Air Source Heating - Your opinion

[kieran222]

Does anyone have Air Source heating and if you do what is your verdict. I would be interested to know if your house is well Insulated, small/med/large house as well as my daughter is looking to change her heating in a house that she is buying from back boiler to either oil or Air Source heating. She doesn't have access to mains gas.

 

[Jamouk]

I'm in the same boat was looking at airsource but very old house ( 1800s) with no isulation to speak of , so am now replacing the oil boiler that's packed up and adding this alongside it

Log boiler, biomass central heating, 30kW and 1000 litre buffer tank.

Log boiler, biomass central heating, 30kW and 1000 litre buffer tank, wood boiler central heating, farm 2000 boilers, trianco boiler replacement, rubbish incinerator,

madaboutheat.com

 

[kieran222]

I'm in the same boat was looking at airsource but very old house ( 1800s) with no isulation to speak of , so am now replacing the oil boiler that's packed up and adding this alongside it

Log boiler, biomass central heating, 30kW and 1000 litre buffer tank.

Log boiler, biomass central heating, 30kW and 1000 litre buffer tank, wood boiler central heating, farm 2000 boilers, trianco boiler replacement, rubbish incinerator,

madaboutheat.com

From what I have read, air source is only a success in houses that are very well Insulated.

 

[TringSaint]

I don’t have an air source but have looked into it and I know about them from working briefly in an energy management business (my dad’s!!) and it’s not just the insulation you need to consider, but also how ‘leaky’ the house is.
All heat pumps create low grade heat ;although they are getting better at this) so the rads don’t get hot like with a conventional boiler but stay warm.
So if the U value of your house is high (it’s poorly insulated) then it will struggle to maintain temperature as the heat produced might equal or be only a bit above the heat lost, meaning it will run for longer. If it’s leaky (gaps under doors, vent bricks, suspended floors, etc) then the problem is multiplied.
This is why homes typically need much bigger rads when using a heat pump than for a normal boiler and are often ‘sealed’ and highly efficient thermally.
Then you have to fuel it - electricity isn’t cheap at the moment, unless you have solar, so adding pricy electricity, poor insulation and a leaky house and voila! Expensive heating!

Personally (and this is a reality view not a climate change view) I would stick with oil for now and if you want to plan for a heat pump then first get solar fitted and improve the building heat loss before fitting a HP, else you might be cursing it within a year.

 

[Bo Diddley]

Air source needs to be installed in a super-insulated house, ideally you need a cheap source of electricity to run them... panels on the roof or in the garden.
Radiators may need to be changed, and underfloor heating is ideal.

Be careful about being talked into having it installed by the companies selling it. A good friend has set a company up doing renewables, he tells me horror stories of folks who have had it installed in unsuitable properties and it's not heating the houses and the owners can't afford the electricity bills to run the system.

Caveat emptor...

 

[GlennUK]

For what its worth, when we moved into our house in 2018 we took the decision to take advantage of grants to install a Ground Source Heat Pump and Solar PV.

There are differences in terms of capital costs for sure, GSHP has much higher costs, but they operate at similar levels in terms of the heat they produce. We have no issues with heating our house, its relatively well sealed and insulated. We have underfloor heating everywhere and that is designed to use low temp water for heating anyway.

As @TringSaint said, they produce low temperature water, so in terms of heating a house, you may find that you need to replace all the radiators to achieve similar heating effect.

Hot water for handwashing/bathing's is fine too, although the system needs to routinely heat the hot water cylinder to 70C (IIRC) to kill legionella, but that's managed by the heat pump.

My understanding is that heat pumps are entirely capable of producing hotter water, but the efficiency goes down dramatically.

As a consequence, it is likely that they will also need to change their hot water cylinder too, as the hot water generated is typically at a lower temp.

I haven't looked recently but as far as i can tell there is no economic argument for changing, the Cap Ex (even with a grant) is likley to take many years to recover (if it ever is).

