The difference between Octopus (£6,500) and Heat Geek installer (£18,500) was ridiculous - these are after the BUS grant.  It wasn't even a complex install, the design had been done and paid for, and half that £18.5k was just for labour on a 4 day job.  I know it feels a bit conspiratorial but charging £26k for a heating system install which requires no major renovation, just in-situ replacement of radiators, feels to me like someone is taking advantage of the fact 7.5k is available and inflating in other areas.  I paid less than that for 25 triple glazed, Austrian manufactured windows with a typical 0.4u - 0.7u value, fitted and guaranteed for 10 years.

I'm struggling with an out-of-the-ordinary problem: a system that seems to be overheating when temps are mild but significantly overheating when it is cold, and yet not that inefficiently either!  If it wasn't so hard to try and work in a 25c room or go to sleep at 24c I'd probably be quite happy.  We all know heat loss calcs are critical but I don't know how a homeowner can reach an informed understanding on something that is quite complex.  Both the heat loss reports I had where within 200w of each other and that gave me some confidence, which turns out to be a bit misplaced but if they'd given me the breakdowns and calcs I wouldn't know how to verify them for accuracy.  How people decide when they have wildly disparate values I don't know.  

At least my wife is warm for which I'm pleased beyond measure: my life wouldn't be worth living if it was the other way around 😀 

We’re expanding this thread to include Boxt, E.ON Next and OVO. If you've had a survey, installation or quote with any of these companies, please share the details.

@editor 

That's not my experience Mars. British Gas sent out an engineer to do our survey. They'd started their BG career 25 years ago on the tools.

His survey was by far the most comprehensive. He was very experienced and got the Heat Loss calculation as spot on as anyone could of done. We spent some time going through all the construction materials used for our 70yr old property that has been extended multiple times.

He got everything spot on when I cross referenced this against the excellent post survey documentation he sent me.

We then sat down together to design the system to my specification and was very flexible. We went round each room to discuss each radiator, to size it according to the heat loss and the space available in each room.

He then sat down with me and went through the full and proper quote.

The only penny I had to pay them was when I committed to going ahead a few days later, 10%. The rest is due after a couple of weeks on the install to make sure I'm happy.

Posted by: @editor

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We’re expanding this thread to include Boxt, E.ON Next and OVO. If you've had a survey, installation or quote with any of these companies, please share the details.

It's buried within what has become my ongoing post-installation 'diary' thread, but I'd had interactions with most of the companies named within the expanded thread, which I had previously detailed in the summary post at this link https://renewableheatinghub.co.uk/forums/postid/46616/

Strikes me there is potentially a lot of scope for improving the hot-water solutions, I've tried a couple of the big companies mentioned here and their offers were all designed around ticking boxes for the MCS standard and BUS grant, they weren't focused on what worked best for the house or for me, or what was the most efficient/economical solution. Little or no flexibility.

They all wanted to rip out the existing open-vented cylinder, header tank, pipework and install an unvented cylinder, despite it being a load more work, cost and disruption than simply fitting a new open-vented heat-pump cylinder. It was a bad solution.

The approach to cylinder sizing is primitive, all wanting huge cylinders which create a load of cost and disruption to either move them around the house, or knock through walls. None had any flexibility to offer compact solutions, like heat stores or simply a smaller, rapid reheating cylinder. If you were spending your own money, your starting point would be a cylinder which fits in the existing space, no one would seriously consider moving it into the loft or garage.

I suspect that the BUS grant is distorting how the industry is developing, with a £7500 subsidy the installers can offer these poorly optimised, gold-plated type solutions because the grant covers up the cost. When people have to pay out of their own money, the designs will need to get more pragmatic and flexible to bring the costs down.

@temperature_gradient Yes, yes, yes! Along with many others, I faced the MCS requirement DHW wise; not from choice really, more neccesity, I went for the heat battery (Sunamp Thermino) solution, not cheap but no space to comply with MCS! Regards, Toodles.

Posted by: @toodles

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I faced the MCS requirement DHW wise; not from choice really, more neccesity, I went for the heat battery (Sunamp Thermino) solution, not cheap but no space to comply with MCS! Regards, Toodles.

Yes the MCS rules on cylinder sizing seem to be cause of the problem, they don't provide enough detail on how sizes should be adapted to space constraints, where the line needs to be drawn between going for a smaller cylinder that is convenient and fits in the existing space inside the heated volume of the home, against going to the cost/disruption/long term impact on the house of having a bigger cylinder which then requires extensive modifications to the property, or moving the cylinder into an unheated space.

Plus, there's a huge contradiction in approach, that the installers following one part of the MCS rules are happy to install cylinders into unheated spaces like lofts, garages, out-houses etc, which then locks-in 1-2kWh per day of wasted heat loss for the next 20+ years. But there's other reports which state that hot water cylinders should, as far as possible, be kept inside the heated volume of the house to avoid that heat loss.

I specifically asked a few of the suppliers about options like, a heat pump vented cylinder (even provided links to the products) or a heat-geek mini store type cylinder, anything which would easily fit in existing space. Most seemed to have a one-size fits all type solution though, they've not yet reached the scale/maturity of offering more flexible options.

@temperature_gradient I specifically explained to my potential installers that space was at a premium and that a conventional DHW tank with MCS compliance for a 4 bedroomed house just wasn’t an option! Toodles.

@stevettweed, did you get a quote from Aira?

@editor

Aira quoted 7.5k after the BUS grant as the 'maximum price'.
The product they are offering seems more comparable to Apple's model which I'm not interested in.

The sales person estimated 6.7KW of heat loss for the property and calculated that their product would save £500+ per year on my £1500 / year heating bill.
However my heating costs with my gas system are under £1000 yearly, when I queried this he said that was because the estimation was done assuming I use electric radiators to heat the property... after looking at boiler and radiator setup.

Next steps are to get a quote from Octopus and British Gas.

Posted by: @temperature_gradient

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I suspect that the BUS grant is distorting how the industry is developing, with a £7500 subsidy the installers can offer these poorly optimised, gold-plated type solutions because the grant covers up the cost. When people have to pay out of their own money, the designs will need to get more pragmatic and flexible to bring the costs down.

What I amazed is how easily they assume the 7.5k is a floor and happily build from it. I may go back to the original local installers that seemed to suggest they could fit it within the 7.5k

@stevettweed, and can you please get one from OVO?

https://bit.ly/RHH-OVO