Boxt Heat Pump Installation Experience
I’ve just had a heat pump installed by Boxt and thought I’d report my experience here, so it might be useful to others.
For context, mine is a 1930s semi detached house, heavily insulated with 300mm loft insulation, 50mm internal wall insulation, Swedish double glazing and a 2010 build extension with more insulation.
I got a lot of other at least initial quotes and all of them where too big resulting in mostly 8kwh machines which would have been grossly oversized.
Like octopus Boxt provides an online fixed price including replacement radiators, from what I see just based on the heatpump size, £3199 for the Valliant 3.5 unit and going slightly up from there (£3599 for the 5kw unit).
After getting the initial quote online I adjusted the age of the property to get the correct model (in my case 1995-2006 to get a 5kw unit and called them to check that that was ok, which it was.
They did require immediate payment by credit card, so that is a little suboptimal, but my thought was that in the worse case I get the material for that price and redo the plumbing myself and the credit card payment gives some sort of protection against bankruptcy etc.
The other problem I had was that the space for the hot water cylinder under the stairs was limited and with only two of us in the house, 99% of the time taking shower and me taking a very dim view on two people having a bath within twenty minutes of each other (which is what the MSC guidelines recommend), I needed a smaller 150l cylinder. Boxt was happy to accommodate me with respect to that, which was a first. They installed the Vaillant 150l slimline unit.
The install started five weeks after the order and went smoothly, all performed by one plumber and the electrician spending Thursday connecting it all.
Hot water was restored on Tuesday and heating on Friday.
The installed equipment is:
Vaillant arotherm 3.5
Vaillant 150l slimline pre-plumbed dhw cylinder
anti freeze valves
all the usual expansion vessels, valves etc
two K2 replacement radiators, they would have done 4 if I hadn’t shuffled a couple of them around the house beforehand.
18l volumiser
Here are couple of pictures for your enjoyment:
Welcome to the forums. I was actually wondering recently when we'd get our first Boxt heat pump post, so thanks for sharing. Interesting to see they fit Vaillants, which is good, and I'll be super interested to see how it performs this winter, so please keep us updated.
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Thanks. So far over thee weeks, on pure weather compensation with a slope of 0.5 and minimum temp of 23C I’m getting a Cop of 4.1, keeping the house at 19-20c.
I’ve bought the open energy monitor kit for better monitoring, and am awaiting the day when I’m feeling like draining the system and cutting into those pipes.
Definitely interested in hearing more. Did you get the government grant?
2kW + Growatt & 4kW +Sunnyboy PV on south-facing roof Solar thermal. 9.5kWh Givenergy battery with AC3. MVHR. Vaillant 7kW ASHP (very pleased with it) open system operating on WC
Hi I’m about to sign up for a new heat pump with Boxt, they’ve said that they design all systems with a flow temperature of 50C which seems on the high side.
Do you know what flow temp your system was designed for?
How is it performing?
Thanks
@adrian Interested find out how was their heat loss survey before Installation. Were they thorough? Also how is your experience so far with the installation? Any new figures from the unit?
Currently seeking quotes for Heat Pump.
4 bedroom single storey detached house with 8.6kw solar panels and Solaredge 10kwh battery.
Also drive an electric car so on Octopus Go tariff.
I had my vaillant arotherm plus 5kw installed by boxt end of March. Cost was £3399 with a £2000 cashback from barclays so will be £1399 total.
I paid by 0% purchase credit card and received cashback in April so at the moment my heat pump has cost me minus £1800 so far.
I had other quotes from Octopus £222 total after £2000 cashback and heat geek £6800 after cashback. Would have considered octopus but they wanted to smash up my kitchen by fitting a new pipe run rather than use existing boiler pipework route that ran over my flat garage roof (company policy not to work over flat roofs). Interestingly heat geek quoted a 7kw system which I felt over sized.
Boxt quote included all 7 radiators changed. My house is a 3 bed semi approx 70sqm. Work was done over 3 days at end of March. Bit of disruption/mess but not too bad and fairly typical for heat pump install. Installer was contractor but then Andy from Boxt rang a few days after and went through set up of the heat pump and how to optimise. Andy has been pretty responsive to queries etc.
Had a small amount of heating on in April but mostly hot water apart from that. Hot water cop of 2.79 from end of March to present (based on charging overnight on ev rate at 3:30 - 5:30). However, when used during the day (1-2pm) during free electricity sessions in September cop was 3.51. Generally happy with hot water performance so far but will see in a few months time on the heating.
Posted by: @andrew-j-hAndy from Boxt rang a few days after and went through set up of the heat pump and how to optimise
Welcome to the forums.
Was there any formal in-person handover and/or commissioning?
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@editor Thanks Mars, there was a limited in person commissioning by the installer, then a more detailed run through over the phone with Andy from Boxt that explained the settings in detail. The settings were not changed initially (i.e. they were set to a min flow temperature of 50 degrees until i spoke to Andy who walked me through adjusting the settings, weather compensation etc the next day).
The flow temperature is designed to 50c with an inside design temperature of 21 degrees and a projected scop of 3.41.
@andrew-j-h looking forward to seeing if it attains the projected SCOP. Did they add a buffer tank to your system?
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