Heat Pumps for Beginners!
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- Опубліковано 8 лип 2024
- Heat Pumps are not only effective, they are here to stay.
As a key technology for how we heat our homes now and in the future, Emilie takes us through the basics, and features she thinks we need to consider ahead of any installation.
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This is perfect. These wee videos are definitely great for sharing as they aren't too lengthy. Thank you!
The UK climate is ideally suited for air-source heat pumps due to few sub-freezing days; so it always amazes me that adoption is so low. Heat pumps are particularly well suited to underfloor heating because the large surface area compliments the lower heating fluid temperature. Also, since floor area exceeds radiator area, there is less radiant heat loss from the occupant to cold surfaces in the house. This makes the house more comfortable at lower air temperatures, adding to the economy. So heat pumps are the way to go, especially with underfloor heating. While I agree insulation is also important, it may not be the best strategy to make all heat pump installations contingent on insulation levels (has there been a trade-off study on this?). One final comment: I watch a lot of UK shows on renovations (always interesting) but I am amazed at the lack of energy retrofit. When the whole house is being redone, why wouldn't you add insulation and a heat pump system? Perhaps there needs to be more proactive involvement from the city or government - i. e. no permit for the reno without an energy improvement in the plan. Often these renovators are quite well off and can well afford it, and in the long term it would be cheaper too.
I think part of the problem is that the cost of electricity is almost 4x the cost of gas here.
UK natural gas prices are being kept artificially low..... To prevent riots in the streets.... So give it time....
You didn't mention VERTICAL ground source heat pumps, which are THE MOST EFFICIENT type (as ground deep down is MUCH warmer in winter months than air or even the ground just a few feet down), AND as they only require small diameter bore holes (the pipes are only an inch or 2 wide, but go down 200 meters or more) they are VERY suitable for any home with even only TINY gardens. Heat pumps are more efficient when from a groundsource as cold air drastically increases how hard they have to work, so ground will always be better.
Another bonus of heat pumps you forgot to mention; they can be thrown into reverse in the summer months - you can use them to cool your home when it's hot, especially important when global warming is leading to 40 degrees C British summers & almost no British homes have air conditioning.
Did she not say vertical?
@tarant315 no, she said "ground source" and showed pictures of HORIZONTAL; these aren't as efficient as VERTICAL as they aren't very deep AND they require huge amounts of land.
@@TimLongson she said coil or bore hole
@@tarant315 can you tell the exact minutes and seconds in where she says "vertical"?
@@TimLongson 1:15?
0:46 It’s physically impossible for a gas boiler to be 100% efficient and 1kWh in / 1kWh out. Even a brand new boiler in a well designed system would only be in the low 90’s for efficiency - often mid 80’s.
Heat pumps work and they work well. No such thing as a bad heat pump, only a bad installation - low flow temperatures leave less room for error in system design, so the installer needs to know what they’re doing and done all the proper heat loss calcs, pipe sizing and radiator adjustments to make it a well designed and efficient system.
Gas boilers are often way oversized that lazy system design isn’t punished as things just get way hotter than required, we need more knowledge in the UK installer base or stories of heat pumps not working will become more common.
I love my mini-split. It's an air conditioner and a furnace. It works down to -15c, so here in Colorado I use baseboard heaters 2-3 days a year.
Thanks for this. We need to hammer this information into people's minds day after day so not just once. We have a GSHP in chilly Minnesota and it's great. We insulated 2nd not first and presenter is quite right about insulating first. Keep it up.
We love our hot water heat pump here in Australia. It's been working perfectly for the last 9 years now.
Saved a ton of money.
The heat pump cycle comes on between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. corresponding to solar electricity from our rooftop PV system.
The cost of hot water is around 10x cheaper than the previous gas instant system we used to have.
Thank you
I have been enjoyed, so thank you for delivering.
Great video. One minor error, the indoor units on air to air systems are call fan coil units or FCUs, because they contain a fan and a coil. A "convector" is more like a boxed in radiator it just contains a coil with no fan so it can only heat by convection.
