 = unacceptable
or if we could have sufficient batteries to charge at 5p and use during the day it would be £1000 = acceptable
Batteries required = 22?!
If you then add in an air source heat pump then the energy cost would be good with a 3x efficiency it could be run during normal rate.
Still don't know what to do. And RUST is gradually eating the water jacket!
As you sound like a fellow DIYer, I hope I can help you a bit. There's a podcast out there called Betatalk, where heat engineers talk shop. Heatgeek seems to be the certification they are going for. In any case quite enlightening.
One item I learned is that there are different plans to set up heating and DHW like Y plan S plan plus etc.
If you Google these diagrams one might get stuck on the notion that both DHW and radiators have to have the same temperature. But if you add some intelligence and give the heat pump control over the valves say in an S plan we can run them at different temperatures!
So assume the ASHP might only get the cylinder to 50°C as a heat pump, that's easily compensated with a bigger cylinder. A modern R32 or especially R290 will definitely get higher, but bear with me. Then we'd ask ourselves, what about legionella every fortnight? This is where the resistive heating built in the HP can kick in and add the missing few degrees. It's also the backup for extremely cold days.
Search terms design temperature and heat loss calculation at this point.
So going back to the plan once the hot water cycle is through, likely overnight at EVM's 5p.
Main demand is the heating, but if it's properly designed with bigger radiators etc. It won't ever need to run at those high temperatures, it can dial itself back, engage the other valve and putter along all day giving you 35 or 40°C at a COP of 5.
System design is the key. You seem to be lucky to have some space to put to some use. Maybe even add solar thermal to the mix, flies under the radar unreservedly.
Good luck!
This is the perfect starter episode, good overview: betatalk.buzzsprout.com/509671/9314412-can-all-homes-be-heated-with-heat-pumps-theoretically-yes
@@marcexec hi thanks for the info.
a couple of years ago we spent a couple of hundred on replacing a dead heating controller wit an "intelligent" system that controlled start and end times depending on weather and time to reach set room temp. The system we added (wiser) had 4 coupled radiator valves which could demand boiler on if the set room temperature was too low. All controlled via mobile phone (of course). All other radiators were controlled by standard trvs. The coupled valves enable individual control of lounge dining hallway and landing (now defunct batteries flatten within a month or 2!!!). The master unit also controlled heating time but only powered the boiler when the hw or coupled valves demanded. So no cycling of boiler when trvs were shut. The master also controlled motorised valves on hot water and radiator flow so each was independent (no heat syphoning of boiler output when there was no demand). This seems to work well for comfort (not sure how much oil has been saved). Now the boiler is limping along the question is what to replace it with. 12kw would be the limit for our supply. the hw tank is newish and good thermally. the wiser control is good. but what cost of energy in the future? (same applies to oil of course). Solar and batteries would never be sufficient in winter. Even if heat pump were installed we would still need more efficient radiators = more cost. The wiser controller would learn the heating time of the electric boiler and turn on well in advance of the set time so perhaps the reduction in boiler power of 2-3 times may be ok? Electric boiler man coming for survey on 18th Nov will see what he suggests. will also see what 2/3 more 5.8kW batteries with/without 6 more solar panels would cost. In the 70s I was really impressed with reports of ultra efficient solar heating arrays. At that time the problems seemed to be that they would explode when transfer fluid vaporised. Have not looked at them recently but there is not a lot of roof left (e-w roof so perhaps would need thermal panels both sides. In 1976 there was a Granada TV programme series "A House For The Future" which went over available tech (no solar pv panels) but obviously builders took no note over 50 years!!! a latter look at the house www.hevac-heritage.org/electronic_books/M&NW_anniversary/Section-13_Houseforthefuture.pdf
So many decisions not a lot of money (retired electronic engineer!). Perhaps the best bet would be more chewing gum to plug new leaks in the current boiler?!!!
Have a think about Air to Air heatpumps ? Fast Heating and cooling with high COP ( much lower temp differential needed ) Free cooling if you have PV.
Not so good if you have lots of rooms, best for open plan or combined with whole house pasive heat recovery to move the warm or cool air around.
Cheap £300 - £800. 3Kw - 5kw output. 0,8 - 1.5 kw input.
Modern units have quiet inverter driven compressors.
The main reason for me to go the air con heat pump route was the promise of reducing the amount of electricity that I was using, I am an all electric no gas or oil, I had been was using storage heaters total usage per year 24,000kw I now use 12,000kw most of which is from solar 6.5kw and battery storage 14kw. As you can imagine my bill is now extremely small. The house is warm in winter and free air-conditioning in the summer and you don't notice any noise. The cost of air con heat pumps is a lot less than the boiler replacement heat pumps and have a much greater cob rating mine is 10kw of heat 2.2kw of electric, ok if it's really cold the cob drops off a bit but the house stays really warm. The house is 140 years old and not the best insulated. But it not alway about the money but reducing your carbon footprint.
With the current record-breaking UK heat wave, and more frequent heat waves in the UK generally, the argument in favour of heat pump upgrades in the UK just got stronger, unfortunately.
I've got herschel infrared panel which I have just slowly added more panels in last month very happy with them have different time setting and use octopus outgoing so 5p time is blasted with changing home battery, under floor heating and infrared radiators then I export everything I can in the day to off set as much brought kwhs as possible. Will be looking to add sunamp heat battery for hot water early next year for my water needs to charge in off peak times aswell. Hope to get off gas ASAP
I have got a Herschel infrared panel in my home office which used to be the garage. I was sceptical at first about getting the infrared panel but it's excellent. It's installed on the ceiling and works very well. It's also quite inexpensive to run as our electric bill hasn't increased significantly in the last 3 years since we have it.
