Does anyone here have a heating pump? (the new geothermal thingy). I was wondering how this will work if everyone gets one. Isn’t there just so much ambient heat to go around?
There are two types of heat pump - aerothermal (big unit stuck on the side of the house wall) and geothermal (masses of piping buried in the ground). Most are aerothermal as you need a fair bit of land for geothermal and the installation can be expensive. Both work best with underfloor heating, aiming to create a house temperature of something like 16-18 deg. Wall mounted radiators seem to work less well. The technology is pretty much like a fridge working in reverse, and the energy they require to run is equivalent to a large fridge. If you don’t have a highly insulated house they are a lot less effective. There is fairly constant fan noise from the wall mounted unit.
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Thanks @strathmore. I recall watching an episode of grand designs ages ago in which the owners of the new snazzy house spent a fortune digging up their very large garden to lay down a pipework array akin to an internal underfloor heating matrix.
Often wondered, but never bothered to look up, how houses without such land availability were meant to emulate this effect, and had taken a Wild punt guess that maybe a deep borehole might do the trick.
Guess I guessed wrong then!!
Dunno, a bore hole might work. I guess the issue might then be the power of the pump to move fluid up and down a significant depth.
When we first bought our house out in the country I looked into both options. The cheapest was aerothermal, and that was quoted at about £15k. Even though we have wall mounted radiators and the pipework in place.
I decided that buying half as much again in firewood as I’d thought necessary (about another £300 or so a year) would provide pretty much the same effect of getting the house to about 16-17deg with the benefit that two rooms would be very toasty. That meant assuming the payback of something like 50 years for the aerothermal investment was simply not worth it.
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I think that the payback time for a fair few things (including solar roof panels), in tandem with potential maintenance costs, life expectancy of the gear itself, and obsolescence as technology progresses is a huge deterrent for a lot of people.
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I think that 16 -18 degrees is cold !
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My neighbour had such a system and couldn’t heat his house properly only reaching between 16-18 degrees. The main problem is that such a system does not work safely with any sub-surface and it seems that it can’t be used by everybody, say, in a housing estate.
From the engineer / sales person we spoke to that 16-18 deg seems normal. I think you can get higher in a very well insulated house with an optimal heat pump installation - probably underfloor heating. I guess even 16-18deg is good in the very coldest months - but does require adding heating in your principle room.
Its worth noting that you can get reversable heat pumps that act as air-conditioning in the summer. Not sure how this saves energy though…
Not unless you are a polar bear .
It was 19 in my house last night I was freezing .
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My daughter’s new water heater is a heat pump. It is basically a fridge or air con backwards. They take heat from their surroundings by expanding a gas through a small oriface then recompress that gas to give out heat (think of your bicycle pump and how the end got hot when you pumped up the tyre)
In the water heater the heat given out by the compression of the gas heats the water and the atmosphere heats the cold gases as they expand. I think it is a shame that the same system cannot be used to both heat water and cool the house but I suspect there is an inefficiency somewhere in there somewhere. It is a good reason to put the water heater inside the house though.
Edit:SF reminded me - they are very expensive I think hers cost about $6000 compared to mine which was replaced for about $1200, mine being a heating element powered by off peak electricity. I think both prices quoted include supply and fitting.
Hi
I had an air source heat pump in a brand new eco friendly house for 11 years.
It had underfloor heating and the heat pump also supplied the hot water as well as heating the house to 24C if required.
It was also very cheap to run, but very expensive to replace, it broke down just before I sold the house.
It was a stupid thing, mice got into the heat exchanger, nibbled the wires , caused a short and burnt the exchanger out.
So was I. 14 deg outside which feels chilly right now after the warmth. Not very comfy inside either. Normally, I’d turn the heating on but now we’re freezing for Putin already. What will it be like in winter?
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I looked into a heat pump last winter & was told they are a great choice if you live in the right location & if they are fitted as part of a new heating system. I was also told they are often noisy, so need to be placed where they do not disturb you or your neighbours. They are also not less effective if they use air & are often not very effective if retrofitted to a current heating system.
I was told however that with the right system, fitted by the right people. They are a very good option. I was also told to take great care if choosing a contractor, as there are a lot of cowboys about in this sector & that known names for conventional heating are often no better than the cowboys. As they do not understand the technology sufficiently.
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@swimfeeders , “mouse nibbled the wires”
You may just have found another another use for heat pumps swimmy ??
I’ve invested in one of those corkscrew fence post auger tools, a few broomsticks and a dozen rolls of gaffer tape Going to drill my own borehole and doctor an old fridge to make a geothermal plant.
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@Dextrous63 l hope you are going to follow ‘elf & safety’;guidelines Dex ??Big fines for transgressions !!
@Donkeyman It’s OK, I’ve got a couple of carrier bags I’m going to colour in with a highlighter pen, and a Fireman Sam’s helmet from when my children were young. That’ll cover the basics.
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I’ll be looking forward to a progress update and appraisal of the expected performance details in October Dex…
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