Weirdly a radiator doesn't radiate heat much so it should be called a "mostly convector" but I guess that is a bit clunky.
Thanks. Best regards Martin
Great video but remember we don't all live in the "Balmy" temperatures of the UK.
Here in Canada the hot topic is the "Cold Weather rated Heat Pump" and well ...
we just can't seem to get enough of these units and certified installers to meet demands a lot of the time. "Insulation before Installation" ... quite right ... I am gonna steal that one!!
As a US citizen it just amazes me that a lot of EU folks need to know about heat pumps.
I find it very strange as the technology has been around for several decades.
Here in the states I have lived in homes for 45 years that had heat pumps. They have been ubiquitous since the 1980s.
Part of this is that only the East coast of the US is old enough, and population dense enough, to have had gas piping throughout cities for public lighting. Therefore heating with gas (or God help us….coal) was available but oil burning furnaces were (and in many cases still are) the most prevalent. Therefore it is our East coast cities that are the most in need of upgrading to heat pumps.
By the time the West of the US was settled and populated enough for public lighting needs, the electric light bulb and electric refrigeration were already available. Because the overall climate was warmer in the Western states, air conditioning came in quickly and was needed. Therefore large electrical services were built to handle those loads. This led to a lot of the Western US having many subdivisions where electrical hookups were there prior to gas (if gas ever came) and therefore there was an early market for heat pumps. Electricity in the West was also cheaper than fuel oil delivery costs due to thinner population density. The worst problem in the Western US that needs immediate banning is the number of homes using wood fires for heat. In the state of Oregon, for example, this is a real problem that needs to be addressed but does not seem to be on the state govts. radar.
Nick,
there is no comparison between America and the U.K.
As you say air conditioning is a common feature and are easily reversed to provid heat when it cools down. Our electrical supply to hoses is quite a small capqacity and adding a lot of load with heat pumps and evs means the local area network will need significant upgrade at a high cost and hindrance as streets will need to be dug up to relay larger cables.
Gas is already established in most houses and provides an effective source of heati9ng. Indeed because of poor insulation values heat pumps are not viable.
It is not an easy solution as some seem to think.
The other thing that confuses people is Coefficient of Performance which is mistaken for efficiency; it is not. All COP can be used for is comparing the effectiveness of different forms of electrical heating.
there is no comparison between EU and primitive Brexitland....
The EU countries have been using heat pumps for decades.....
COP is an efficiency rating..... Which can be used to compare all forms of heating, as long as cost is factored in.... such as Sky High NG prices.... something Brits have not apparently figured out yet....
@@iareid8255 To go to a carbon neutral economy will revolve around electricity. The cost is huge but is nothing compared to the misery and cost if we fail to switch very soon.
I would encourage all countries, especially the US, to spend all their military budgets on going renewable now…. otherwise there may not be much left to defend. Yes it is that bad. Look what just having Ukraine grain unavailable in quantity has done to world starvation. What happens when crops cannot be depended on because the weather gets more and more wild….drought one minute, freezes and floods the next. That starvation will move into 1st world countries.
Upgrading the electric grid is nothing when you think about it. 😀
Oh BTW, new findings are condemning hydrogen as a possible solution. New papers came out showing how hydrogen combines with hydrides in the atmosphere. Hydrides are responsible for breaking down methane, a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Hydrogen is very hard to contain and up to 10% of stored hydrogen leaks into the atmosphere since hydrogen is so good at escaping around even the most stringent seals. It also corrodes metal pipes very quickly. These papers show that if hydrogen was used in any large way for energy production it would cause significant long term warming by interfering with the natural breakdown of methane.
I had been hopeful for green hydrogen but this might have put a nail in that coffin.
Nick,
you are far removed from reality in your views.
Renewables do not work, cannot work and are a small section of energy supply world wide. If all electrical generation were 100% carbon dioxide free that would account for anbout 20% of energy supply.
On what bsis do you feel trhat climate change is so apocalyptic, it's benign and easily mqanaged with squandering vast amounts on un feasible technology.
Great breakdown of some really pertinent facts
Very useful trying to work out how to replace my broken gas boiler today.