Interesting video. 2 years ago we opted for an ASHP as we have no mains connected gas and therefore replacing heating oil was a little more feasible. I also run octopus go for car charging and all electrical loads that I can move to the cheaper hours. Apart from the fact that electricity continues to go up exponentially I am also finding one other concern that it is worth noting. I am on an 80A incoming main which much of the UK are on, some are even on a 60A main. By running the heat pump for the hot water, Batteries, the car charger, washer, dryer, hot tub etc you very quickly get to a point that your maximum demand is likely to be exceeded. There is a maximum that you can draw for those 4 hours so storing enough heat for the whole day is just unfeasible. I regularly look at Solar but again for the cost of the install and when I would get the power I don't see it as feasible either. I think I am going back to wood burning stoves:)
Great info thank you.
I know its a couple of months but.... "5p per unit from Octopus Go, not changing any time soon"... checks Octopus Go, 7.5 per unit now.
I’m on my second house with an air-source heat pump. The first was an old property (1700s!) and now I’m in an AAA house. The old house had radiators and now I have underfloor heating. Both heat pumps were excellent and affordable.
Hi thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge. I have a longer term plan for a full house build with renewable system. But for now I've just bought a tiny 37 square meter flat. It has a gas boiler and 3 rads that all need replacing and moving. So my dilemma is this- pay a gas plumber to move the boiler and fit a new 3- rad wet system. Or spend the money in another way. Electric combi boiler with a back up emersion connected to a solar panel on a 2square meter roof. Make sense? I reckoned evening bath would at least get free heat, or retain enough heat for morning shower. The tiny wet heating system can be handled by an electric boiler and they're 100% efficient. What do you think. Any other angle?
Interesting take. Have you worked out what your daily heating load is per day in KW? Is it possible to store enough heat your for your house for 24 hours with just 4 hours input given your heat losses? The first step may be getting an accredited professional to visit your property and conduct a whole house heat loss calculation.
Rather energy per day than power per day, so the relevant unit will be one such as kWh per day rather than W per day.
Spelling wise, the letters are regarded as symbols rather than abbreviations (even when the chosen symbol is an abbreviation), so they change meaning whether a letter is small or capital. Kilo has the small k as symbol, and watt has the capital W as symbol. Milli has m and mega has M.
Very relevant question, though! Can the heat be replenished fast enough with the immersion heater, and is the mains supply large enough to accommodate both heating and EV charging within 4 hours?
BTW.. I'm with Octopus Go and went through renewal a few days ago. I'm pleased to tell you they kept us automatically on the same tariff!! I also had Solar, Battery and ASHP installed a few months ago. I don't have gas in our vilage, but had oil for years, and now my house is warm all day and night and my overall costs have dropped significantly. This is mostly because of the battery and the time of use during the winter period. I'm averaging 7p per kwh every day' using around 45kwh per day. I own a tesla M3P too, so that includes charging that every day too. Can't be happier, but I have to say that everything around ASHP is about the specs and fitting for your house. If that's not done properly, you'll have a poor experience. I'd be very happy to share my experience now that I've gone through it all from end-to-end. Basically, I have exactly what you are looking into.
Would there be an issue with the maximum load if everything is being done in the same 4 hours eg car charger, battery charging, thermal store and potentially hot water heater perhaps pulling 14 - 20 kWh assuming a 100 amp main fuse would that work?
100 amp (not that you would run it at 100% load) would give you 96kwh in 4 hours and there is a option for a 5 hour go fastest tariff
We have the Go Faster tariff, at 5.5p for 5 hours. We chose the 5 hour slot to suit our needs. Start time can be at any time between 20:30 and 01:30, depending upon 'available slots', which means that Octopus are already smoothing out demand somewhat. Daytime tariff is the same as several others; 15.35p per kWh.
@@stevezodiac491 I would suspect the installer for the car charger would have asked for a 100amp fuse to be added by the DNO
I live in a house which was built in 1974. The boiler was originally 500 litres and only heated during off peak. The main fuse 3x63A allows almost everything even with current standards. Nowadays we have PV cells, about 180 m deep geothermal heat well, a 12 kW heat pump and an electric car charger. However the climate is colder and electricity cheaper here in Finland.
I would consider investing in a big enough water reservoir to store the energy during off-peak hours if the main fuse is enough or go for a heat pump.
Why not have a look at joining a co operative owned wind farm via Ripple Energy.
Your share of the generation will be taken off your Octopus bill each month.
Their first turbine build is well underway and they have plans for others.
Its a 25year punt but at least you can take your share with you if you move home.
Own the root source of the generation. Not pay some fat cat utility for it !
Very informative and gives us a better understanding of what is needed in the future
I agree on the noise production of the air source heatpump. I know of one exeption, the Nevit Enviline monoblock, that is dead quitet and even has a higher COP. You might want to have a look at that one.
Thanks for the video Buddy. You talked of having a storage battery, what sort of money do you pay for that please?
Have you checked the total load during those 4 hours off peak? I could imagine a night (many maybe) where you are running whatever thermal store device you get flat out to get enough heat (in whatever form) to last through a frigid winter's day AND charging up a car AND charging up your house battery. You might be pushing it for your power lines into your house and I would imagine the power grid companies wanting people to go to 3 phase if a lot of folk do this. That could significantly change the installation cost.
Also, if this becomes a popular option in the years to come then demand during those 'off peak' hours will skyrocket meaning your 5p rate will not last.
