Posted by: @squeakysim

↑

Didn't somone post recently about an experience someone had with their install..? 

I wouldnt be touching them with a bargepole based on that experience!!

There have been some horror stories across the newspapers where people that have paid their £55 per month maintenance and service fee have been without heating for weeks. They apparently don't have the manpower.

My biggest cause for concern, however, is that they just don't just start slapping in heat pumps as direct boiler replacements. The terms I've seen thrown around is that this will become a race to the bottom, making the installations as cheap as possible. Given that 'expensive' installations have been hit or miss, making them super cheap could be even more problematic if attention isn't paid to heat loss calculations and design. 

@editor With regard to BG, I am one of the poor suckers who have experienced their expensive service contracts for a gas CH system. They are quick enough to send out the details of the annual bill but when it comes to getting any service from them …. Well ermm …. ‘We are very busy and all our operatives are on other calls’ … etc. etc. etc. If one relies on the BG system to remind you that your ‘annual service’ is due, you will wait 20 months or more before being contacted - I haven’t seen the BG calendar but I feel sure it would make interesting reading! The engineers who attend seem to vary between excellent and well … the system would still work better if they hadn’t attended and I have had a number of call backs due to this appalling standard of workmanship. When asked, the engineers admit they are supposed to carry out anything from 9 to 12 services per day and this amounts to about ten minutes to service the boiler allowing for travelling to premises etc.! If these policies extend to the installation, commissioning and servicing of ASHP’s then this does not bode well!

My failing BG installed 15 year old gas fired central heating system is being replaced with an ASHP in February BUT NOT BY BG! I am probably paying rather more than what might be regarded as a basic installation - but it is a bespoke design and I had fortunately saved funds to indulge my renewable energy ideals. If it cost me more to run, then ok, it will be clean! I have 8.1kWp. Of solar PV and a storage battery and buy my energy From Octopus; Agile tariff is a great help in this! Regards, Toodles.

I don't see any big push towards ashp at the moment. 

The boiler upgrade scheme is limited to 30k installs a year, 90k max over 3 years.

The follow on scheme is likely to be less generous financially in terms of cash towards the install. 

No big uptake anytime soon untill replacement gas boilers are actually banned currently sometime in the 2030s

Still small fry vs the 1m plus gas boiler replacements a year.

That is the reality i think... 

Posted by: @jeff

↑

Still small fry vs the 1m plus gas boiler replacements a year.

Exactly. The whole heat pump installation thing is but a small boy pissing in the wind against a hurricane of fossil fuel boiler installations. Let's consider the recent numbers (various links to sources hidden in what follows). 

Currently, around 1.75 million gas boilers are installed every year, compared to just over 42,000 heat pumps. That means:

• over 40 gas boilers installed for every heat pump
• at current installation rates, it will take almost 650 years to meet the 2050 heat pump targets (27m homes at 42,000pa  = 643 years)

The whole thing is ludicrous, absurd, bonkers, a diabolical fantasy. Add in a price war triggering a race to the bottom, with the likes of British Gas offering drive by budget installations (as ever, what could possibly go wrong), and an already reluctant UK public (over 80% want to stick with fossil fuels for the foreseeable future), it won't be long before even more people won't want to touch a heat pump with a barge pole.

Yet, as I said before, the only way this will change is by changing sentiment towards heat pumps. Things have to shift towards people wanting to install heat pumps, as against the more than 80% who currently don't want to install a heat pump. I can hand on heart say I have done my bit, forced an installation of a heat pump in an old leaky building that many said couldn't, even shouldn't, have a heat pump, and shown that by and large it works (I have more than achieved proof of concept, it only fails in cold weather, and that only because of a toxic but not necessarily inevitable combination of over-selling, supply chain problems and grant deadlines) and so, in principle, there is no bar to fitting heat pumps to any old leaky building. Come the end of the current heating season, I will also be able to say how heat pump energy use compares to using a fossil fuel for heating (early indications are 'about the same', but that is currently only a guesstimate). In other words, ASHP do work, even in buildings where they are supposed not to work, and apart from installation costs, they don't have to cost the earth to run.

But in reality, I still remain just another small boy pissing in the wind against a hurricane of fossil fuel installations.     

Posted by: @cathoderay

↑

Posted by: @jeff

↑

Still small fry vs the 1m plus gas boiler replacements a year.

Exactly. The whole heat pump installation thing is but a small boy pissing in the wind against a hurricane of fossil fuel boiler installations. Let's consider the recent numbers (various links to sources hidden in what follows). 

Currently, around 1.75 million gas boilers are installed every year, compared to just over 42,000 heat pumps. That means:

• over 40 gas boilers installed for every heat pump
• at current installation rates, it will take almost 650 years to meet the 2050 heat pump targets (27m homes at 42,000pa  = 643 years)

The whole thing is ludicrous, absurd, bonkers, a diabolical fantasy. Add in a price war triggering a race to the bottom, with the likes of British Gas offering drive by budget installations (as ever, what could possibly go wrong), and an already reluctant UK public (over 80% want to stick with fossil fuels for the foreseeable future), it won't be long before even more people won't want to touch a heat pump with a barge pole.