In general I'd go with the best loft insulation you can get and insulate your cavity (if you have one) before going HP. But I wouldn't do anything so extensive as external wall insulation before HP installation.
If you live in a 5 bed victorian detached house with solid walls... you're heat loss is never going to be small. Just get a big unit and stop burning stuff asap.
Just got my air source heat pump installed last week to replace an oil boiler. I have the house warmer now because I can see from the electricity consumption that it’s costing me much less! Long wait to get the unit I wanted - around 5 months due to supply chain problems - so order soon if you want it this year. A key criteria for me is the noise level of the outdoor unit (the indoor part is silent) as I’m sensitive to noise and I wouldn’t want to impose on the neighbours. Basically cheaper == noisier!
Yeah, and hopefully high quality components stay silent as they age 🤞.
What unit did you get and what size vs your square footage?
@@xchopp I got a Daikin Altherma 3 H HT 14kW system with 230 litre indoor hot water tank. It feeds a system of 11 radiators in a 5 bedroom detached house in northern France of 155m2 (about 1550 sq feet)
I heard that the benefits of insulating your home decrease each year/gradually over time as the owners usually think. Oh, I'm not using as much energy, I can keep the house a bit warmer now, how about 20 instead of 18!
@@Jamessansome That might be true!! While waiting for the heat pump I deliberately kept the place cool as the oil was so expensive. Also i only ordered minimum quantities each time as I didn’t want to end up with loads left in the tank when it finally arrived.
Excellent episode but makes heat pumps daunting for an older property!
Would love to know more. I keep reading conflicting articles about whether I can keep the microbore pipework for my central heating. I've read one article saying it's possible to keep it, but you may need more radiators in the same room depending on the size of the room
Just get a mini split air to air. They are 1/10th the cost and much more efficient because they're only pumping the heat up to room temperature not boiler temperature.
Other thoughts for radiators are the age of them and condition of water that has been pumped around them for the last 40/50 years! I replaced mine as they were large but 50 years old and we found were full of gunk after removal.
Can you not just flush them out, aka give them a good clean inside?
@@tarant315 Yes you could do that if they are the right type and size. But if it is recommended you should change them, it is best to do so as it will match the heat loss calculations done by the ASHP installer. Mine were also showing signs of rust so we just asked for all to be swapped.
My 5kw heat pump heats my rads but struggles with the ufh. My house is 185sqm. Can anyone help?
3:19 What's a buffer tank?
Is there such a thing as a hybrid heat pump system, that combines both air and ground source systems?
I don't think you'd ever combine ground and air sources. Ground is more expensive, has requirements for outdoor ground area but is more efficient and you don't have an outdoor unit (which some people don't like). Doing both adds would add complexity and expensive without gaining much.
You can have hybrid air and gas boiler systems which can be used on properties with huge heat losses or colossal hot water demands.
Insulate first is a good idea because it dramatically reduces the size of heat pump and radiators required to heat your home. This reduces installation cost and may even mean that the existing radiators and pipework will be ok for a heat pump reducing cost and disruption still further. The running cost will be much cheaper than a gas boiler.
If you do insulate don't forget to ventilate the house properly as well, don't just seal it up because you will get condensation and mould if you do.
If you don't want to or can't insulate first, a heat pump will be very expensive to install and run. It will probably cost more to run than a gas boiler but its your money.
I worry that videos that "Insulate first" sounds simple and might encourage people to upgrade on the cheap causing all sorts of problems, and a possible backlash against a basically good concept done badly.
But what does it cost to get an up to date EPC done?
You say you have to have cavity wall insulation and loft insulation, I have solid walls but my loft is insulation, so will I not be eligible for the scheme because of this? Thanks
I have no idea if you'd be eligible for the scheme, but if you do want to insulate your walls have you considered external or internal insulation? I know I'd looked at properties with solid wall construction in the past, and if I had chosen to buy them that's what I would have done. External is the best option for solid walls, in my opinion, as you won't lose valuable internal space, but unfortunately it's expensive. Might well be worth it, though, for a nice toasty warm home. :)
You didn't mention noise.
