Wow, what a saga. You have officially claimed the record for the longest complaint I've come across – previous records have been around 30 months. So credit to you for now losing steam and for continuing the fight.

This is something that I have spent a ridiculous amount of time on trying to assist other homeowners with. I have sent countless emails to MSC, the consumer codes and certification bodies and the responses have been frustratingly nonchalant and dismissive. 

Coincidently, I have spent the last few days working on this guide to help people steer the process, so I can make a good guess as to who M and G is: https://renewableheatinghub.co.uk/how-to-complain-about-a-poorly-installed-heat-pump

@editor I thought there would be quite a few people on here who knew who G and M where. It has been a very stressful time for me and my family trying to navigate the system. I will be reading your attachment with great interest over the next few days.That should be a great help to people who find themselves in a similar position. I have also spent hours and hours and hours on this. Thank you for the attachment.

@tworivers you have done and gone further than any other homeowner I’ve come across and that’s massively commendable. I just hope you get the result you deserve based on your perseverance. Please keep us updated, especially if there’s a breakthrough as this could inspire others to continue their respective battles.

I can also claim more than 4 years of displeasure with my ashp. I complained to the installer from the moment it was installed back in 2020. It has failed me twice and we had no heat for up to 4 weeks in November to December 2 years running- on both occasions the installer could not repair it. I’ve had three official and one unofficial report from NICEIS, the manufacturer themselves, an independent witness report as well as a survey carried out by another professional installer company . Every one indicated that the system has been missold, wrongly specified, incorrectly installed and is not fit for purpose.

It cost £15,500 and is a cascade high temp system with 2 compressors. It costs a fortune to run as the efficiency is poor as a result of the way it was installed. My house plumbing is ruined. If you run a bath the feed pump runs dry and needs repriming and trip up to the loft with an egg cup full of water and a screw driver- We now all take showers!

The noise from the secondary compressor renders one room in the house unusable as a bedroom.

We have decided to take the installer to court for mis-selling and are in the process of filing papers

Once I get some or all of the money back I will remove the system and replace it with a LPG boiler (which was my previous trouble free system).

I am sorry to hear about your troubles - I can only advise that it’s best to revert to what you know. In the UK there are not enough experts who understand the science or practical applications of ashp. Even amongst those self proclaimed experts that know, there can be differences of opinion and it all depends on who you talk to.

For example, I was told that to make my system work efficiently and cost effectively, I would need to replace the entire pipe work feeding the central heating radiators as the pipe diameters are too small. Another suggested I install a buffer tank on the existing system!

Fyi my home was build in 1968, is cavity wall insulated and gas loft insulation. It is 2200sqft with 4 beds and 20 oversized dual panel radiators. My annual electricity bill is £4800 at 0.29 per unit. We have a electrovoltaic 4Kw solar system

My conclusion, don’t buy an ashp unless you get a written guarantee of actual kWh usage and get good references about the installer- in my view ashp are really are not suitable for our old housing stock nor our climate. They cost 4 times that of a boiler and if badly installed, like mine, can cost you more that £100 a week to run. Even then they do not product instant heat on demand! 

The government should stop peddling this technology and look at other ways to ensure we keep our houses warm- perhaps sticking carbon capture devices onto the flu of the boiler

Wow, quite a saga. Surely the fact that the ASHP could not deliver more than 25 deg flow in colder weather means is has a fault.  Your house has almost nothing to do with the flow temp that can be produced. Good luck, it all sounds very stressful!

Hi it does seem that we have similar experiences. The "installer overseer" with whom you must lodge the first official complaint is nothing more than an installer-supported insurance policy. There aim is to handle "difficult customers" that cannot get resolution from the installers themselves. Typically ask you to go through a formal complaints procedure.They appoint an independent person to carry out a very limited system inspection. In my experience this did not really cover all of the issues.

The report stated that several things needed to be done but in reality, the installer short cut many and did only about 60% of the snagging list. The "Installer overseer" has no teeth and seemed to be sympathetic to the the installers who of course, indirectly pay their salaries. 

About 2 years ago the ASHP catastrophically failed for a 2nd time during a 4 week cold spell in November. After 3 weeks the installer technician came to fit a new part. But he was unable to get the system operating. In despair, as we both stood in the freezing cold outside, he suggested that I disconnect the I/O feed pipes and connect an LPG boiler instead.