I guess you need to make the most of this price while you can.
My gut feeling is that within 5-10 years the off peak price will be getting close to the peak as the grid gets more load from EVs, powerwalls and electric heating. That is, afterall, the purpose of the pricing - to encourange an evening out of demand.
That 5p rate ... its not about an "at night" one, its about intelligent power delivery, so getting charge to cars/ in house batteries at the cheapest rate at any time, and 'splitting' this up over the 24 hours to stagger across all. So the 5p might become more/less depending on overcapacity (when Scotland is independent it will have a lot of overcapacity on windy days for example), so at least in Scotland, those cheap periods might turn up at 3 in the afternoon at times.
A bit of intelligence at the demand end is all thats needed and is already happening.
I totally agree. Get it while you can
I will only run the heat pump in the day. Thick duvets at night but have considered a second supply especially if my wife also wants an EV as fuel prices increase
@@stevezodiac491 it is the economics really. The wind does not stop blowing at night. Turning off the turbines puts more wear on them. If the energy company can soak up excess generation by selling at a fixed price to consumers, then it is better than paying other companies to use the excess! Look what happens on agile. There are limits to a single phase installation and voltage drop becomes more of a worry as the load increases, we see as low as 210v when charging everything on some parts of the installation and as high as 255v during the summer. These are challenges of local generation. With careful planning it is possible to maximise that 4 hour window, but the planning has to be careful not to blow the fuses !
Robert,
Scotland has too much wind capacity installed and on occasions it has to be constrained as the grid can't carry all the current. If you are insinuating that an Independant Scotland would isolate itself from the U.K. grid you will find that Scotland's grid will collapse in short order.
The reson is that wind turbines cannot load follow which means insufficient synchronous generation to keep it stable. Now the U.K. grid stabilises Scotland when the wind is strong.
Your government is fixated on wind genertaion and seems to ignore it's very real technical difficulties.
Incidentally if an isolated Scotish grid trips, wind turbines can't restart it, uncontrollable wind generation means you can't regulate frequency with it.
Hey EVM. I’m a heating engineer & heat pump installer. I completely get your theory. However for the winter you simply cannot store enough energy for the day without HUGE storage. 200l of water (an average size hot water tank) holds around 11 - 12kw of heat. Mid winter that would last the average U.K. home around 2 hours for heating before it’s all gone. You would need to store 1000’s of litres of water to achieve this and that kind of energy cannot be got from a domestic electricity supply, along with car and battery charging in just 4 hours.
The Tepeo Zeb can store 40kwh (hopefully when it comes out).
@@paul_null yes it can. But that 40kwh sounds a lot, but spread over the remaining 20 hours of high rate electricity is only 2kw per hour. Could you heat the entire home in the depths of winter with an average fan heater? (If output 2kwh is exactly matching load 2kwh it has to be applied for the entire 24hr period)
@@jacobnewman3172 I need to dig my gas bill out! I'm surprised it takes that much.
I got a funny feeling Economy 7 storage heaters could make a comeback. That aside i had an air source heat pump over summer to heat our above ground 13,000 litre pool to 29c. Worked a treat.
More info on you heat pump for your pool please?
Don't fuel the bring back storage heaters brigade, they are last century, lets leave them there. Why? Because you can't turn them off so cold one day but warm the next, oh well lets make it warmer still by wasting the energy we have stored.
@@givemethejob3293 Modernise them so controlled via an app. To be honest we have underfloor heating in a property built in 2015. It is almost similar to storage heaters so slow to warm up and hard to control. Temperatures can easily overshoot smartstats. Very cheap to run though and heat is evenly distributed throughout house with nice warm floors.
@@fiveminuteman Yes I get that to (underfloor heating) with a good level of insulation would you not think it would be better to have almost instant heating when you need it and saving energy when you don't. I worked on a very insulated building and if anyone kept their electric panel radiator on for more than 45mins per day it was unbearable, now thats energy saving! To my way of thinkink.
Great video, sorry I have no insights to offer but in a very similar position and really interesting to hear your thought process
I have a 30 year old thermal store boiler - a GEC nightstor. I was going to move to ASHP but discovered that the solution I have, although old, is superior to ASHP. You just need to manage the heat carefully. Not sure why these were discontinued. It charges at off-peak and will charge to 100kWh in 5 hours. Only problem is that you really do need 3-phase (which we are looking at) if you are to run a battery, chargers, etc. Good thing is that there is no maintenance. Hot water is done through immersion heaters.
There is a new one coming out soon but they are expensive (around 10k) and they are pretty big (about the size of a fridgefreezer)
I also have a GEC Nitestor 100 on 2 phase, our cats love it as stuck in a utility room. We live in a village with no gas & getting oil to out house would be difficult plus the smell. The cost of the Nitestore is something around £20 per day (SO energy DD £640pm gulp, will have to question that) even using a woodburner to heat the main rooms at night. Replacement with more efficient room storage heaters at £500-£1000 each buying & installing new wiring is unrealistic. An airsource heat pump would need all new pipework (8mm microbore is unsuitable) as well as new radiators. Struggling between ceiling fitted FIR heaters or bite big bullet for Airsource, what ever even keeping existing system will mean eating into savings at an untenable rate. Have signed up for Tepo Zeb as it would work with Solar Panels but no response from them & I don’t know the cost, if the existing pipework is suitable & when it will be available for normal customers.