The cost of running for our system is not dissimilar to the cost of gas we were paying previously, but i saw on a recent news story estimates of a few hundred quid a year. A quick google gives range of average costs of c.10-18k, taking into account the 7.5K one can get means a cost to the consumer of c.2.5-10.5k.

Edit: forgot to say that the Solar PV has paid for itself by now and some, but that's because we don't expert anything so the value of the generated power is worth more to us. Despite the predictions the GSHP will never fully pay for itself, although we will get back a significant chunk in payments. The rebates are calculated by the amount of energy the GSHP uses, clearly when the weather is warmer you dont use so much so you dont get paid as much, and the winters have been pretty warm in recent years.

IMHO if it isn't broke don't fix it, there will come a time when we have n o choice potentially,

 

[Bowland blades]

Does anyone have Air Source heating and if you do what is your verdict. I would be interested to know if your house is well Insulated, small/med/large house as well as my daughter is looking to change her heating in a house that she is buying from back boiler to either oil or Air Source heating. She doesn't have access to mains gas.

I had a fair training in Renewables , mainly through a start up business that myself and others where starting ( mixed skill set on this team but heavy hitters in their own fields ). Abandoned project Air Source ! The honest manufacturers / distributers made it clear that 1. the whole existing house needs a fair amount of work , regards insulation standards and using an air con unit would not have a decent life of service .
At the same time i was pretty fully re-building my own home ., a 300k rebuild cost there about . The only things that worked was way loads of insulation and ventilation and a ruddy great big woodburning stove ( pretty much self supported by our own trees ) Expensive if you buy logs in though . Keeps me fit felling and processing into the deal.
Kerosene run Combi is and remains the best main rural heating. It is actually cheaper to run than the mains gas ( not that we can have mains gas in our area )

 

[kieran222]

I don’t have an air source but have looked into it and I know about them from working briefly in an energy management business (my dad’s!!) and it’s not just the insulation you need to consider, but also how ‘leaky’ the house is.
All heat pumps create low grade heat ;although they are getting better at this) so the rads don’t get hot like with a conventional boiler but stay warm.
So if the U value of your house is high (it’s poorly insulated) then it will struggle to maintain temperature as the heat produced might equal or be only a bit above the heat lost, meaning it will run for longer. If it’s leaky (gaps under doors, vent bricks, suspended floors, etc) then the problem is multiplied.
This is why homes typically need much bigger rads when using a heat pump than for a normal boiler and are often ‘sealed’ and highly efficient thermally.
Then you have to fuel it - electricity isn’t cheap at the moment, unless you have solar, so adding pricy electricity, poor insulation and a leaky house and voila! Expensive heating!

Personally (and this is a reality view not a climate change view) I would stick with oil for now and if you want to plan for a heat pump then first get solar fitted and improve the building heat loss before fitting a HP, else you might be cursing it within a year.

Thanks, you have summarised everything that I have heard so far, so will go with oil.

 

[Flash G 74]

Hello, A neighbour of my Son had it fitted in her house using the Government scheme some years back, Old Victorian house , She was given estimate of running costs but that went well over and now hardly used

 

[Bo Diddley]

so will go with oil.

Let your wheels travel in old ruts.

 

[Bavarianbrit]

There was a chap in Germany who built his own house around a central used stainless milk wagon tank stood vertically in the centre he very well insulated the tank and made a spiral staircase to get to the 2nd floor around it. He has a pump system sucking heat out of the sun into water panels on his roof then circulating/transferring this heat into the tanks water so at the end of the summer heat period the tank has high residual heat to use to add to the heat pump to up the houses inner temp. He won a big award for it.

