@derek-m It is called snouts in the trough. It is a system that is so complicated, burocratic  and disjointed that it is almost impossable to get an answer without being shunted from pillar to post.

The Sale of Goods Act was replaced in 2015 by the Consumer Rights Act. It is thorough and a bit of a slog to get through the legalese but I think I’ve found what I’m looking for relating to our case.

There are also sections dedicated to poor installations and the impact that has on goods (a heat pump, for example) which potentially opens legal pathways for bodged installations.

I have 2 quotes, one from a Heatgeek company and one from Installo via RHH. There is a sizeable discrepancy between those quotes and I’m at a total loss.

Could someone please point me to the right place?

Thank you

If you tell us a bit more about the quotes and your house then I'm sure we can help.

@sttpd1917

We did not find a mature heatpump market. We had to get many estimates and then proceed to narrow options via heat loss surveys for real quotes. 
We found the heat geek heatloss was almost useless, as it seemed to be ignoring our specific home data. But since we have a good idea of what we need, provided the heat geek installer agrees with that, they are likely to be our best option.

We found some estimates opaque despite a lot of generic info included. Others had breakdowns and so simpler to understand..

If you can share what you are after and at least key aspects of the quotes, I am sure you will get some help. 

Thanks for your responses! Here some screen shots from the proposals. Any comments will be gratefully received.

Quote 2

Quote 1

@sttpd1917 

Thank you, the heat loss figures vary but not by too much. 

The costs are significantly higher than what we saw, but that is partially explained by the large number of radiator replacements at least one of the quotes includes (we had a couple of rads to upgrade). 

It does seem that you have some "low hanging fruit". Like the cavity in your external walls is unfilled and the insulation on the roof is suboptimal. I would first address these, since they have very high ROI.

These measures will reduce the heat losses and: 

- reduce the number of radiator upgrades (so a lower cost of installation)

- lower your energy bills (independently of whether you have a heatpump) 

- have a smaller heatpump, better suited to your home (much better than to end up with an oversized one after insulation)

After this, I would get a new epc completed, which tends to enable many installers to estimate the cost of a heatpump installation on line, without a survey. 

In the meantime, you can also use your gas usage data in the RHH calculator to obtain some indicative measure of heat loss and pump size. 

This may not be what you would be looking to do since you were looking to install a heatpump, but may not add too much time since these insulation upgrades are fairly common. 

@sttpd1917 

Whats your current gas annual usage, does your house cool a lot at times or stay reasonably warm, do you have half hourly meter readings.  The ventilation loss is very high, have you got draughts?

As @batpred says you have some low hanging insulation upgrades.  What is the urgency to do the heat pump, could it wait a few months while you do those?  That said it might not make a material difference if you did them after installing the Heat Pump. Heat Geek are recommending the 7kW Vaillant so unless you can get your loss below 5 (the next size down) then you are going to be going with this anyway.  I would avoid the 10kW Grant though, its almost certainly well oversized - unless your loss really is 9kW, which is unlikely, and will certainly not be the case if you do the insulation upgrades.  Also heat geek are committing to a specific efficiency, and a good one at that, another reason to go with them.  Perhaps push them for more rad upgrades, although given the efficiency they are committing to the argument for doing so is weak. 

If you can provide the info in the first sentence and comment on urgency we can advise/narrow your options/sequencing further

Posted by: @jamespa

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The ventilation loss is very high, have you got draughts?

@jamespa I noticed that in the Heat Geek design consultation output - heat loss report. For ours (and almost all our rooms are airtight), half the thermal loss was shown under ventilation- not credible. Eventually they updated ours figure to the highest band of the gas usage. 

@batpred 

These are good point, thank you!

@jamespa 

The house does lose heat. If the heat is off over night during winter it'll be cold in the morning. The open fireplace in the living room is the only draughty spot in the house. Annual gas consumption is 14,313 kwh. Cavity walls are not insulated and its not an option. Loft has some insulation and more will be added. However, we've been told that this won't make much of a difference.

Thank you for taking the time to look at those numbers.

@batpred 

The only draughty place is in the living room, an open fire.