@@Paul.Woodcraft Wow. That is extreme. Our elec bill is only now £320 p/m. Are you on a dual rate (e.g. economy 7?). We pay 9p/kwh off peak (at the moment) meaning that if we charge our boiler to 75% (which is what our engineer advised), then it costs about £7.50 a day as they are 100kwh (heat) boilers
@@mooselinf You have an excellent supplier. Our old night economy 7 tariff was 15p now doubled to 30p & day tariff 40p. If we used the same amount of electricity with a standard tariff, most seem to be 35p, we would be around £500pa worse off. Obviousely we will be looking to change the system to improve the controllability to heat rooms we are using most. I have discovered some Storage Heaters that are WiFi controlled, with fan to release heat when needed, that can link to solar panels to boost their charge during the day, made by "Elnur Gabarron".
Apart from an unfamiliar company they are as ugly as sin but could be more economical heating rooms we use rather than keeping the cats warm! They apparently can charge from the grid during the day as well but only at one selected time. Unless we can sign up for Octopus Agile Tariff & work out approximate times when electricity is cheaper that isn't much help. I have also signed up with a request for Octopus to contact me when they are taking new customers & have also contacted the heater company to find out if home batteries might be linked & therefore feed power to these heaters.
My hope is that if the home batteries charge from the grid when solar is low they might also feed electricity from the grid at the same time into the heaters to increase our energy store in both battery & thermal at the cheapest available tariff.
I Hope you don't mind me waffling it would be fantastic if someone had some knowledge of these heaters read this & could give an opinion or someone with more knowledge gave other thoughts before we committed hard earned cash. It is also helpful writing thoughts down rather than them going around in my head, so thanks for your time. Regards Paul Woodcraft
Girlfriends rented house has ASHP. . Pump is directly outside the downstairs bedroom window and sounds like a VW Beetle trying to start so with you on the noise. Also the running cost is ridiculously expensive. Both floors have underfloor heating and turning it on for the first time her smart meter was saying £25 for ONE DAY. She's on a 30p standard tariff. . Heating each room with a cheap 2KW fan heater was far warmer and a hell of a lot cheaper !!!!
I have the Bunsen air system for my hot water purchased from a company close to me which has sorted out our hot water system nearly 2 years ago.
We were not looking to replace our system at all until we had a major failure.
A year later we used the same company to install our GivEnergy system with 2 batteries.
Best decision ever.
We are also looking at how to get away from a gas boiler which is only about 4 years old.
I have a solar battery setup very similar to yours in output. My old combi boiler was 14 years old and I was in the same boat, do I go with the heat pump? In the end I went with a valiant boiler with a 10 year guarantee. Reason being cost and functionality. My thinking is hopefully in 10 years a better cheaper solution may be available to replace the existing heating system.
We have PV and battery, with iboost. This cuts our electricity bill hugely, and saves a lot of gas in summer for hot water.
But when our old boiler died, we went for a vaillant high efficiency boiler and joule cyclone cylinder. I looked at a sunamp thermal store but the costs was ever so much higher than the joule, and we have very hard water so I was worried about the heat exchanger furring up.
We have just bought two 400w Herschel IR heaters that are AAA+ We are going to have them mounted on the ceiling and use the last hour of our cheap rate to heat the objects in the room which will then be slowly released during the day. Day time top up from our solar and battery. The electrician who is fitting them said that they are very efficient and cheap to run. He now plans installing a few himself.
The beauty of IR panels you can fit a room at a time as finance allows. Also apart from the white panels you can get them in mirrors (good for bathrooms to stop mould) pictures even one of your own or other styles. They come in various sizes and outputs. Like having your own sun indoors.
0.4kw * 0.25p = 10p/hr. With my gas boiler at 10p/hr I get 2kW of output, which will keep downstairs or upstairs warm (it's zoned).
I am wondering if a hybrid approach might work (and certainly be the least disruptive) rather than the all or nothing of a heat pump. For example, night storage radiators in a few main rooms, no trying to heat the whole house . These take the cheap rate at night and warm up those rooms enough that the usage of the gas boiler is much cut down perhaps to say half its normal use in the coldest 3 or so months and maybe not needed at all in the shoulder periods.
Im thinking along the same lines. Here in Ireland during winter off peak (10c) is roughly 8hrs, a little less in summer.
You are so right in your conclusions.
We have a new build, super insulated way over spec. Heating and hot water by ASHP. It's a 16kw Samsung with 300ltr thermal store with an iboost device to use any excess solar rather than exporting to the grid. We have a 4kw Solar array.
When the outside temp drops below 10 deg it becomes very expensive to run, many many times gas. Last winter we were using £12 to £15 elec per day, god knows what this winter will be with the price increases. ASHP are not the answer to replace gas. In a leaky old house it will bankrupt people.
Heat pumps are retro fitted free in Scotland if u remove gas or oil boiler, and folk still don’t want them. Great info thanks 😊
We run an oil boiler for heating and hot water. We have been offered free supply and fitting of solar panels and heat pump to replace the old oil boiler..we don’t have mains gas in the countryside. Can he solar panels and heat pump combo replace the oil boiler system ? Are we mad to change over or just keep going with our existing system …?
So much depends on future energy prices here so it’s important not to completely dismiss heat pumps due to their expense. At the end of the day on average they multiply your heat in by a factor of 3. They also mean you’ll have a warm house all the time which I like the sound of. You do need to massively insulate to keep the cost down though. One technology you haven’t mentioned is Infrared Panels. I think these could actually be the answer for a lot of people. You can ceiling mount them out of the way and they are not too expensive either. If I was speccing up a new-build, that’s what I’d go for 👍
Just about to move into a property with no mains gas and currently on storage heaters and the infrared panels are what I am going for. So much easier to retrofit into an existing property.