At that point, I decided to launch a legal claim against the installer directly and demand my money back- Like with your request, they refused of course and instead offered to replace the system with the latest vendor-supplied unit. But I refused that offer stating that it did not address the plumbing issues and the excessive running costs. Not least that by this time, I had completely lost faith in their abilities to maintain and support the system. 

It has been a very very slow process, but I hope that the legal team are shortly going to be issuing court papers, but before they do we are trying one avenue that I did not know about. Section 75 of the consumer act.

I am keeping fingers crossed for a positive outcome and wish you all the best in your quest -

One positive thought is that if the Sub-postmaster Alliance managed to eventually win compensation in the high court for all the loss, distress and anxiety that they suffered from "bugs" in the horizon system. Maybe all the victims of the ASHP initiative can club together and do the same.

It's time our voice was heard also. Apparently a affordable heated home will soon become an official human right, so perhaps all of us that have suffered can leverage that argument

@jet sorry to hear you are going through the exact same thing and it seems we aren't the only ones. Like you mention there seems to be that many varying opinions on how best to run/setup/install these ASHP that it is hard to know what to do for the best. I for one didn't expect to have to learn the amount of technical information that i have had to. My installer disconnected my buffer a couple of years ago but seems to have recommissioned it after our recent breakdown. ( did decommissioning cause addition stress on the system and cause the system to fail again????). I have found with my system that it is most economical when i run it 24hrs a day at the lowest flow temp i can get away with.

Posted by: @jet

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I can also claim more than 4 years of displeasure with my ashp. I complained to the installer from the moment it was installed back in 2020. It has failed me twice and we had no heat for up to 4 weeks in November to December 2 years running- on both occasions the installer could not repair it. I’ve had three official and one unofficial report from NICEIS, the manufacturer themselves, an independent witness report as well as a survey carried out by another professional installer company . Every one indicated that the system has been missold, wrongly specified, incorrectly installed and is not fit for purpose.

It cost £15,500 and is a cascade high temp system with 2 compressors. It costs a fortune to run as the efficiency is poor as a result of the way it was installed. My house plumbing is ruined. If you run a bath the feed pump runs dry and needs repriming and trip up to the loft with an egg cup full of water and a screw driver- We now all take showers!

The noise from the secondary compressor renders one room in the house unusable as a bedroom.

We have decided to take the installer to court for mis-selling and are in the process of filing papers

Once I get some or all of the money back I will remove the system and replace it with a LPG boiler (which was my previous trouble free system).

I am sorry to hear about your troubles - I can only advise that it’s best to revert to what you know. In the UK there are not enough experts who understand the science or practical applications of ashp. Even amongst those self proclaimed experts that know, there can be differences of opinion and it all depends on who you talk to.

For example, I was told that to make my system work efficiently and cost effectively, I would need to replace the entire pipe work feeding the central heating radiators as the pipe diameters are too small. Another suggested I install a buffer tank on the existing system!

Fyi my home was build in 1968, is cavity wall insulated and gas loft insulation. It is 2200sqft with 4 beds and 20 oversized dual panel radiators. My annual electricity bill is £4800 at 0.29 per unit. We have a electrovoltaic 4Kw solar system

My conclusion, don’t buy an ashp unless you get a written guarantee of actual kWh usage and get good references about the installer- in my view ashp are really are not suitable for our old housing stock nor our climate. They cost 4 times that of a boiler and if badly installed, like mine, can cost you more that £100 a week to run. Even then they do not product instant heat on demand! 

The government should stop peddling this technology and look at other ways to ensure we keep our houses warm- perhaps sticking carbon capture devices onto the flu of the boiler

 

 

Just to bias the conversation the other way, my retrofit install in an old house with marginal 50mm cavities works perfectly. The house is larger (we extended by 15% at the same time) warmer than it was before and we spend no more than we did on gas.

This is a simple technology that works perfectly, all you need to do is have a vague idea of system design. Heck, I write software for a living and I managed to design and install my own system. I learnt everything I needed to know from reading a few books one evening and watching a bit of YouTube.