Don't the latest generation of ASHP have a flow temp comparable to gas combi boilers? I know you still need hot water storage, but you shouldn't need to change your radiators. The Valiant ASHP has a flow temp of 75 degrees C.
No normal working class home owner will spend the amount of money required to have air or ground source heat pump. Lots of reasons why but in my opinion main reasons being, cost's to much as a hole project will need to insulate of your entire home, New heating system, boiler, radiators, water heater, the list goes on and the cost gets higher. Other big reason is the government are not doing enough to set examples for home owners, government should make it mandatory that every new housing development should install ground source heating system at the same time they are digging out the foundations. Same goes for industrial facilities. Solar panels should also be added during construction. Doing this before and during building process will be significantly cheaper.
The problem is cost - insulation then new radiators then a heat pump and then understanding this only works to minus 2 or 3. That’s a £20k investment
Ugh, always San Diego! :/ When are you guys coming to the greatest city in the world™? Er, New York City, NY?
I guess San Diego has Shamu... we can't compete with that!
(Madagascar movie reference)
Gas boilers are less than 100% efficiency. 1kW in produces less than 1KW out. I think you meant traditional resistance electric boilers.
Need grant advice on an older home... Who do you go see for advice if your not in that Niche to get that grant?
No cavity to have extra insulation there, double glazing and loft and roof insulation at max.
Have you considered external or internal insulation instead? Definitely pricier, but might well be worth it.
I believe if you don't have cavity walls then that restriction doesn't apply.
At least we have a solid walled house and got the grant (we did have external insulation fitted at the same time)
I like the short formats like this one but please, please energy is measured in kilowatt hour (kWh) not kilowatt (kW)
I don't see where anything was said wrong. It was stated that for every 1kW in, you get 3kW out, which is perfectly true. Do that for an hour and you get 1kWh in, 3kWh out.
If the quoted value is instantaneous then kW is correct.
@@dambuster8667 You are perfectly right, my bad. However the image shows 1kWh = 3-4 kWh and she says kilowatt hence my initial reaction
Its not correct that you need cavity wall insulation. To get the grant, if you *can* fit cavity wall insulation and you don't have it, you must fit it, but if you can't fit it (e.g. solid walls) then you can still get the grant.
Most currently offered systems come as a 'monoblock' a description given for an all in one unit, (which in most all cases can directly replace an old Oil burner) a split system has part of the ASHP indoors, why is that not mentioned in your video? Because many newbies to ASHP do not understand this terminology. Could do better with the graphic ilustrations by showing a solar system assisting an ASHP and how hot water can be pipe and connect or a Sunamp.
So all them homes with no cavity wall are doomed 😢 then
Not necessarily. I believe mine is just a timber frame house, yet I'd still be able to get the relevant discounts
Also, for me, realistically, heat pumps aren't a thing that I'll put in until the very end of my decarbonisation
@@waqasahmed939 I mean for single skin brick built homes the cost of insulating them can cost 20k. Before you can get the Grant.
Here before the fossil fuel supporters claiming that that they 'put one in and it didn't work'.... they work and work well if sized properly and installed by someone who knows what they are doing.
My Daikin hybrid ASHP was installed last July. It didn't work. It was replaced under warranty. That still doesn't work. a winter with no use.
@@funkyfin3023 Does your fridge work?
I'm just wondering if there's a magical zone around your property where the laws of physics strangely don't function. It's exactly the same underlying tech as a refrigerator - and those things have been functioning just fine for over 200 years - but just scaled up to the size of a house and running "in reverse" to bring heat in, not take it out.
At the very least, please specify what you exactly mean by "don't work".
Like, it literally doesn't turn on, or it just wasn't properly sized for your home, or it does technically work but you feel it's insufficient, or did you go with some cowboy builders who sold you an empty box as a scam?
Just saying "doesn't work" is a bit like saying "computer says no". Okay, but why is the computer saying "no"?