I was going to install a monoblock ASHP to run along side the boiler as top up if needed but the figures didn’t just add up.
I realise this was broadcast a couple of weeks ago but I have only just seen it. It is fascinating for me to see the different dynamics at play in each country around the world. I live in Perth, Western Australia and I have 10kW of solar on my roof and a 10kWh battery bank. So the system regularly generates 45 to 50kWh per day in summer. We can chose a flat tariff for electricity of approx 14p per kWh or a split tariff of 14p during the day, 27p between 3.00 and 9.00pm and 7p overnight. All good you say and you are right, compared to Yorkshire we general a heap more solar and pay so much less for power. However we also use much more power during the summer due to the use of aircon, almost always by reverse cycle (heat pump). So we generate sufficient power to run our house all day every sunny day, but the challenge is storing that power. Our current 10kWh battery is simple too small such that we feed about half of our solar each day into the grid for only 1.5p per KWh. One question re using gas/heat pump hybrid systems, are you not going to be phasing out gas in the next few years to meet net 0 targets?
Installed one in our Victorian terraced house - costs the same as gas for us. Get an ultra quiet Ecodan if you’re worried about noise, v quiet.
Biggest benefit for us was ditching fossil fuels.
Take care to look at your power supply. Running everything in the 4 hour window at night will draw a LOT of power and your supply probably maxes out at 100A? This might be a limiting factor on what is possible (unless you go to the expense of having a beefier supply installed...).
Good point about the noise. When 1 property has a Heat Pump it's a minor issue. When all houses????
Thank you. I have been an avid follower of your videos on here. I have followed your advice on an EV and am currently looking at the Tepeo ZEB for heating. I’d never heard of the Sunamp so I shall do a comparison of both systems. I agree that an ASHP is noisy and I do not think in our little village the sound would be acceptable to neighbours. I recently holidayed in Norfolk, where we stayed had no Charger but the Zap Map recommended the local Tesco Superstore which offered charging for FREE! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
I have a small 2 bed welsh cottage end terrace. DIY insulated inside of external walls, and had an air sourced heat pump installed (hot water is separate). The HP is our central heating system, cost was just under £2k 11 years ago (probably about £1600 now). Costs about £200 pa to run. But it does struggle when the temp outside drops below about -5 centigrade (which isn't that often around here, the Rhondda).
the mixergy boiler/store would be a decent choice, as you can set it up to fill up at 2-6 am at the cheap rate, as for the heat pump i have the exact same issue.
Of course, you are right EVM. There will be those that a heat pump may be a good fit for. But realistically most of us will be looking at trying to retrofit - my house is a great example - concrete slab ground floor incorporating 10mm microbore pipes feeding pretty weak radiators - hanging tiles upstairs ( so no cavity) and a lovely big flat roof extension at the back. I’d love a heat pump but it’s not add on. This push will become another miss-selling fiasco and any grant just pushes the prices up. My Mrs also likes the window open but.... what can you do?
We came to the same conclusion concerning air to water heat pumps despite the fact that our 30 kW gas central heating system costs a fortune to run. We have just installed an air to air heat pump aircond split to heat our fairly large living room. Early results indicate that this is the way to go. The split is powered by our 5 kW array and falls back on cheap overnight battery stored electricity if needed. The 3.5 kW split needs about 0.5 kW when heating the room from cold and less than that when the room is up to temperature. Cost of installation was £2200. Heating the whole house is beyond what we want to pay and we're happy with a warm living room.
Andy, I agree with your analysis that, for your own home, a heat pump is not a good solution. The issues you identify of the construction of the property and the noise generated are correct. I would like to throw in an alternative solution as you said that your gas boiler is over 10 years old and therefore I recommend that you replace it. Please research the market for a boiler that, at some time in the future, can be converted to burn hydrogen gas that would come down the same pipes that come down your street at present. I recommend Bosch being the best boiler manufacturer and who have this type of product.
Have you considered a dry store electric boiler for CH and hot water? It heats a pile of bricks off peak which then heat the water for the system for the rest of the day.
The charger in a holiday let is a good idea, but we went to a lodge in the Cotswold run by a well known company, and they fined you (a hefty flat £ rate for being naughty) if they found out you were charging your car from their properties, it would have been with a 3 pin plug so trailing out the door would be a giveaway 😁. Think they are missing a trick as you say, unless you are going gadding about all day and never there you would probably only use a charger a couple of times or just once for a journey home.
If I went to your house and ran your kettle and immersion continuously for hours most nights and didn’t pay for it, I believe you would have a different outlook.....
@@oneeyedgirl617 Where did I say that I expected to do anything for free? And I don't have an emersion heater 😝
My gas boiler vs ASHP search fell at the first hurdle, finding an installer. So gas boilers: got three reasonable quotes from recommended installers. They could all install within a 3-4 week timescale. ASHP on the other hand: one quote of £14,000, one no reply, one company saying they did not recommend ASHP for my type of property, as I would see no cost or CO2 savings. My other consideration was our current solar panel+battery set up of 3.3Kw panels and 2.9Kw battery. Its provided practically all of our electricity since installation in March. An ASHP would triple our electricity use. The battery can upgraded but we'd still need more grid power. I might still upgrade the battery to take advantage of night time tariffs - once the electricity market has settled down.
Hi,have u thought of a thermal heat pump if you have a biggish garden but you might have to still change your rads.