 

[Utectok]

We thought about it long and hard and went for wood pellet boiler. No new rads needed and temp similar to oil. Better for environment supposedly and cost the same as oil to install after grant. Very pleased on the whole

 

[doric_prince]

I had a fair training in Renewables , mainly through a start up business that myself and others where starting ( mixed skill set on this team but heavy hitters in their own fields ). Abandoned project Air Source ! The honest manufacturers / distributers made it clear that 1. the whole existing house needs a fair amount of work , regards insulation standards and using an air con unit would not have a decent life of service .
At the same time i was pretty fully re-building my own home ., a 300k rebuild cost there about . The only things that worked was way loads of insulation and ventilation and a ruddy great big woodburning stove ( pretty much self supported by our own trees ) Expensive if you buy logs in though . Keeps me fit felling and processing into the deal.
Kerosene run Combi is and remains the best main rural heating. It is actually cheaper to run than the mains gas ( not that we can have mains gas in our area )

This /\ . We are in an old house and replaced our oil Bolier and bund last few years, plus use 2 wood burners wit( own logs. No way renewables worked out cheaper or mor efficient, either installed or running costs and at 900ft it’s cold and windy- no thanks. Old buildings will be hard to retrofit easily or cost effectively .

 

[Bowland blades]

This /\ . We are in an old house and replaced our oil Bolier and bund last few years, plus use 2 wood burners wit( own logs. No way renewables worked out cheaper or mor efficient, either installed or running costs and at 900ft it’s cold and windy- no thanks. Old buildings will be hard to retrofit easily or cost effectively .

Also the heating engineers in truly rural areas will be very familiar with the various oil boilers .

 

[doigan]

I live in Orkney, heat pumps are common here due to lack of gas, especially air to water like mine with underfloor heating. My house is 10 years old, systems installed from new. As someone who had traditional heating system (gas), my personal experience is neutral at best. These systems are designed to run 24/7 ideally using temp curve to control pump running and heat output etc. Despite companies stating 3 or 4 to 1 ratios for efficiencies you have to factor in the much longer running times, especially in winter. Now my house is described as air-tight etc, also has MHVR system installed, I installed solar and batteries and can honestly say that without these supplementing energy use my heat pump is expensive to run and keep a 3 bed bungalow at 20-21 degrees. I just installed a new pump two years ago - 9 grand, not cheap.
I like the principle of them but totally agree with other comments about air tightness and thermal insulation, reality is that lots of things need to work together for maximum efficiency.
Hope my user insight helps.

 

[Camdig]

Don't know much about ASHP but I do run an oil boiler and imo the modern combi oil boiler is very efficient, costs me about £1400 a year to run after about 5k installation costs.
House is 1960s bungalow with a very cold wife working from home.

 

[jthyttin]

Thanks, you have summarised everything that I have heard so far, so will go with oil.

When finances allow, add a air to air heat pump and assuming electricity vs. oil price is somewhat in parity in UK it will:

- probably pay for itself in few years (providing heat with good COP like 1:5 during spring and autumn)
- provide convenience cooling during hot months for very reasonable cost

 

[shakey jake]

I completly refurbed a 60s challet bungalow, now air tight with an mvhr and airsource.
Just had an epc and we are a high B, air source is great for us, with solar and batteries.
We had a grant to install plus the pay back meaning in 7 years our system gives us £2500 over install cost.
They def arent a straight swap, if your daughter is upgrading her house then great but if not im not sure i would

 

[JTO]

A good friend who I was at technical college with, went on to get a PhD in building maintainance management. He had a swimming pool heated by an air-source heat pump.
Living in rural Devon, he was involved in lots of projects based around country peoples' needs.
He reckoned you get out about three times the energy(Electric) you put in, but the equipment is worn out before it's paid for itself!

 

[andy R204]

Don't know much about ASHP but I do run an oil boiler and imo the modern combi oil boiler is very efficient, costs me about £1400 a year to run after about 5k installation costs.
House is 1960s bungalow with a very cold wife working from home.

Same for us CD,we looked at ASHP & Solar panels for our 60's bungalow.
It was way too expensive,concrete floors,etc.
So gas boiler for us & as for the freezing cold wife I know where your coming from