Tried the old watson search and this is what it found on British Gas (...)

I am curious about where the rate of heat pump installs is, vs gas boilers, @cathoderay . Judging from how sparse installers are vs standard gas ones, we are still very far from where to need to be (on retrofit installs).

Anyway, we had British Gas over for a survey. They are very much in demand (almost a month wait) but for a good reason. Great analysis of potential, no matter how unlikely issues: 

- did a very thorough analysis of the electrics, mapped all our consumer units (does not matter they are 3 degrees away from the loft electrics, it was all inspected). Also lots of video calls and photos uploaded onto their systems (my anecdotal evidence of the practical way that UKPN deals with lacking notification of EV chargers did not even cause them to blink). They do not believe any Home condition reports nor certificates, nothing is left to luck. Very impressive. 

- great insights on rad changes, could immediately spot what our survey would say (but BG did not progress to the nitty gritty heat loss analysis - more on that later)

- very aware of potential claims from neighbours (even though the legislation already changed to create more certainty). One they had was how far they expect the fan pump to be from a neighbors wall (it does not matter Vaillant say 600mm in front is all they care about, BG double and add some extra). So concerns about mould claims meant they excluded the simplest installation location. So Vaillant Arotherm Pro has done great work to minimise the R290 zones but BG work must keep them as is.. So they got themselves out of a job, as we already have more agile installers. A shame as their expertise is unmatched.  

- very concerned about solidity of roofs (it does not matter you had structural calcs, BG will probably expect you to call another firm afterwards to stack multiple ODUs on the same spot..). So our second option of placement was out for them. 

- they made a great job highlighting the fact the fan blows cold air. To the point where my wife thought "if that is so, I do not want the ODU anywhere near where we may sit in the garden" (ok, we are not built to enjoy the crispness of the morning mist) . We then thought "perhaps they could place the ODU at the back of the garden"

- they have a solid standard for the installation at the back of the garden. Concrete poles 1m apart all the way there suppporting the pipework (and assume the electrics). Besides the visual impact (we tend to appreciate foliage and wood in the garden space), it was clear where the numbers were going, so we saved them (I say "them" since, even if the onsite surveyor was very capable, he was fully integrated and supported remotely) the effort of quoting for us. I did think "their heating loss survey must be world class..", but it just did not seem fair to press on. 

Posted by: @batpred

↑

I am curious about where the rate of heat pump installs is, vs gas boilers, @cathoderay . Judging from how sparse installers are vs standard gas ones, we are still very far from where to need to be (on retrofit installs).

There are links to the sources in the post, but note that the data is now rather out of date (it's from Jan 2023 at the latest). No doubt more recent data is now available, but I won't be surprised if it has continued the same trend, even if some goon somewhere is shouting 'Comrades! Tractor production is up!' from the roof tops.

@cathoderay yes, but to be fair, the less than clear regulation has been updated decisively. Made us consider having the ODU in the space between us and our neighbours. 

@batpred 

Our BG gas install from survey, to handover and a visit a month later to do some extra re-pipe work was fantastic, I'd absolutely recommended them, especially if you get the team I had. All very experienced, considerate and excellent at their trade.

They were not interested in installing an R290 Vaillant for us as it was close to a drain....

We did however plump an the R32 8kw Daikin and couldn't be happier. The lead installer commented that given the choice he'd install the Daikin in his house.

We needn't of worried as the Daikin has proven so far to be an incredible unit, no need for a high temp HP and is way quieter than it's boxed rating. It's so quiet I can now hear my neighbours gas boiler in our house whereas our HP is totally silent indoors.

Posted by: @bash

↑

@batpred 

Our BG gas install from survey, to handover and a visit a month later to do some extra re-pipe work was fantastic, I'd absolutely recommended them, especially if you get the team I had. All very experienced, considerate and excellent at their trade.

Yes @bash , aside not having them install, what I saw was truly impressive! Additionally to being absolutely fantastic technically, he was very considerate, great time management and no hint of sales spiel (on the contrary..). I understood that BG do not fit Vaillant in the area at the moment.  

I would have them build a nuclear bunker anytime! Joking aside, they set standards we would hope others in the industry would follow. Like if they would take over (or perhaps best described as swallowing🤔) MCS, we would not see half the issues that we read about in these forums.. 

The BG design process is so thorough that I doubt there would be any surprises on the installation, a big plus for us. 

Unfortunately they excluded the two installation locations we had in mind. And he may have caught my wife at a bad time but after that, images of the glaciers will come to mind when discussing HP fans! 😳 We know it is not that bad (actually I had not heard much about cold air). But I also do not doubt BG had some case and it made it through the continuous improvement machinery... 

I have also been set a very demanding target of the install cost not being much higher than fitting a new boiler (even if a decently installed heat pump will lower costs vs a gas boiler in a fraction of its working life..)! I am trying to narrow on 2->3 brands, trying to avoid covering the whole market... 🤓

I am not going to list which brands we pushed down our options list at the moment as they will no doubt have many happy customers..