Cant argue with the logic as a fellow Yorkshireman, always looking for ways to not spend what I dont have to. Currently using a unique battery development for the house and for my son to go glamping. I will let you know how it goes. Thanks
Good video. My thinking has been on the same lines . Like you we soak what generation we have into batteries and power the house and car. There is not much left for much else. Most of the year we heat the hot water has well from solar. As the days get shorter we top the batteries up with cheap rate electricity. To run a heat pump I believe we need at least another 10kwh a day in winter, which is roughly another 10kw of panels needed, meaning a total solar size of 20kw or a bit more. Properties do not have the space for that kind of solar with the current efficiency of panels. I agree the best way is to store the heat so mixegy or sunamp might be the way forward and maybe coupled with thermal panels to heat the water up to the 50c range and top up with electricity. At least thermal panels would be quiet and almost do the same as a heat pump.
Thermal PV panels don’t heat water up from end of September till April
Hi there,
Just hitting on a point you briefly hit on at the beginning...
I'm currently in the planning stage for a new house build, just looking around at my options.
My current thinking was solar panels, battery storage and a heat pump for heating house and water.
I was hoping that the battery would be big enough to hopefully run the heat pump for the day along with lights etc. on an average day.
You made a brief point that the battery wouldn't be able to run the heat pump, it would need to go to the grid to power it.
Why is that, are they very energy intensive? Or is it the size of your current battery that just couldn't include a heat pump to last the day?
Thanks for the videos BTW 👍🏻
Cheers,
Mac
Where will you be installing the hot water tank. Since I had the loft put in not sure where the hot water tank will go?
We have a 180l mixergy tank waiting to be installed. Should help us be more flexible with our power usage. The building only has mains electricity, which simplifies our options. Would investing in a wind farm through Ripple be a viable option, so you aren’t trying to charge everything in 4 hours plus solar?
5 years ago i wrote to a major hotel chain saying how disappointed I was to stay overnight and not be able to top up my vehicle. they agreed, and said they were planning to install charge points. Nothing has changed. Still no charge point at that hotel. When i plan a trip away from home, like many people now, i look for places with a charge point. Hotels are missing out big time.
I've looked into heat pumps as well and reached the same conclusion. I am now looking at infrared panels to heat the house. They can be set up to only heat the rooms that you are actually in. I see a big saving there.
Try a mini-split. Infra red is only 25% efficient in comparison, so more of a Greenland ice melter/British Columbia heat dome maker.
@@ciaransherry6021 might be ok in the States but I live in the UK. No real need for an air con system. Also, anything with a fan on is going to get noisy eventually.
@@mikegullick A mini split high wall unit is a reversible heatpump.
Noise from a fan? Not an issue.
Dont waste your money on resistive heaters with only ¹/³ the efficiency.
At 28p per kWh for elect vs 7p per kWh for gas how can ir panels ever be cost effective?
@@ChrisLee-yr7tz It's not that straightforward. With gas boilers, you've got a £3k new boiler every 10 years, that's an extra £300 a year. £150 yearly boiler service, gas standing charge another £100 a year. That's £550 extra for gas before you even get to efficiencies. Gas boiler is 90% efficient at best, but that's before the water has even left the boiler. If you have pipes in cavities, in the floor, you can lose another 30% of heat easily. Direct electric is maintenance free, and true 100% efficient.
I got a viessmann boiler 100w 2021 model it has H2 ready and it will adjust the mix of gas and air to burn less gas and give out less CO2 and I got smart controls with opentherm and smart radiator thermostats. I find the heating is running longer but the water in the radiator is holding at around 35 to 40c vs the normal 80c
There are a couple of companies planning this. I want heat on demand rather than constant heating.
One company is making a 40kw heat store which would be enough for days of hot water and home heating.
I would not panic for a year or two and reassess the market as everyone is going heat pump (the next mis-selling case I’m sure of).
My solar installer said he seen a 300l hot water tank being installed on the radiator return. Easy to heat during off peak and it just need the pump and controls to remove the boiler.
Remember that in any calculations you will save 20-30p in standing charge by removing gas.
Have a look at Convert Energy: they use hybrid panels to heat a chunk of your garden and use that as a thermal store. A 250W panel produces 630w of heat. I’m not doing it, but it seemed a really interesting solution: you need to store heat in the same way you store electricity in your batteries, and there’s no change of state: heat goes in and heat comes out. The Sunamp changes electricity in to heat, which has a conversion effficiency penalty.
Hello. Same dilemma I had. However after a lot research I came to the conclusion that it also wasn't for me. The problem is that unless you find a competent heat engineer and fitter who know to properly design pipe runs and with realistic heat loss calculations you may after commissioning the system find it highly inefficient. The real problem is that unless you have a garage the space required for two tanks is crazy even for your average 3 bed semi detached hose built in the late 40s or 60s. Ripping up your house to fit 22mm into 12mm rads is doable but at huge expense etc. For a self builder you can design in from inception but to retrofit the house? Also what happens when things go wrong as I have heard some shocking stories. Also with our alternating climate the heat pumps struggle to find the right amount of power through the software to modulate the water temp and often overmodulate to compensate leading to huge electric bills again down to poor installs. The country does not have enough qualified heating engineers period. Selling them is the easy part but aftersales is very much an afterthought.
I may go with a mixergy setup but am looking at Worcester Bosch hydrogen ready combi boilers with a view to future proofing as a stop gap as my old WB is on it's last legs. For heat pump fan boys look at Heat Geeks in discussion with Roger Bixley or EZ Puzzle and check out Nigels setup which is quite neat. Good luck.