@@funkyfin3023 Example number 1
@@marvintpandroid2213 yawn. Boring response number 1. Daikin hybrid, installed by Daikin on a new Cala house. Replacement installed by Daikin still doesn't work. Bye clown..
@@klaxoncow You should ask him about his experience with his fridge that also might not have been working for 15 years and therefore he is using the cellar and ice like in the good old days of the roaring twenties, I mean 100 years ago, when back then the iceman had a different meaning and was quite often the second job for the coal man, cause the shoveled ice into the houses cellars to cool down a room especially insulated for this purpose.
Old tech long forgotten but maybe that would be the solution for Funky Fin during hot summers with no fridge.
Would be even better if spoken at listening speed
I had to turn on the CC to make sure I got all the words.
Really? I think the speed of her voice is absolutely perfect!
@@JJ-zg1hh speed/pronunciation/accent. Sometimes older ears (my case) need a little help. Cheers
Did you know that in UA-cam you can alter the playback speed from 1/4 speed up to 2x speed…. Without altering the pitch of the playback.
@@Richardincancale Thanks. Yes, I was aware of it & it's rather wonderful. I still prefer presenters who articulate clearly, though…
One of the things that makes me suspicious about heat pumps (apart from all the people who say to me "don't get one") is that they always say you need to insulate properly first. That should be the same for all forms of heating, surely? It sounds like an admission up front that heat pumps don't work as well as conventional oil or gas heating. Don't get me wrong, I really want to go as green as I can, but when everyone I have actually talked to in real life about this - even the solar installer I had a quote from earlier this year - says "don't get a heat pump", I listen. The only person who has said "get a heat pump" was someone from a heat pump installation company, when I was looking into it a couple of years ago.
No it's to do with the profile of the heat. Flow rate is lower, and the heat pump needs to be fitted in accordance with heat loss. It means your house with a heat pump will stay the same temperature for longer, at a lower cost. Whereas a traditional gas boiler the house temperature will vary much more over the day, and the flow rate will be high. You can turn your gas boiler to a low flow rate to save money, but it won't be effective if you do not have insulation. Gas boilers overcome this issue by using intense amounts of heat more inefficiently than a heat pump operates.
Nice. But why isn't anything told about the HFK gas that is in the system that is 100% more contributing to climate change than Co2 is? (if the whole world goes heatpump mad then this might become a really big problem.
Also, what is the energy usage of such a system?
Spesified at -20c -10c 0c 10c and 20c?
Why not do everything with IR? just heat the spot where you are.
Heat pumps can use a variety of gasses, not just HFK. The gas in the heat pump is circulated and not designed to be released. Leaks are relatively rare, but you are right; companies should be (and some are) investigating gasses that have less impact on the environment just in case it leaks out. I recently got a heat pump water heater installed that uses CO2 for the compressed gas. This means that any leak will have minimal impact to the environment, and it is relatively harmless to humans.
IR can only reach 100% efficiency, whereas a heat pump will almost always run above 100% efficiency. My heat pump is rated at 500-600% thermal efficiency, though I live in an area that doesn't get as cold as the UK. The IR heating turns electricity directly to heat, but a heat pump uses the electricity to move heat from the outside air (or ground) to the inside. Most of the heat in a heat pump system comes from the air, not the electricity.
@@The18107j But an IR you only need to turn it on when you need it at that spesific area. While a heatpump has to be running 24/7 in the end the IR will be using a lot less energy over a whole year then an heatpump does. Right?
Dont get me wrong. i am just trying to find things out in the long run.
@@maikydbThe meaning of the efficiency number is that if you are using a heat pump to heat an area larger than 4x the size that an IR heater would heat, then the heat pump will use more energy overall.
If you only care about heating a small part of your home an IR heater can use less energy by only heating the spot it's pointing at. The energy usage from a great pump system can be reduced by having a system where you can turn off individual rooms and only heat the rooms you want heated.
The break even point for a heat pump vs IR is when the heat pump is heating an area 3-4x as large as the IR heater on average for the same amount of time.
@@The18107j In that case it would be great to see a more in depth video on this subject.