@tworivers could you please give us an update or where you are now? Also, can you please tell me if it was RECC or HIES that was your consumer code?

Since I last posted, we’ve been fortunate that the system has not failed  again since November2021 but it does not operate as it should . It does not heat the house properly, it’s noisy and the running costs are huge.

Eventually, I was advised by my legal team to apply for financial compensation under para 75 through my credit card company. This year, I receive some compensation, which is enough to swap the system for a lpg gas boiler. I’ve had quotes, but most fitters are not allowed to remove a ashp and replace with a gas boiler.
All subsequent surveys for quotes that I’ve had confirm that it was an awful installation and is not fit for purpose in my property. I received one quote for 18K to replace it but I would not be given the 7K support. I got a quote for a gas boiler from British Gas, who then refused to install it - stating that they were not allowed due to government policy.

i am still not sure about warranty on the existing system as I have nothing to do with the installer, But my last position is to go back to HIES and make any claim there . My legal insurance say that the next move would be to go to court, but as it’s been 4 years since install, it could take another 18 months through court , so they advised that as I received some compensation, they would not advise this.

We continue to live with supplemental heating from electric fan heaters in some rooms, but it’s just what we’ve got used to.

it just the £350 monthly bills that sting.  I have found a company who carried out a service and agreed to look at modifying the system to improve its performance, but as this is complicated, I not heard back from them.

There are more better trained and knowledgeable people out there now, but everyone has a different opinion. If I could, I would still keep my old gas appliance and I would advise never completely switch over to ashp without some decent back up system.

Hello as requested an update on my now 5-year saga sorry for not posting earlier.

March /April 2024 the installer came to fix the fault on the ASHP. He disconnected a faulty part and informed me that he would have to order the part from Spain and that I would have to pay for the part (even though the pump was still under warranty). The ASHP would run without the part ( sensor) but I was advised it should be replaced ASAP. I was in yet another dilemma by the fact that this should be covered under warranty and felt I was being held to ransom. I had to pay over £200 for the installer to come out. By now the drain on my family and myself was too much, we needed our life back. I could keep fighting with the so-called Governing bodies NAPPIT & RECC and the installer, but they had offered very little to resolve the problem. I also considered a no-win no no-fee option, I could have taken this option because I had paid for part of the cost with my credit card. After various discussions with my wife, we decided to look at the option previously offered of an oil boiler installation. A long story short we contacted NAPIT again and spoke with the escalation manager. (I couldn't believe that NAPIT would put forward an oil boiler as a solution rather than address the installation but here we were). My suggestion was that I would accept an oil boiler but would like the difference in cost between the oil boiler installation and the ASHP installation to be refunded to me. The installer's insurance refused a refund but said the would cover the cost of an oil boiler installation as a gesture of goodwill.  Reluctantly we agreed to have an oil boiler installed. Immediately Napit told us we would have to deal directly with the installer as they could no longer offer any assistance. We asked them to remain involved until the new system was installed and up and running but they refused and told me the case was now closed or words to that effect. It then took from May until September and many more emails etc for the installation of the new oil boiler to be carried out. 3rd September 2024 exactly 5 years to the day of the ASHP install the new oil boiler was commissioned. November 2024 the first cold snap of this winter outside temps down to -4 my house is lovely and warm👏👏.

To prove to myself the ASHP was not fit for purpose I set the oil boiler (grants) to the min setting which I believe to be around 55, this setting easily heats my house to around 20 degrees. I have been monitoring the oil consumption, so far it the running costs are lower than the ASHP for example November 2023 ASHP 1333 kwh @0.26 = £346.58 vs Nov 2024 249 ltrs of oil @0.59 £176.91 and I am warm. If my predictions are correct my oil boiler will require 2600 ltrs of oil P/A currently averaging 0.56 p/ltr £1456.00 compared to the ASHP which averaged 12400 kw p/a @ 0.23506p = £2914.74 but did not heat my house.

In my case, I had to fight tooth and nail to get any sort of solution from the governing bodies after first being dismissed completely and having to prove that the installation was not fit for purpose.

I can't believe the behavior of the governing bodies, but saying that the installers pay to be members so it shouldn't be a surprise that they are biased towards the installers.