I think you’ve summed this up really well. Problem with ASHPs is the cost. Capex and revenue. ASHPs are more efficient, but it’s cheaper to generate 1kW of heat using an efficient gas boiler over an ASHP using electricity. In terms of using one with solar, you’ll see some small benefit, but they work at opposite times of the year - solar produces energy in summer when heating isn’t needed. A wind turbine and ASHPs would be a better combination! GSHPs are slightly more efficient (higher COP) but generally more hassle to install. Personally, think homeowners need to hold on for hydrogen. There are new hydrogen boilers coming on the market that generate H2 from H2O through electrolysis. They work as a conventional heat pump to raise the temp to a certain level, then top up with H2 to raise further. Something to keep an eye on I think. Keep up the good work 👍
I've got a sun amp for the hot water. And I'm getting another one for my heating. There is no maintenance on them with a ten year warranty, I'm on octopus go it make sense for me. There are four of us in the house mid terrace radiator's up stairs and underfloor down stairs. And if we move we can take the batteries with us if we wanted to.
Would be good to get your feedback as I am looking at one for my hot water and will charge it via my excess solar most of the year.
I have a Sunamp for my hot water and it's great, the water heats up from the taps faster than the combi boiler did. We have solar panels and that seems to cover our handwashing etc all year. Had not thought of using one for the heating tell us more please? Do you get all your heating via a Sunamp charged overnight?
I've got a 6kw sunamp for general hot water uses, and a separate 12kw one for the hot water which has not been installed yet but I will be a guinea pig for sunamp. We used to have gas storage heaters in every room they came with the house. I just didn't like the idea of having a volatile poisonous gas in every room. So the 6kw is charged up at night every night or if you go away for the weekend and not charge it. There will be still hot water coming out of it by Monday. The temperature of the water is around 55c which is to hot for me for a shower. If we run out of hot water (daughter using all up which is rare) there is a boost button and in 1 hour it's back. So in theory I can charge my 18kw system at 0.05 pence if it's fully empty to fully charged for 4 hours under a pound a night. Which is £330 a year and thats working it a full capacity all year round. Any more questions please ask.
@@jaydode6601 That's interesting, will both Sunamps be able to supply hot water to the radiators or does the larger one have to be big enough to cover all your heating needs. Currently, I have a 9kWh Sunp for my hot water and I think it's oversized, but collects almost all my solar energy in the Summer.
@@mrhignettshorses It will only be the 12kw heating the house. So then I can turn it off during the warmer months. Then still have the 6kw just for the hot water all year round.
Very good overview of the issues, thank you 👍 In your view, how long can "cheap" night electricity continue in the UK? Personally, I believe it wont be here for much longer.
I suspect that the pricing and timing may change as take up increases..
good point, and needs to be factored into any solution longer term.
As long as there is over supply at night time, and insufficient grid storage overnight rate should be cheaper. However with transition to grid renewable generation, increase in off peak usage and increase in grid storage it is logical that the price differential will decrease over time.
@@airevalleyclassics I think you are right. As the full effect of the April 1st tariff increase starts to bite the focus on shifting to using/storing at off peak rates is only going to increase. Then we have the next tariff review (October '22 just as we head into winter) to consider which some commentators are saying could be as much as 50% of the April increase. If people make changes purely on the basis of financial savings (as opposed to environmental benefits) then it strikes me there is an ever increasing chance that low priced off peak rates may not continue to exist as we currently know them.
When everyone time shifts to the cheaper rate then that would become the high rate, square one,
@@jeta1f35 - which is why it makes sense to get solar panels so you can charge your battery sans-grid energy.
However, what we are no also seeing is a slow creep up of the standing charge, so the energy companies can still make money from those who time shift or have solar etc...
I've had air/air heat pumps in two houses now.
1. I was on an estate with no gas so replaced all the storage heaters but one in the hall, that I used as a fall back in cold weather, with a DIY plug and play 3.5kW heat pump heating my livingroom and my heating bill halved and the house was actually warm at the times I needed it to be warm. I just left doors open to let the heat move to where I needed it. The heat pump is great in a Scottish summer when you only need to boost the temperature slightly say from 15DegC outside to 20DegC inside. The only downside was that in Winter it struggled to even heat one room never mind the whole house and below freezing it had serious icing issues as it was desfrosting the coils constantly and all the water dripping from them formed mounds of ice which I had to clear regularly with boiling water. The external unit does make a noise but I hid it behind a fence panel that cut the noise down but didn't restrict airflow greatly.
2. When I moved to a large Victorian house with gas I couldn't possibly heat it all to 20DegC in Winter due to the costs of gas so I heat the thermostat room to 15DegC during the day while other rooms are set to 10 DegC or similar and the heating rarely if ever comes on at that thermostat setting as the thermostat is purposely put in a sunny room and I fitted a heat pump to add heat to the area where I spend most time and the cost of heat pump heating is comparable to gas. So I can heat a small area efficiently without turning the boiler on just to heat one room. Again the great thing is in summer when you need a boost only in one small area it is great and saves putting teh gas heating on but the downside is when it goes below 5DegC outside and you most need the heat there is a dramatic drop off on the heat you get from the heat pump so I revert to using my wood stove when the temperature goes much below 5DegC. I help neighbours and friends to chop small trees and big shrubs in the summer and I save all the wood I get from that to power my stove. MY brother also gives me scraps of wood he has left over from his small building business.