Depending where you live the economics of ASHP versus fossil fuel gas vary. If my ASHP actually worked it should be more economic as I have solar and 10kWh batteries. If you don't have these, in the UK as gas is under 1/3 the price of electricity you will never get a penny back of your investment until HMG makes changes such as adding the Green Levy and the cost of bailing out failed energy suppliers to gas to make ASHP more attractive. Caveat emptor.
Agreed that heat pumps are the way to go but unlikely for anything but a new build. Unless you are installing to get away from burning stuff, electricity is approx 3.3x the cost if gas so a heat pump with it’s efficiency of 3 (maybe 4) times the kW input makes it the same cost to run with the added disadvantage of not being able to give you the flow temperatures to heat an old style property. The expense for me and the disruption to the house out ways the cost even with a grant. And I have solar and battery and EV. Government should insist that all new properties have solar, batteries, 3 phase EV charging, triple glazing, whole house ventilation and an insulation standard to match.
@@jonwragg3822 agree, something also needs to be done to level the playing field with the green levy with gas. Problem in the UK is there are already too many in fuel poverty to heat their houses, I don't know the answer.. Except it will be expensive.
If ASHP actually worked it should be more economical? You state elsewhere it wasn't working..... "It didn't work. It was replaced under warranty. That still doesn't work. a winter with no use".....
So of course it's not going to be economical, Einstein...
@@nc3826 Learn to speak English. It would be more economical as I have solar and batteries if it worked. It doesn’t work. 👋 🤡
I'll get an ASHP eventually but I fully expect that the ROI for them, simply do not exist
Currently, gas is about four times cheaper. Heat pumps would have to average a COP of say 5.6 (Double their current average) before they're installed en masse
For me, I'm putting off heat pumps for the short to medium term. I want to make my house insulated with PassivHaus in mind
That included things like pricey MVHRs, pricey PassivHaus doors and windows etc... It includes external insulation. It included getting my air tightness right down to 1 ACH
It also includes me completely replacing my copper piping, and radiators
Once I've successfully got to a level where I'm happy with, I'll get a heat pump and hopefully by then, higher COPs would be a thing
There is another solution that makes the decision easier:
only on a very few amount of days each year the temperature drop so deep that you would pay a lot to run the heatpump.
For these few days prepare yourself to use electric radiator fans for delivering the additional amount of warm air you need.
Do not plan to run the heatpump under any circumstances which would require far bigger and different and more expensive heatpumps. If you accept to additionaly use the electric heater fan for 5 or 10 days you can safe an awfull lot of money by buying just 3 to 5 of those smaller 1 - 2 kW heater fans or plan to use a wood ofen if you have one to add another heatsoure that is available during worst winter conditions.
To cover these last 10 or 20 dayss with a heatpump configuration you can pay an awfull lot if the heatpump should be able to heat the home under any circumstances regardless temperatures - so try to save 20% of the investment with a smaller kind of heatpump configuration first. After the first few winters you will know, how your system is working and then you might consider in worst case scenarioss if you add a single split ac heatpump in one room cause if you can add there 2,5 kW with a split ac heating you would free 2,5 kW for the main heatpump that can be used in other rooms.
The installer will not tell you that and sell you the 100% big heatpump that covers it all, but will cost you also the 100% of your money.
We did it that way with a system that has been planned to be too small to start with and might add up additional split AC heatings on our own which we did for example for the bathroom to always have a nice warm bathroom that is powered from the solar power rood usually and use this bathroom ac heating to also heat the rooms and hallway by opening the door. This way the bathroom is always warm and the rooms / house at this end is also heated a bit. 2°C more there from the bathroom heatpump reduces the basic / ground load of the big system.
And in case your main heating goes off you still have another independent source in the Bathroom and maybe some electric heater fans.
did you specialise in boredom at school?
FF , his UA-cam wannabe expert BSng of the facts, is better than your outright misinformation...
I’m afraid I still can’t hear what she’s saying! Can you use a different person please
The gabbling mumbling lady I can barely understand. Switch her off.
I think she has a lovely voice, maybe turn on the captions and mute if you don't like it.