Heat pumps are great if you live in an area where the noise won't affect people, imagine 8 of these attached to the back of one close of tenement flats and it would be noisy, and they are great if you need to heat anywhere from 5DegC outside to 20DegC inside but in the depths of a Scottish winter out in the sticks where it regularly plummets to -10DegC they are useless for heating and people with no stove or fossil fuel heating would have to freeze or turn on an old fashioned blow heater or similar for warmth which is horrendously expensive.
I also have 3kW of solar panels set six SE and six SW and on a dull winter's day they often don't switch on at all. Solar for car charging, I have a 6A setting on my charger to maximise panel charging, is great in the UK for six months of the year but pretty naff from late Autumn to mid-Spring.
We've got a Jaspi 500L thermal store and Mitsubishi heat pump. It's fantastic. Wish we'd got the bigger version as doesn't store enough HW for 6, so HP comes on during the day. Also boost the DHW and CH at night on Octopus Go Faster - 5p/kwh from 2-30am to 6-30am. Perfect for pre-heating the downstairs. Also have a look at air-to-air HP (AC). We also have one of those that can heat most of downstairs if doors are open.
Jaspi can hold DHW up to 105 degrees, so i've started boosting the immersion heater for 90 minutes at night after the HP has heated it to about 58 degrees.
If you moved, how difficult would it be to move your battery set up.... But the solar obviously... Wondering whether to get battery... But will move in maybe 3 years... What do you think?
Thinking out loud, I'm getting increasingly apprehensive about domestic energy solutions where the economic case hinges almost entirely on having comparatively cheap overnight electricity. My concern stems from the fact that many of the current energy trends (e.g. towards EVs, pushign people towards overnight charging, storage solutions like Tepeo, etc) are inevitably going to move a lot more people towards using that overnight energy source. If demand increases relative to supply, the price differential seems likely to fall, possibly even disappear? What's the business case then? Solutions like solar and heat pumps are recovering 'free' energy from the environment, and the cost of those solutions is falling.
The thing is that there are plenty of loads which will not move. And so the overnight will always be cheaper (since wherever you make cheaper that’s where the EVs/battery owners go). It might be that difference closes, but I doubt it. It might be that more tariffs like agile turn up - or at least more tariffs that smear peoples cheap rates around.
But they will always need pricing incentives to have people use electricity off peak, but it might narrow.
Partially agree, as far as tomorrows market not looking like todays, I don't think the important factors are going to be demand side though.
my primary points are.
A. big companies will be able to do battery storage, solar and wind cheaper than we'll be able to do at home, so long term it probably isn't worth the individual doing these things.
B. how cheap will batteries get? cheap batteries would imply arbitrage and electricity costs would be much more constant through the day. expensive batteries would imply extremely cheap -> free electricity at night.
between these 2, I wouldn't like to predict what is and isn't going to make financial sense long term. Hell if you look at seasonal wind generation, electricity prices could be lower in the winter.
@@benholroyd5221 I suggest you look at videos from Tony Seba. He predicts that cost of home PV generation will fall below grid transmission costs. Read that sentence again. At that point, electricity from the grid becomes and remains more expensive than home generation, however cheaply a company can generate it. Won't apply to all consumers, but will work for many.
@@AnonYmous-rw6un They'll always WANT price incentives. No guarentee they'll have them.
What you’re saying sounds good, and the heat pump is not really the best option for what you say you need. But as others have pointed out and assuming that you have a one phase installation, have you checked what would be the max load during those 4 hours. How much in percentage of the max load you can pull from the grid would that be?
I think this is your bottleneck trying to get the energy you need for 24h only during those 4h.
Looking forward on to your final decision.
Single phase is normally limited below you grid fuse (normally 100A fuse) but a lot of smart equipment ie Zappi ev charge adjust the load
It will be interesting to understand the initial and ongoing costs of these thermal stores. I don’t think the tepeo ones are available yet, Caldera are and cost £12k, no RHI, takes 100 kWh to charge (and up to 8 hours from cold) which they say will heat a 4 bed house for a day during winter. So it wouldn’t seem to be a much cheaper option than a heat pump given the 90% efficiency rather the 300%+.
I believe the Tepeo ZEP stores 40kwh.
Have a look at the new style infrared heaters made by the Jigsaw company. Fully Charged featured their smart sensor system not long ago. This type of system might work well with a background level gas boiler.
If you're thinking of utilising cheap rates at certain times of the day (such as octopus go) to 'charge' a store so you can release it during the day. Then you can always consider thermal storage.
We at tepeo have produced a boiler that stores 40 KwH that does exactly that.
Just a thought, ASHP, thermal storage, smart water tanks etc all have there place and there isn't a one stop solution for all
Does the same argument not apply to Solar/Battery installation?
If you can fill a second battery for 5p (now 7.5p), would you not be better off having a second battery instead of Solar?
You also need to be careful about the battery storage output, even a Tesla Powerwall will only put out 5Kw.
If you start heating your house in winter (not to mention a 7-8Kw electric shower), you could easily exceed the max output of the inverter.
We were looking at being completely off grid a few years back and bought some properly built hurts to make that dream possible, the land had to be sold with the farm though and that dream was put on the back boiler, pun intended. I' designed a base that would have an underfloor heating system and heat storage unit that could be linked to the back boiler on the aga if it was needed in the winter the rest of the time the heating would rely on a panel of evacuated solar tubes to provide the heat to the storage system with a little pump that relied on the solar panels to circulate in under the hurts and to heat the hot water. As you already have a battery system and solar and can also utilise the cheaper rate at night for back up one of those systems might be worth looking at, they get hot even in freezing temps.